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Messages - stockastic
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401
« on: September 28, 2016, 08:46 »
A "distribution partner" is just a contract sales person who works entirely on commission - and the commission comes entirely out of the photographer's payment. It's a way for an agency to add marketing staff without having to pay a salary or benefits. Basically, by supporting this, you're making a donation to the agency, and I'm sure they appreciate it. Too bad it's not tax deductible.
Do you know that for sure? Is this how 500px operates?
Because Alamy gives 40% to the distributors, splitting the remainder half/half with the contributors.
Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk
No, I don't know the actual numbers here. I thought the email was pretty vague. I know this is how it works at FAA, for example - they always get their full piece, they just cut yours to pay "partners" like brick-and-mortar shops in malls that are allowed to sell the FAA catalog. Maybe some agencies do take a cut on so-called "partner" sales - in that case they're not getting new marketing people for nothing, just at a nice discount, subsidized by the photographers. Bottom line - if none of us bought into these deals, agencies would have to actually hire more marketing people, or create new web sites, at their own expense - like any other business.
Fyi, distributors are not unique to microstock but widely present in other businesses contrary to what you claim.
Mobile operators have their own stores, but you can buy their services through Best Buy, Costco, etc.
Apple sells through Apple stores, but also through Amazon, mobile operators, etc.
McDonalds makes money through franchising, basically a network of distributors.
Moreover, supermarkets are distributors for farmers or other producers.
So to be consistent, if you want to get rid of distributors, encourage the world to stop buying from the supermarket across the street and ask everyone to travel a few hours to the nearest village only to buy eggs and tomatoes directly from the farmer. Or ecourage the farmers to do the reverse trip, to sell directly to consumers, instead of focusing in doing what they do best: farming.
I doubt you'll get many followers.
Even your regular microstock agencies are your distributors because you could also sell your work directly, but you don't really do it, if you are on this forum, do you?
Let's say they told you that instead of signing up a "partner" they were paying some outsiders to develop a new web site for the Asian market. It will sell 500px images through an API, under different licensing rules. But 500px couldn't feel they could quite afford to do this themselves - even after bringing in new investment and cutting commissions by 50% - so contributors would pay for some of it - by taking another big cut on any sales made through the new web site. Sorry about that, but it's a "distributor", that's how it works. Still on board?
402
« on: September 28, 2016, 08:42 »
There's a significant difference between saying "there is no bot" and saying "we don't use any automated screening, it's all done by human reviewers". They're hiding behind the word "bot" which means different things to different people. Obviously when 15 photos are accepted or rejected in seconds, an automated system was responsible.
403
« on: September 27, 2016, 17:14 »
A "distribution partner" is just a contract sales person who works entirely on commission - and the commission comes entirely out of the photographer's payment. It's a way for an agency to add marketing staff without having to pay a salary or benefits. Basically, by supporting this, you're making a donation to the agency, and I'm sure they appreciate it. Too bad it's not tax deductible.
Do you know that for sure? Is this how 500px operates?
Because Alamy gives 40% to the distributors, splitting the remainder half/half with the contributors.
Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk
No, I don't know the actual numbers here. I thought the email was pretty vague. I know this is how it works at FAA, for example - they always get their full piece, they just cut yours to pay "partners" like brick-and-mortar shops in malls that are allowed to sell the FAA catalog. Maybe some agencies do take a cut on so-called "partner" sales - in that case they're not getting new marketing people for nothing, just at a nice discount, subsidized by the photographers. Bottom line - if none of us bought into these deals, agencies would have to actually hire more marketing people, or create new web sites, at their own expense - like any other business.
404
« on: September 27, 2016, 16:45 »
A "distribution partner" is just a contract sales person who works entirely on commission - and the commission comes entirely out of the photographer's payment. It's a way for an agency to add marketing staff without having to pay a salary or benefits. Basically, by supporting this, you're making a donation to the agency, and I'm sure they appreciate it. Too bad it's not tax deductible.
405
« on: September 26, 2016, 16:03 »
I'm sure these 2 mindless corporate predators can work out a deal that protects the interests of creative people. LOL
406
« on: September 25, 2016, 11:01 »
The trials of a submitted image to Shutterstock in September 2016:
Attempt 1: Rejected for not having a property release. No property release needed for this shot. Re-submit.
Attempt 2: Rejected for focus and poor lighting, as well as potentially infringing on "intellectual property" this time. Nonsense. Re-submit.
Attempt 3: Rejected for not having a property release, again. Now it's a just a dumb game. Do I write a note to reviewer in the description and edit it out later? Who knows what they want anymore. I re-phrase the description in an attempt to alleviate this incorrect property release concern for their robot reviewer. Re-submit.
Attempt 4: Rejected for focus, composition and overuse of effects. Gettin' pretty silly now. Re-submit.
