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Messages - michaeldb
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 12 13 14 [15] 16 17 18 19 20 ... 37
351
« on: May 17, 2012, 14:54 »
Good news. Congrats, Pinterest.
Are you on their payroll?
+1
352
« on: May 16, 2012, 14:35 »
I want to take Helvetica and Apple Chauncery home with me...
I'll take Dingbat.
353
« on: May 16, 2012, 10:45 »
The classic Poldark! (And of course The Avengers, the Jeremy Brett Holmes, The Prisoner...)
354
« on: May 16, 2012, 10:41 »
Fascinating news.
Two of the top three or four microstock agencies taking momentous steps to raise large amounts of money. Looks like we might see some big developments soon: acquisitions; expansion; big new marketing campaigns?
The valuation of FT is $600 million. Wow, more than I would have guessed.
355
« on: May 14, 2012, 12:24 »
... Images with 20 dls can now be 'selling better' than images with 120 dls. ....
I suspect that "best selling" might be a bit like SS "popular" and the age of the file factored in??
You're right, I'm sure. So DT calling it 'Best Selling' instead of 'Most Popular' (especially if, as Baldrickstrousers suspects, views may be figured in too) seems to be misleading. But maybe DT doesn't want to be seen as copying SS's name for the search.
356
« on: May 12, 2012, 18:20 »
The new 'Best Selling' search engine changes at DT are pretty massive. Images with 20 dls can now be 'selling better' than images with 120 dls. The whole output of search is dramatically different. The new search seems to almost ignore illustrations entirely. If you search 'Best Selling for "business" in the first 80 images returned there is only one illustration. This is going to kill me at DT, where my sales have already been going down, like those of many who have posted in this thread.
SS is also twiddling its search engine, ostensibly to fix the long-time bugs which lose images. And IS's search engine has long produced so many crazy swings that it's hard to tell if they have completely changed it or not.
I think that the microstock companies tend to try big changes in the early Summer, the slower sales months, to lessen the damage if the 'improvements' hurt. We contributors may be in for a long, hot (or cold) crazy-days Summer.
357
« on: May 11, 2012, 12:42 »
...Did you also once oppose microstock btw ?
While we will all never agree on whether or not microstock pays us enough, the basic truth is that microstock is a way to pay creatives. Pinterest is a way to make money from the work of creatives and pay them nothing. Microstock pays many millions each year to creatives (in 2005, I had never made a dime from making images, now I earn enough from microstock to live on). The only one who will get paid by Printerest is Printerest. It will publish our work and keep the revenues earned for itself.
358
« on: May 10, 2012, 16:20 »
Technical and legal details aside, the bottom line is:
The business model of sites like Pinterest is to use the content of creatives to make a lot of money and pay the creatives nothing.
A movement - powered by forces with a lot of money to spend (money made by using the content of creatives and not paying for it) - is out to destroy intellectual property rights. If that movement succeeds, we creatives won't get paid anymore.
359
« on: May 07, 2012, 16:13 »
The pages loaded very fast (and I am on relatively slow DSL) and everything seemed to work. Sometimes simpler is better, and I didn't see anything which I thought was missing.
One quibble I would have is calling the license an 'End User License Agreement' since the buyer isn't really the end user, but rather a licensee who will use your product in another product for an end user. This might cause some confusion.
Very nice site, IMO.
360
« on: April 30, 2012, 13:54 »
I really can't understand why so many ppl get hard ons every time PB is threatened (there were so many threads about it here). It's got nothing to do with MS.
I don't have a 'hard on' as you so eloquently put it.
It's about piracy and copyright. I feel any legal progress in these matters is of interest because it may have implications for our work in the future. As for it not being directly to do with MS... that's why I put it in the off-topic section.
Absolutely right. There is a international movement intent upon destroying IP rights, especially copyright. It is large, well-funded, and backed by corporations small and huge (hiding behind Safe Harbor) which make billions in profits by disseminating content which they did not create or license. If that movement wins, and it may, we won't get paid anymore.
