Contrary to my previous post of 2 months ago, sales seem to be sliding again; not seriously but a little. FT has been devoting a fair bit of promotional effort to their instant collection over the past couple of months so that may be detracting from their efforts in the general RF area. But I have no real idea if that is the case.
On a positive note, uptake/dl's of newly uploaded work does seem to be more positive than SS at present.

Quote from: stockastic on March 24, 2014, 23:41
FAA has lots of that sort of thing.  Many people just re-sell well-known paintings by past masters: 

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/rembrandt/all

Also a number of people make money simply by selling NASA photos.  All of this has been questioned many times on the FAA forum and the response is "mind your own business".  If you check the Recent Sales page now and then you'll see that these things make FAA a lot of money.  Apparently it's all quite legal.

I think they should put the idea of selling stock on the back burner.  Then turn off the burner.  And after a few days, sell the stove.

Meanwhile people are continuing to post about disappearing images, and getting no response:

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1807822

Most of the Old Masters appear to be at the Bridgeman Library:

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/the-masters.html

Edit: I see that Les pointed that out already.

Spotted some images there with a price tag of $250 that can be had on Fotolia for subs price or $50 EL.

Tamrons must be generally slow on AF. Got a 90mm Di macro recently (non-VC) and whilst that's supposed to be AF-S-type focussing on Nikon, first it focusses nearly and a split second later, focusses properly. Lucky that I use only MF for macro but as a general purpose lens for people, it's AF is too slow to be really useful.
So maybe it's not only in the VC.

Now that is weird. No 'ship' in keywords either. Same goes for an image of 'bacon'  that appears when 'ship' is searched.

Taking the Hassy blurb with a big dose of CMOS. Phase One also has a CMOS sensor, the IQ 250. The great advantage of CMOS compared to CCD is that they're also much cheaper to produce! And yeah...for microstock? Who are we kidding!

Quote from: Ron on March 17, 2014, 09:08
It all depends on how you search 

"buy online, pick-up in-store" (BOPIS) model

Second result for 'warehouse BOPIS model'

http://connected.retailnetgroup.com/index.php/2012/09/24/ship-from-store-what-retailers-can-learn-from-the-early-adopters/

I propose that the great problem for bricks and mortar stores is the TOIS and BEACOL type of client! (Try out in store and buy elsewhere at cheapest on-line!) client. Been like that for a long time. At least according to a friend who worked in a not-lowest price camera store.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 11, 2014, 17:25
One day special, he has an established collection. Tomorrow he's back to toast and water and cheap low price sales. It's all a bunch of hype.

Remember the updated terms of Instagram Agreement: "To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you," (my emphasis) Which turned out to be clearing up the fact that they could already do this, and it was just spelled out in plain English.

Instagrid.me (a 40,000 member and counting site which creates a space for Instagram galleries)—will pair advertisers with influential Instagrammers, giving them incentives to feature brand-related photos in their streams. Down for construction...

and finally the answer:

With a few clicks, artists and photographers can import their Instagram photos to Instaprints.com and sell framed prints, canvas prints, greeting cards, and more to a global audience of art collectors.

http://instaprints.com/ take a look. Does this remind anyone of FAA. OK is there anyone who doesn't see the resemblance to FAA? 

Oh and the real story: "Hello, I just turned 34 this second. For one day only I am selling 4×6 prints of whatever you want from my Instagram archive for $150 each. I swear I will never sell anything this cheap again. If you're interested, send a screenshot of the photo(s) of your choice to (email removed by me) and I will send a paypal invoice, followed by a signed print. Easy peasy. Happy my birthday. I love you"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/03/07/this-photographer-made-15k-in-one-day-on-instagram/

22,000 followers and more than 1,300 photos in his stream. "Been looking for photo work but in its absence i spend most days walking around the city taking photos (iphone and 35mm) for up to 8hrs a day." His mode is what you might call humanist urban voyeurism: street scenes, faces on the subway, people having un-self-conscious moments.

Instaprints is FAA...just another outlet. See logo top left, that's FAA.

Just out of interest, does anyone know whether the EyeEm collection is also part of the 35M?

Shocking behaviour indeed by FT but I have always been able to delete images at FT by clicking on 'My Files' and then on the right hand side of each file there's 'View Information-Edit Data-Delete'.

You can't edit much but you can delete the file.

Quote from: Ron on March 08, 2014, 21:11
All images under a certain resolution will be doubled in size by SS. I think the cut off point is 12MP. 12MP and under will be upsized, and offered as S M L and XL, anything above 12MP will be offered as S M L. I could be wrong about the exact cut off point, but thats what you are seeing.

