Glad you had fun! Post some shots if you can.

it's not about SS. They simply are the agency that hasn't taken drastic measures.  Doesn't mean they wont.

This might seem like a weird question but it is legitimate...

Once your ms portfolio is up it has earning power as long as your images are available to clients.. so what happens in the case of someone who dies, and their portfolio remains generating income - does their beneficiaries continue to receive the royalties? for how long? is their a legal proceedure to go through to ensure this?

Has anyone looked into this or have some insight?

It is an unusual question, but really I think something we should all consider at some point from a practical viewpoint, esp for you big time earners ...

thanks

As much as you think it's unusual, I have been mulling this over with my wife.  We are getting ready to have our trust written (I am 51) and we want to hire an attorney to help us understand our copyright transfer options from two perspectives:

1. I am making a relative assumption that I will die before my wife.  I want her to legally own my images and continue to collect the income. Technically I could just have her keep collecting the money from existing accounts and just not say anything, but that could backfire if the word gets out that I am gone but the account remains open.

2. When she goes I want to have ownership of my port to change to someone else so they can enjoy the benefits of my hard work.

I am not a big time earner per se because I have a regular day job, but I do make a few thousand extra a month.  And hope to grow that, but who knows where MS will be in 10 years. I am also unsure of what the policies are/will be on the microstock sites themselves.  They may be jumpy enough to just say no, and close the account.  I recall way back when Rinderart supposedly transferred ownership of some of his images to another Istocker and he had his account terminated.  While I don't know the true details, it is clear that the miscrstock sites are jumpy when it comes to this kind of stuff.

My 7 day rank has declined to 64, and my overall rank to 590.  Sales in May, 2012 were down 58% on May, 2011!!  Earnings on FT now comprise only 7% of my total, down from a high of 28% two years ago.  According to FT, the decline is due to "competition within FT", and that "...it really comes down to awesome images."  That's b*&()t.  I'd say that at best it's due to a screwed up search engine, and a site that doesn't care two hoots about (previously) top-selling contributors.

First....you have a FABULOUS PORT!!  Secondarily, between you, Fotographer, Lisa (Mrs. FX:)) and a few other big guns stating what amounts to the same thing (going from good rank to crummy rank and therefore making less money) is pretty good anecdotal evidence that FT is indeed favoring new or non-selling images so they pay out less, keep more in their coffers.  It's a shame that potentially more appealing images are being shoved up the FT BUM where no buyers dare to go.

Besides DT and Zoonar? I've already set my acc for deletion at Zoonar a month or so ago and stopped uploading at DT. Any other? I heard there are problems at DP, but the problem is they don't really delete it, but just deactivate it.

I wanna keep my options open and the real money has been only coming from SS and IS from day one for me. DT and FT are bringing BMEs in, but their growth is a lot slower than at IS and SS, while they should be a lot faster, so they'd eventually at least represent a significant portion of income, not just bread crumbs that fall off the table. Besides that the outlook for both looks bad, FT is selling only XS and S sizes lately, sales at DT are dropping rapidly, increased RPD doesn't help as much as I hoped it would.

Do you mean that "number of downloads" is decreasing but revenue per image sold is high therefore that higher revenue per image is creating BME's? Otherwise this is contradictory (the bold comments)

I beat my forecast by $200 but down $150 over last month.  SS has really pumped up my overall monthly income. IS was down $150 over last month and DT was down $75 over last month. 

by the way. "thief courts! thieves! thief judge.. was there a jury? thieves! they probably pin microstock images! thief law!"

go on cult of whatever... 

....sigh....

Opening a PayPal account would probably be less hassle than starting a crazy ranting thread here.  Calling them crooks is ridiculous.  I'd rather they didn't have the MB fee but that's not breaking the law.

I don't use MB but I have used PP for years as an EBAY seller/buyer, book author (selling online option), MS, and MANY other online transactions.  The only problem I have ever had with them was self induced when I added another email address.  I had a chunk of money Paypal'd to that new address but it never showed up in my account.  I called the help line and within a few minutes they simply added that email to my account and BAM....there was my money.  Never any fees.  I am very happy with their functionality and customer service.  I wouldn't change because of their reliability and service levels.  Maybe it's different in other countries, but for me one less thing to worry about is a big benefit.

I have had it for a year or more.

I deleted some 800 shots there about a year ago, couldnt get on with it. In looking at the site now, it seems as if theres been lots of improvements, they seem to have better reviewers then earlier, etc, the site seems more user-friendly, etc.
Has there been improvement?  anybody?

What are your top concerns?

1. Sales? Haven't increased for me within the last year with continual uploads (300+) but have not decreased either. Could be my port or just the luck of the draw.
2. Review time? Better.
3. Acceptance? All over the place for me, 100% here 50% there and silly stuff (usually).
4. Navigation? Horrible. Nothing has changed here.

Just my experience, of course.

It is very confusing trying to follow the threads about sites that I don't use but am interested in.  When you are discussing Alamy in this thread is it about RF or RM sales?  Or, is this tread about both types of licenses?

Warren - you have both options. Basically if your RF images on MS are RF there.  RM will be anything else you may want to have there.

To be realistic, most of us microstockers, even the higher-enders, simply do not have the financial means to go after offenders.  There are so many threads about abuse but the pure, honest reality is that it takes way to much time and money to get to a remedy.  And then its frequency.  How many times are we willing to spend and consume time to fight it? If the agencies are unwilling to do it for us, then the fight is to live with it, or fight to pull your port.  It sucks either way.

Quote from: Mantis on May 26, 2012, 08:17

Quote from: drugal on May 26, 2012, 03:59

Photoshop helps remove watermark. Thieves!!! Ps must be banned immediately!! Oh wait there are other software, multiple new ones will coming out!!! These thieves are lined up against poor microstockers!! They must be banned!! Ban sofware!! This software is based on math thievery to alter watermark pixels. Ban math!!! Mathematicians are crooks!!! They should pay taxes to microstockers for learning a watermark altering science!!! ...and all this software can downloaded from teh internets! By people!!! An army of thieves hunting for my $0.3 picures!! Let's ban teh internets and the people!!! : ))

I'm sorry but most of you people are a sad joke. Head in the sand & pi%*ing against the wind at the same time, a real circus act. While talking about law and rights, you also managed to call just about everybody using the net -except you of course- a thief. Just wait till they take notice of that and get a lawyer to shove it down your throat.... rightly so.

So lets recap:

1. Most of us are a sad joke - but not you
2. Most of us have our heads in the sand - but not you
3. Most of us are pissing against the wind at the same time - but not you
4. Most of us are a real circus act - but not you
5. You can't wait until we have a legal remedy shoved down our throats - but you are pure as the driven snow.

Since water seeks its own level, why are you even here? This seems to be your modus operandi in nearly every post you make. You are not constructive, everyone is always wrong and you are always right and you like to belittle members instead of constructively disagreeing with them and sharing a well crafted response.  Immature is all I can say.

"everyone is always wrong and you are always right"

thats the pot calling the kettle black. you are not everyone. you are handfull of confused ppl... who think everyone else is wrong, while you'r pure... dude you just described yourself. There are at least 4 lengthy threads of useless whining showing exactly that attitude...  Starting make yourselves look not just a fool, but more like crazy self-righteous cult libeling everybody else. Snap out of it.

If you don't like it leave.  Your kind response says a lot about you,  It's quite funny.