361
« on: April 27, 2012, 12:10 »
April's not over yet but it's close enough. FYI, here are my March vs April stats:
Revenue: -48%
Downloads: -54%
RPD: +13%
Would be great if others chimed in with their stats.
My sales at DT, projected total for April, 2012: down 11% from March 2012 down 14% from February, 2012 RPD +30% above my lifetime average at DT
362
« on: April 27, 2012, 11:53 »
So what is conclusion?
Better or worse?
For me, worse. I can't predict the effect of the pricing changes, but the decision and changes to favor newer images and smaller ports hurts me. I have an old and, for vectors, a relatively large port. I see my DT sales falling significantly. I guess I should submit a lot of new images, but DT's bizarre and unfair rejections of images which are accepted and sell well everywhere else make that unlikely.
363
« on: April 25, 2012, 16:37 »
For me, there is nothing they are adding that I have to have. I may upgrade to CS6 because I need to use .mts HD video files in Premiere, but otherwise, I'd be happy where I am.
I kind of feel the same way. They'll probably just break the features I like, but somebody will eventually send me a CS6 document for some job. So, I'll probably need to upgrade my software... or is it my resume I'm upgrading?
That's my problem. I have CS5 now but it's just a question of time when I get some data in InDesign or Illustrator 6 from client or his ad agency. Asking them to send me document saved to previous version is bad step. Clients do not want to hear or understand the reasons why I don't need newest version - they would think I'm some kind of Corel weirdo. And usually there's no time to ask someone else to save data to previous version.
Good points. People - such as designers and printers - who get work from other graphics people don't have much choice but to upgrade, and the subscription looks like it might be a good deal for them. But my problem is not only with the Adobe 'breaking the features I like' by introducing bugs, but I worry about my favorite plugins. If I get every upgrade, it is only a matter of time until some plugin which I use every day stops working with Photoshop or Illustrator CS[whatever].
364
« on: April 07, 2012, 17:42 »
It didn't used to be like this...
Am I the only one who remembers Peebert? Although I should admit that I don't know much about what it is like there now. I go to request payments, remove a few more of my flamed images when I have some spare time, and don't need IS for anything.
366
« on: March 28, 2012, 15:10 »
IMHO it's a great idea to establish a presence here to answer questions. If Paypal were smart, they would do the same thing. We microstockers must give them $hundreds of millions in business, and there are always a lot criticisms of Paypal in here in threads about them, many of which are valid and should be addressed.
367
« on: March 18, 2012, 18:56 »
Prediction: The queue at SS will soon shrink the the waiting time will decrease.
Reason: SS has hired new reviewers.
Evidence: Last week I submitted 4 vectors to SS. It took twice as long as usual for them to be reviewed but 3 were rejected, all for incorrect reasons.
I'll resubmit them later and they will probably be accepted. If not, I will stop submitting at SS until they straighten things out. This has happened before. When these periods of bad reviews happen, it costs me money, and it costs SS more than it costs me.
Why can't SS train its new reviewers properly?
368
« on: March 18, 2012, 17:10 »
Time Warner Cable and the MPAA sent these notices to me. They claimed I was uploading stolen movies or TV programs... and demanded I remove them from my computer...
The article says that the companies, including Time Warner, are not supposed to start this policy until July 1. But I guess it has been going on already, unless they got you with some kind of test or pilot program. Maybe Time Warner is more aggressive since they own companies which produce music and movies, while some of the other cable companies do not.
369
« on: March 17, 2012, 23:00 »
I guess my question is how do they determine who is a pirate? Is it flagged sites or just people that upload or download a lot? If it is just quantity of activity, I could see a lot of false positives for the customers they want to eliminate or charge more. 
The article doesn't say. It must be a 'details to follow' announcement. I can see privacy advocates being disturbed if the ISPs are spying too much on their customers. And I think click_click is right, I doubt that the ISPs would take it as far as really losing customers. It might be that Hollywood and the big entertainment distributors like Disney have a lot of clout with the cable companies who distribute their movies and TV shows. Maybe the content producers are putting pressure on the cable companies to at least look like they are trying to do something to stop the pirates from stealing movies and music.