Attempt 5: Rejected for poor lighting. That old chestnut again? Re-submit.
Attempt 6: Approved.
All the same image, never re-edited. This whole process occurring in about 20 minutes. I was really just curious what would happen.
And yes, I really should be doing something better with my Saturday night.
HILARIOUS The only thing that could be funnier would be listening to some SS 'manager' trying to explain this sequence of events, while never actually disclosing what's really going on. If he even knew.
407
« on: September 23, 2016, 18:21 »
I hope they don't shutdown the free space...
Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
I expect them to start charging for it. It's an obvious way to start pulling more money out of users, and the new owners will jump on it. Just like Microsoft did with OneDrive - when people actually started using all that promised free storage, they ended it.
408
« on: September 23, 2016, 18:14 »
The key to the whole thing is that a buyer's time, or contributor's time, don't cost SS anything, but a reviewer's time does.
409
« on: September 23, 2016, 14:51 »
410
« on: September 23, 2016, 11:40 »
I think if we could actually do the math we'd see that at the volume they're getting now, real inspection would be impossible - they'd never pay what it would actually cost.
So they've done what any high volume manufacturer does - they're sampling some percentage of what they get, inspecting that percentage, then categorizing and ranking suppliers accordingly. Based on past history, you're fast-tracked to either Accept or Reject. You probably still get sampled now and then, but they're not wasting any more inspection time - i.e. money - on you unless something changes. That's how you reduce cost on incoming inspection.
They know that this system will inevitably let some amount of junk through, and reject some good material, and they accept that because it's all a calculation based on time and money. The guiding principles are: buyers will sort it all out in Search, buyers are impressed by big collection numbers, and contributors are a dime a dozen. Basically they're telling buyers: we have every image in the world, so what you want is here; just go through the Search results until you find it. From that point forward they're counting on popularity-based ranking to push the junk down in the results, and eventually they're just paying server storage costs for vast amounts of material they'll never sell. At some point they automatically designate an image as "dead" and while they probably can't totally delete it, it's moved to lower cost storage with less backup and longer access times.
411
« on: September 22, 2016, 10:09 »
OLD THREAD ALERT
However, I do wonder what's going on at Flickr today. With Yahoo being sold and broken up, Flickr's fate is unknown. The only thing we can be sure of is that the new owners, whoever they turn out to be, will try to find ways to squeeze more money out of it, and that process usually isn't pretty. Or successful.
412
« on: September 18, 2016, 21:06 »
In my mind it's not complicated. We all thought the web was going to create new opportunity, give everyone a chance, let buyers and producers find each other in a free, open and 'flat' marketplace. Instead, it turns out - in the case of stock photography - that the web ultimately allowed a small number of middlemen to gain control of the market and grind suppliers into dust. Like all abusive middlemen, they keep the lions share of the profit while adding little real value to the product; and they're able to keep buyers and producers from connecting directly. It's a classic situation in economics, and the remedy - routing around the middlemen - is called disintermediation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisintermediationUnfortunately in an internet market, cutting out the middleman is a technical challenge that hasn't been met yet - as witnessed by the failure of attempts like Symbiostock.
413
« on: September 17, 2016, 16:40 »
Yes it's obviously automated 'inspection', i.e. some simplistic and probably mis-tuned code that's supposedly saving them big money in inspectors's wages.
Although bizarrely if you resubmit you often get acceptances I suspect a human pulls the final trigger.
Who knows what's really happening, but they could certainly be routing re-submissions to human reviewers.
414
« on: September 17, 2016, 15:24 »
Yes it's obviously automated 'inspection', i.e. some simplistic and probably mis-tuned code that's supposedly saving them big money in inspectors's wages.
415
« on: September 17, 2016, 15:20 »
YES. HILARIOUS. 
416
« on: September 17, 2016, 09:39 »
Why ss when they pay a bigger percentage than istock and more for sub sales than thinkstock? Makes no sense to me.
They have held prices down to a ridiculous level for far too long.
(I accept I'm in the minority with this view.)
I don't think we're in the minority. SS has gained control of the market by driving prices down to the floor and below. They're the big force behind subscriptions.
417
« on: September 16, 2016, 09:45 »
I'd love to see SS crash and burn.
418
« on: September 14, 2016, 12:34 »
We could have had this same discussion a year ago, and a year before that, and the camera makers never get anywhere. I think they all feel trapped and somewhat desperate in a shrinking market and just aren't willing to launch a big software initiative, one that amounts to a major re-think of the interface. Even though that might be the only thing that would save them.
419
« on: September 14, 2016, 09:30 »
I don't know why the camera manufacturers haven't used amdroid more. There's a few cameras using android but not many. Then they could have apps like instagram, snapchat etc. on the camera. I use dropbox to backup my phone photos, would be great to be able to use that on my camera.
Sony and Olympus have tried cameras that use a smartphone for the screen and connect wireless but they didn't do a good job.