Yup. I'm not sure of the cut-off point but it could be 15Mp.

Quote from: hatman12 on March 07, 2014, 01:01
I enquired about the right click problem in Getty's own forums and received a reply that right click will shortly be disabled.

Don't care. Got MWSnap. Many other screen captures available. Disabled right click is like trying to ban Pirate Bay and equally effective.

Good analysis.

http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/

Subscription plan rates depend on subscribers NOT downloading their entire entitlement. I have no idea what the average number of downloads is from a 750 image/monthly sub but I imagine that it would be <200.

Similar to an 'All-you-can-eat' buffet/grill for a fixed amount. The restaurant owner is counting on most customers' eyes being larger than their stomachs!

I've had weird rejections for copyright/trademarks at SS on antiquarian books dating from early 19th and mid-18th centuries. Resubmitted with removed titles but it made no difference. The only other markings were the binder's tooling in the leather binding for which, no doubt, a generic metal stamp tool of the day was used. SS did accept (first time) another of the series with very selective focus (titles invisible but binder's tooling visible and sharp). I hate illogicality! All accepted at FT, complete with titles and they're all good sellers there.

So, now I don't argue with or resubmit to anyone. Don't want 'em...too bad....your loss maybe another's gain...move on.

If you're a Nikon user, there's a less expensive alternative to the T/S or PC-E lenses. Get a PB4 T/S bellows on feebay ($200). Get a 120mm-135mm lens from an enlarger or (what I use) a Tominon 135mm f4.5 lens from a Polaroid MP4 copy camera (cost me nothing as I bought the MP4 with other lenses as a job lot and sold a load of the stuff I didn't want for a profit).
The Nikon mount on the bellows rotates for vertical or horizontal shots and you have lens panel tilt/ shift and therefore a Scheimpflug plane of 'sharpness'.
A little slow in use compared to the T/S lenses but nevertheless effective as long as you remember to shield the old (and non-multicoated) lens against off-axis light. Probably useless for insects though!

Quote from: brisoca on February 15, 2014, 11:10
http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml

Thanks.

Contrary to popular opinion, FT is getting better for me and appears to be increasing with each month since around September 2013. I've known the good times (up until, say, 2+ years ago) and the bad times when earnings declined by 70+% and all my best sellers just suddenly dropped from the search radar and never sold again.
Earnings are still short of their previous peak despite a 50% increase in port size but they are noticeably on the up (>80% on pre-September levels). I haven't worked out the recent ratio of subs to dl's but overall (5 years) it's still at 60% dl to 40% subs and it doesn't seem to change much.
FT is often a bit strange. Some days I get nothing but subs and the next, nothing but dl's. Don't get many rejections  at FT either and they often accept stuff that SS rejects which goes on to become a good seller at FT. I have no idea why but FT seems to be working for me presently. 

EL's are a fixed amount (unsure whether dependent on your lifetime earnings status?) but are around $28 for the contributor.

ODD's are non-sub regular sales @ $2.48 or $1.07 (smaller size)

SOD's can be anything from the same as a sub sale (33, 36 or38 cents...Facebook deal) up to $100+. There's always been mention of SOD's for 'sensitive' use but I've had a few @ >$50 and they didn't have people in them. Dunno how a picture frame can be 'sensitively' used!
Baffled but not complainin'.

The value of all fiat currencies relative to one another is a big joke perpetrated on all users by the central bankers. Every day, trillions of dollars/euros/yen etc are transacted through the FOREX markets....money to be made on manipulation of such large markets. Count on it and bank that.

Quote from: dirkr on February 13, 2014, 23:28

Quote from: Ilfede on February 13, 2014, 18:45
dowloads are back

only for your own files.

Yup. No doubt amended cos some eejit abused it. Provided useful info for researching popular categories. Alas all gone now.

Still got and using all my Hensel studio flash generators (3200B and 1600B) from 1985-90! As the importer said to me around 2000, " If I had been dependent on Hensel repair income, I would have gone bust years ago!"
(These are not the action stopping flash units of today but were apparently made with quality components in the old 'West Germany'.)

Oldest cam is a Nikon D80 from 2006...50K actuations and still going strong.

I assume that the 10 FREE images the 'exclusive club' member receives as part of the package are, in fact, paid to the contributor at the prevailing subs rate? Or are the 10 Free images from the truly FREE section of FT (all the rejected stuff that the contributor foolishly gave away free by ticking  the wrong box).

Well, I dunno! Submitted 5 similar food shots on 29/12, 100% accepted on 30/12. Maybe they want food and other subjects less. I dunno.

Despite all the rejections, I noticed that 190,000 new images were added this week (again!).