370
« on: March 17, 2012, 21:16 »
Won't work. They can just switch providers, and I guarantee you providers will be very reluctant to actually cut off paying customers, furthermore, they can always just connect to the web and then use a VPN to totally blackout what they do.
Good points. Although I think that in many places, such as where I live, there is only one provider of high speed internet access (DSL here is too slow to be useful for a lot of downloading, really). I wonder if the measures in the article might discourage the casual infringers who might not want to switch ISPs just to copy a file now and then and are not tech savvy enough to hide what they do? Maybe the actual intent is to scare people by sending the letters.
371
« on: March 17, 2012, 19:37 »
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57397452-261/riaa-chief-isps-to-start-policing-copyright-by-july-1/Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy by July"...this could become the most effective antipiracy program ever. Since ISPs are the Internet's gatekeepers, the theory is that network providers are in the best position to fight illegal file sharing...ISPs send out one or two educational notices to those customers who are accused of downloading copyrighted content illegally. If the customer doesn't stop, the ISP is then asked to send out "confirmation notices" asking that they confirm they have received notice. "At that time, the accused customers will also be informed of the risks they incur if they don't stop pirating material. If the customer is flagged for pirating again, the ISP can then ratchet up the pressure. Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls "mitigation measures," which include throttling down the customer's connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating." So looks like maybe some of the people in the US who are 'sharing' copyrighted stuff could lose their broradband someday.
372
« on: March 15, 2012, 14:37 »
...Might not even live up to February.
It's beginning to look more and more like this for me too: March earning less than February in spite of having 2 more days. Remember how IS used to denigrate posts about sales because all sales fluctuations were, to them, random 'ebb and flow' with no cause? I think there must be some cause to this March slowdown, but I am baffled as to what it could be. And since Easter comes in April this year, I fear that that month might also be disappointing. Maybe it's the effects of the solar storm, or the long-predicted end of microstock as we know it? 
373
« on: March 14, 2012, 14:52 »
Copyright itself seems to be under attack, and the attack is real and serious. If the 'Copyright is Monopoly' movement succeeds, our right to get paid for what we create will be gone.
Movement? Do you have a link?
I was referring to the general movement to abolish intellectual property rights. The idea that everything on the internet should be shared freely, that intellectual property should not be owned, or the owners not paid. That copyright is unfair, that pirates should be allowed to copy whatever they want, that governments should not enforce copyright. And so on. The people who advocate copying our images freely.
374
« on: March 14, 2012, 11:45 »
we' re still beating around the bush and even the Pinterest CEO admits he's clueless about copyright, fair use, etc ..
what ! they know very well 99% of their content is stolen, just as YouTube knew 80% of their videos were pirated, we're back to the wild west once again and nobody is moving a finger, some judges are even agreeing with the pirates and supporting the "sharing" ideology !
Copyright itself seems to be under attack, and the attack is real and serious. If the 'Copyright is Monopoly' movement succeeds, our right to get paid for what we create will be gone. The movement claims to be about internet freedom and against government intervention. But the gov intervention they are really against is government protection of our copyrights. Behind it seems to be Google (and much smaller sites like Pinterest). Google+Youtube is a publishing company. It publishes other people's content without paying them anything, and sells ads making profits of billions. It is like a magazine, except that it doesn't pay the people who write for it or the photograhpers and illustrators who provide images. The more content is free, the more billions in profits for Google. Yes, Google seems to be behind the 'sharing ideology'. It wants to share our content and keep the profits.
375
« on: March 13, 2012, 22:15 »
March is off to a slow start for me. Maybe the old maxim about March 'In like a lamb out like a lion' will apply to microstock as well as to the weather, and things will pick up in the second half.
I see that BigStock is having a sale; maybe that will help the sales there and make up for SS slugishness.
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