Although I appreciate DT's royalty increase in the wake of the bomb Shutterstock dropped, I think DT is a terrible agency for video.
Video sales are almost non-existent and the average commission for HD and 4K is relatively low. Only after 10 downloads would you climb to a respectable commission, but very few videos will ever reach 10 sales on DT.

I think.. SS should do a fair 50/50 share deal with contributors.

We made shutterstock and we deserve this.

They should quit their empire state office and take a low cost space. There are plenty of way to do cost cutting in backend instead of cutting royalty cost of contributors.

They should take all the possible steps to reduce running expenses and share those savings with contributors.

Its a digital marketplace, they need not to do extreme showoff in real world.

Yes and no, public image does play a role. A big corporation like Shutterstock needs to be in a premium location. Imagine if Shutterstock was operating from some run-down shed somewhere in a third-world country, without any way for potential business partners and capital investors to visit them on location. That wouldn't express any professionalism.

There is this quote from the movie American Beauty: "In order to be successful one must project an image of success at all times."

Having said that, those office space expenses shouldn't come out of contributors' pockets.

The naivety in this thread is staggering. I don't consider myself an old-timer with lots of wisdom or anything, but there are many experienced contributors here whom I respect and  who -in my opinion- should know better after all those years of experience with agencies.

Like I said in another thread: no agency is ever your 'friend'. They're a business with the intention of making profit in anyway they see fit. Even though I have no trouble with Adobe, just because SS has gone to hell, doesn't suddenly make Adobe the perfect agency.
Sooner or later, every agency (especially when they get more market share) will make business decisions that could hurt our revenue. Adobe is no exception.
Their sole purpose is to make money with your assets, and to (most) agencies, with the exception of the highest earners, you're just a number, an expendable artist.

Last but not least, Adobe has no reason to "incentivize" new contributors with special exclusivity deals. Why? Because new contributors will flock to Adobe anyway now that SS has scared them away.

So what's with all the bootlicking in this thread?

Probably I'll disable my account from 1st of June and fully concentrate on AdobeStock...

Never put your eggs in one basket, they say. But there are no other baskets left...

Can we sue them? Is there a possibility?

Short answer: No.
Long answer:..............No.

Quote from: H2O on May 26, 2020, 14:13

ShutterStock are finished as a site, anyone who has any sense of their own worth is going to leave them.

The reality is they won't find this out for a couple of years, as the buyers move elsewhere.

When Getty introduced this type of structure, everyone called them the evil empire and vowed loyalty to Shutterstock. None of these partners can be trusted. But I'm sure Adobe will be anointed as the new savior.

Sadly, now we're going to see lots of unhappy SS contributors flock towards Adobe, just like they flocked to SS when iStock went crazy. These unhappy contributors will flood Adobe with millions of images, diluting any sales there as well. I predict the following years are going to be terrible. All I can say is I'm glad I'm not depending on stock revenue.

Un-be-lievable.
 
Corporate greed in these trying times where almost every photographer, videographer and illustrator is fighting to survive this bad economic depression. Those immoral *insult removed* grab the last crumbs off your table and don't even have the guts to say sorry.

It's reprehensible behaviour and a testament to their despicable ethics.

Thank you, Stan Pavlovsky. Hope you enjoy your new yacht.

Edit: and Paul Brennan of course, who is equally guilty of this cash grab.

Granted it's a low price-per-photo, but say you have a portfolio of 1000 photos. Keep in mind that maybe 80% of your portfolio will never sell or earn at least $60 during its shelf life. So how much money would 1000 photos net you yearly? If you expect your hypothetical 1000 photos will earn you at least $60,000 in the next few years, then it's easy to decline the offer. If you're in need of the money or not too sure whether you'll ever make that amount, take their offer.

If they don't want to pay for your entire portfolio, but only want your best-sellers, then it's an obvious NO.

I can buy exactly two beers with this month's revenue. I'm not joking.

Yep, got double my March earnings. At least they're keeping their promise in that regard.

What still worries me is how the subscription revenue will develop after the 6 month period is over. It will probably mean more downloads for less revenue, so in essence it's still a very obvious bait 'n trap concept.

I frankly don't care all that much about Freepik. Unless they're stealing or infringing copyright, I don't think they can be that detrimental to the stock industry.

It's the major agencies who destroy the industry with a race to the bottom: SS, Pond5, Storyblocks.

I have to rant about this ridiculous Best Pricing policy.

I sold a clip last week, but it was for only 50% of the price I set, which resulted in a terribly low commission.
Their response? "Shutterstock and Adobe have both been adjusting prices in Canada, UK, Australia, and more."
They even pointed me towards a forum thread where contributors were complaining about this race to the bottom due to their pricing policy.

Pond5, when I set a price at a certain price point to counter your greedy commission cuts, I don't want you to silently sell my clips for below that price without my prior consent and without notifying me of where they found my clips cheaper!

Quote

so I'm sure you'll make a profit in the long run for your hard work

If you search the clip ID lead (if I am not wrong) to a timelapse made with a motorized slider.
100 clips sales to make the cost of the equipment and after that sales will be compensation
for the OP's time and efforts without counting camera gear, cost for moving, time spend.
It is a business. We buy tools to get work done better and for good prices.

No excuses. And taking no prisoners, deletion of clip and listing elsewhere seems one way.

Edit: I never heard of a plumper buying a $300 pneumatic drill and charging $3 for cement drilling and waiting to benefit in the long run...

Maybe not $3 but multiple drilling jobs should pay back the cost of the pneumatic drill. Same case with video.
He's unlucky this was a low commission but fortunately, the standard commissions of $20+ for video still exist. For now.