We're all wondering about this. I think the camera companies just don't have the engineering resources to make this happen. The Android group probably supports phones to the max and supplies a complete platform kit for anyone wanting to make a phone. A camera is a different game and would require a lot more software development which companies like Sony and Nikon aren't able to do. They're just not big enough, and they're not software companies.
That can't be right because Nikon have used android in a few compacts like this one compact http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/compact-digital-cameras/coolpix-s810c.html
Samsung have android in an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxycamera/nx/
So it can't be that difficult, they just haven't got it right yet. The compacts were too low quality and the Samsung meant that most people would have to buy another set of lenses. If Canon or Nikon made an android camera that used their current lenses, I think it would sell very well. A higher quality compact with android should do well, if they used it in a 1" sensor camera, I would buy it.
Interesting, I didn't know about those. Well maybe they were one-offs, a subcontracted project that became a dead end. That's often what happens when a big company wants a software product but doesn't want to actually hire the people to do it. Maybe the 'integration' with Android was actually pretty shallow and didn't amount to much, or was clunky to use. A platform like Android could let a camera do all sorts of useful things but just planning it out, deciding on the feature set, designing a good UI, are big challenges to companies that are barely able to come up with usable interfaces to what they have now. Just speculating of course. Another issue is the cost of connectivity. I'm not willing to pay for a second phone that I'll never actually talk on, and wi-fi doesn't cut it. Maybe all I want is a Bluetooth connection between camera and phone that lets me see the photos on the phone and transfer those files. That's already happening: http://nikonrumors.com/2016/09/13/nikon-snapbridge-for-ios-version-1-0-1-released.aspx/
420
« on: September 13, 2016, 10:08 »
I'm no Luddite, I worked as a software engineer for 30 years, but I'm not buying the idea that the phone replaces the camera. Einstein once said something like "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler". Just substitute "small" for "simple". Ergonomics will still be ergonomics, optics will still be optics. You can do a lot of tricky image processing in software but a lot of it doesn't really satisfy the eye or the brain because it's an oversimplification or an exaggeration. You say WOW out loud but your visual cortex is whispering FAKE. Or you look at 100% and it all unravels. There isn't anything called "DSLR quality", it's more like "flexibility".
Yes, new optical materials will make those tiny lenses better and better but not next week. There are some mathematical relationships involving size and angle, for lenses and sensors, that aren't going to change.
And people trying to compose an image on a tiny screen at arm's length are still going to look like dummies IMHO.
421
« on: September 12, 2016, 20:23 »
I don't know why the camera manufacturers haven't used amdroid more. There's a few cameras using android but not many. Then they could have apps like instagram, snapchat etc. on the camera. I use dropbox to backup my phone photos, would be great to be able to use that on my camera.
Sony and Olympus have tried cameras that use a smartphone for the screen and connect wireless but they didn't do a good job.
We're all wondering about this. I think the camera companies just don't have the engineering resources to make this happen. The Android group probably supports phones to the max and supplies a complete platform kit for anyone wanting to make a phone. A camera is a different game and would require a lot more software development which companies like Sony and Nikon aren't able to do. They're just not big enough, and they're not software companies.
422
« on: September 12, 2016, 13:32 »
I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop - when they tell us that this "great new opportunity" means a price cut. For us, of course, not for SS.
423
« on: September 11, 2016, 12:51 »
I'm seeing ads hyping this or that new phone as having "DSLR" quality. Yeah it's a DSLR, folks. Except for the sensor, and the lens, and the viewfinder, and about 100 other things. It's laughable, but "DSLR" has lost its meaning as an acronym and now just means "good camera". So step right up, people, put down your money and buy a bottle, it cures anything.
424
« on: September 09, 2016, 10:21 »
I would assume the buyers would pay the same amount they would have paid otherwise, whether that's a subscription or large SOD.
I'd like to assume that too, but I also assume Adobe wants a cut, and when a new middleman gets into the chain, his cut typically comes out of ours.
Yes but this plugin is a sales channel for someone else's product. And Adobe owns Fotolia, a competitor. Surely they're not inviting SS in to play for free.
Why would Adobe get a cut? Do they get a cut when someone buys any other third party plugin for Photoshop? You download the plugin, drop it into the plugins folder and it works. Adobe won't even know it's there.
Yes but this plugin is a sales channel for someone else's product. And Adobe owns Fotolia, a competitor. Surely they're not inviting SS in to play for free. Whether they could actually block a plugin like this, I don't know, maybe not and in that case they couldn't demand a piece of the action.
425
« on: September 08, 2016, 20:42 »
I would assume the buyers would pay the same amount they would have paid otherwise, whether that's a subscription or large SOD.
I'd like to assume that too, but I also assume Adobe wants a cut, and when a new middleman gets into the chain, his cut typically comes out of ours.
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