It's just their name for the unlimited subscription programme. Bit like Envato Elements and Motion Array. They used to have an unlimited subscription and a regular marketplace for individual downloads (with content that wasn't in the subscription), but they ditched the regular marketplace.

Imagery from NASA is public domain, although they do request that you add a disclaimer along the lines of 'contains imagery furnished by NASA' when using their content. Also, anything that contains logos or recognizable people can't be used commercially.

I remember listening to a podcast back in the day, and the head of media (or some similar title) at NASA was being interviewed... and he was specifically asked if people could sell NASA content as stock footage and stock images, and he said that it's absolutely fine.

It's still up to the agencies whether they accept it or not but most do as far as I'm aware.

Mine are set at $19 for HD and $39 for 4K. Those are single use licenses though... for the multi-use license I go with $79 and $159.

1) You set it up Playstock because "...we could never be 100% satisfied with what�s out there. We wanted to discover new, more varied sets of themes, subjects, types. We were constantly in need of a previously undiscovered, perspective-changing stock footage hidden somewhere deep in someone�s hard drive."

...which is great and all, but how does Playstock solve that issue? Just opening a new stock agency doesn't automatically mean you're going to get new and more varied themes, subjects and types of footage. Unless you have something up your sleeve that you've not yet disclosed, then there's no reason to assume your content selection won't be exactly the same as all the other agencies.

2) I'd rather you start with a higher percentage and put it down in the future.

3) 0 to 5% is worrying. I think most people are quite happy to get 50% or more as they have a vague understand of the cost involved in marketing and running a successful stock agency. If you insist on starting the commission low and putting it higher later, I think 20% to start and 40% when you're fully up and running would be better.

4) You need to stop with the TB nonsense! Go for number of downloads only. Seems like the TB allowance for downloads (and the portfolio size in TB on your survey) is purely as a way to figure out costs when it comes to hosting and transfers. That's fine from a planning standpoint, as it's an important cost to factor in to your business plan, but I can't see any benefit to using it as a download limit. Confusing for buyers... especially if they're hunting around or clips when they have 100MB left, for example. If you were taking more than 0 to 5% then you'd probably be able to worry a lot less about bandwidth charges. 

5) The subscription fee is low. Even Envato Elements is around twice that for a year. So while your 'bumf' seems to indicate you're looking to market yourself on unique and diverse content, your prices indicate you're looking to purely compete on price.

6) I'd be happy to upload a chunk of my portfolio to give it a try. What's the worst that can happen... I don't make any sales, lose a bit of time, and I can stop uploading or remove my content. But I can't... as due to your incentive the terms state that whatever I upload is on your site forever. There's no way I'm doing that if you haven't yet fully decided on royalty rates and subscription fees. I probably wouldn't do it even if you had.

7) As a result... you should give the option to take the incentive and keep your content on forever (which people are unlikely to go for... unless they have a bunch of stolen content!), or not take the incentive and remove your content whenever you want.

I wish you well, but it's just not very appealing right now. 

No need for them to lie... investors don't care too much about upload numbers if the profits are up. The only reason they had to 'big up' the upload numbers previously was because the percentage increase on profits were gradually decreasing, so they needed something positive-sounding to deflect from that.

Now they can just say something along the lines of... "upload numbers are down, as we expected due to the changes, but they haven't really impacted buyer numbers and net profits are up as a result. But just you guys wait until January... it's gonna be a doozy!"

One post was removed for harsh / insulting / rude language.  Please keep the conversation civil.

I was directly quoting comments across several posts from the same author, none of which have been removed for harsh / insulting / rude language. Just an FYI.

Is blackbox still on shutterstock? If they are and you are contributor. Do you have anyway to get your video out of shutterstock?
How much is your royalty on .34?

Still on there and no plans to leave SS as far as I can tell. Unlikley they'd let everyone remove their footage from just SS but you never know. They'll be at 40%.

Yay, 9 video sales in one day!  A total of $2.06! 

Surely you could only sue them on or after the day of your death... as only then would you know whether you've made minimum wage for the content you created. Otherwise, how would it work? Could somebody who has been selling their images on Shutterstock for a week sue, as they've not yet made minimum wage? What would be the cut off point... a year, five years, ten years?

How would you account for economies of scale? Should the rule be the same if you upload 100 images a month and I upload 1? What about equipment... if you use a Canon 700D and I use a Hasselblad, should that be reflected in the calculation? What if the calculation reveals that two people who have the same number of items and person A makes $5 less than minimum wage and person B makes $5 more than minimum wage... does person B receive nothing for being more successful and person A receive extra money for being less successful? Surely the ends don't justify the means? But 'the means' allow for somebody to earn more than minimum wage, so are the means at fault? 

And even if you could sue for this, the perfect defences by the agencies would be to present a bunch of people who do make minimum wage on Shutterstock. The question for those who don't would then be... all things being equal, why do they make minimum wage and you don't? And if this did become a thing, then it would open up the floodgates for similar cases at every stock marketplace. Not just those, but Etsy, iTunes, eBay, Spotify, Youtube. Could farmers sue the farmers market if they don't earn enough in a day? When does it end?

Say that happens and everyone wins their cases... what happens then? You get your cheque in the mail and then the majority of these places would go bankrupt... those that don't would kick out anybody that wasn't making minimum wage, just keeping the top sellers onboard. And if we can sue them for not paying minimum wage then I'm guessing you feel we should be able to sue them for unfair dismissal? Congratulations... every single one of them has now gone bankrupt... there's not a single site platform left for content creators to distribute on other than creating their own.

We're not employees. We're not independent contractors. We're not freelancers that have been commissioned by the agencies. Shutterstock is a platform that we choose to use, or we choose not to use... and they are under no obligation to ensure we receive a minimum wage.

I'm sorry, but it's never going to happen and it's ridiculous to think it ever would. 

I'm with you dude... give 911 a call and let us know how you get on.

12 new sales... nice! I'm assuming they're sales through some kind of partner site or something, and they get reported in chunks rather than every day.

Will probably stay steady for the Q2 results, won't be until the Q3 results come out that it starts to increase.

Completely agree with Fern... buyers will probably not even notice the drop in files, and even if they do, give it two or three weeks and they'll have more content than before any of this was all announced. I think it's probably a little bit naive to assume that the 0.3% of content that's gone was amazing, and current, and of an exceptional quality... and the remaining 99.7% is outdated, low quality and taken on a smartphone. If that was the case, buyers would have left a long time ago. SS knew exactly what they were doing, they ran the numbers, analysed the potential risks and they'll be just fine... but with a much higher profit margin.