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Messages - H2O
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51
« on: October 28, 2021, 09:42 »
As soon as you get shareholders involved in any company where the business model is a co-operative model, you can kiss goodbye to being paid fairly.
I know Shutterstock was never set up as this model, but in effect, that's what it is and this is the same across the microstock market.
The reality is, they along with Getty/iStock, 123RF, DepsitPhotos have all operated this model, they are like 18th Century Mill Owners in the UK, once they had bought production in house, they consistently cut the wages of the employees, until they were dirt poor, while they lived in wacking great mansions.
Even when they went on strike these were broken up by the local militias; and no unions, in many ways this is very similar to today, except they use regressive imposed at will contracts.
The avarice of those who believe they are clever running these companies to the detriment of the artists is something that should be legislated against.
I'm not sure how this should be done, to make it fair across the board, but it does seem to me that the shareholder model is severely broken.
The other problem is of course that the size of the microstock market flies under the radar for most Governments, it's the large Tech Companies that draw all the attention, and lets face it most of these companies working practices are appalling and in some cases slave labour.
Personally, I believe that Shutterstock along with Getty in the long run are finished, talent always votes with it's feet.
52
« on: October 25, 2021, 07:24 »
Just tried to go over to the Forum to see what was happening and it appears to have disappeared.
Is anyone else having this problem.
53
« on: October 11, 2021, 09:59 »
Shutterstock are nothing more than a bunch of crooks, having spent over 10 years uploading to them, keyboarding and all the effort that I have put into my Port on this site, I'm reluctant to disable my work.
So I have decided to just let it sit there, but I haven't uploaded anything new since the commission cuts last year.
I suspect that many other contributors will have done exactly the same thing.
Personally, I'm still uploading to Adobe, but I'm also moving into other areas to sell my work.
The reality in my opinion is Shutterstock will slowly die, a great shame really.
They are a classic example of greed over good.
54
« on: September 06, 2021, 06:45 »
Same as 'ForReal' said - site is running well here as contributor and customer.
But the sales are down by more than 50% since August for me...
WHY ARE YOU BUYING from these dreadful people.
55
« on: September 06, 2021, 06:43 »
Can only be good news if Shutterstock are down, buyers will go elsewhere.
56
« on: June 16, 2021, 12:51 »
The question was "...when do you think the pendulum will swing back." and who works for who. NOT producing art or high value art. Please follow? Because of technology, the methods of marketing and distribution of Music, photography and many other artists works, are now global, via Internet, electronically, not through, shipping or mail, for physical products.
The pendulum will never swing back. And what I said was, we work for ourselves, not the agency and the agency doesn't work for us. We are independent producers. We must find the way to be seen and to market our work. Some do that on their own, some with large representative agents and some on Microstock.
I think the pendulum will never swing back in our favour because the markets already "corrected" themselves years ago.
There's not a single reason for a product like Stock that anyone can cheaply produce in big quantity to become expensive.
In order to return being expensive you need scarcity, and that's why i mentioned FineArt, while there are millions of stockers there are not millions of photographers able to make FineArt, at best they can make Creative images but not Art, big difference.
In any case even doing Art you won't have the same audience as microstock and neither the same quick sales.
There are still many ways to get your images seen around but it won't happen with common microstock images, it can only happen with creative non-stocky photos.
Most of the microstockers will give up, sell their gear, and keep photography as a hobby shooting with their phone.
I agree with this scenario and this can be seen to be happening at the moment. I think Art is the way forward and this requires quality, which a great many Microstockers are going to fine difficult if not impossible to do. Personally this is the way I have been moving in recent years, the treadmill of the agencies is finished, though on saying this I suspect that some of the agencies will move, and have moved into high end quality photography and graphics. I think Adobe is one of these agencies, obviously SS and Getty/istock are bottom feeders and in the long run finished.
57
« on: June 16, 2021, 08:57 »
Having read all the above comments, it really seems that no one has the answer to when things will change for the better.
With people quoting the 'desperate artists of the past' syndrome, along with the want to be famous thinking.
Who said anything about these afflictions.
We live in the 21st Century modern technology, and Democracies that should deliver for people, not be used to repress them.
Personally, I am of the firm view that legislation should be used to hand power to all artists and gig economy workers.
How to do this fairly should be a major consideration; excessive profit or rewriting contracts in favour of one party or another should be sorted out.
Along with removing shareholders from the 'business model' if they are not the original investors, like when you have a business that can be plainly shown to have grown organically, by the input of the artists.
I'm sure there are plenty of other points to moving forward with modern technology to reward people fairly.
At the end of the day, no one likes to be taken advantage of, and lets face it the Stock Agencies are mostly operating a divide and rule strategy, that goes back to the start of the Industrial Revolution nearly three hundred years ago.
The only way through history to counter this is the rule of law.
58
« on: June 14, 2021, 06:22 »
I was watching Noel Gallagher on a chat show recently and he was saying that back in the 90s when Oasis made it big, the record company worked for them, but now with the new bands and streaming services it is the other way around.
Really the whole gig economy that has arisen in the last 15 years has flipped work on its head, and the returns in the creative industries have been stolen by a small minority.
My question would be, when do you think the pendulum will swing back.
What could be the catalyst for this?
59
« on: May 18, 2021, 07:03 »
Commission cuts always follow when a company gets shareholders.
Their next move will of course be more commission cuts.
60
« on: May 03, 2021, 05:31 »
The European Commission said the tech giant was in breach of its rules by charging high commission fees in its App Store.
Could this be the thin end of the wedge, and help the Microstock creative sector fight back against the likes of Shutterstock and Getty.
61
« on: April 14, 2021, 09:10 »
I never had an issue, they always pay.
62
« on: April 02, 2021, 05:21 »
This idea that the NHS is 'free' is complete and utter rubbish. It is paid for from National Insurance Contributions. Every worker has 11% deducted from salary in addition to income taxes. Employers pay extra. Yes, part of this money goes towards other benefits such as unemployment, national pensions etc. But a large part is to pay for the NHS.
Imagine someone earning a reasonable 50,000 per annum. They pay 5500 a year in National Insurance. A typical person works 40 years, so that's 220000 over a working life not adjusting for inflation etc.
Now imagine if that money was instead invested in an annual investment plan. Even at a modest 5% a year that money would grow to somewhere near to 1,000,000 - easily enough money for retirement and health.
What would you rather have - free NHS and a small Government pension, or one million pounds in the bank?
Again lets look at the actual facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
Look a the bar chart of "Total health expenditure per capita in US dollars"
This one is actually mind boggling. People in the US actually pay more in taxes towards their health care than people in the UK, then have to pay insurance on TOP. It is absolutely insane how corrupt health care has become in the US.
Also national insurance is mainly for State Pensions and Benefits. 80-90% NHS funding comes from general taxation https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/how-nhs-funded. And also not 12% and someone on 50000 would pay 4851 but now we are getting into the weeds on a post that has no foundation (for the other reasons stated)
You are right Justanotherphotographer, this person Tenebroso is out there on the far side of reality, he obviously represents part of the warped American thinking were they don't believe in facts.
63
« on: April 01, 2021, 10:09 »
This idea that the NHS is 'free' is complete and utter rubbish. It is paid for from National Insurance Contributions. Every worker has 11% deducted from salary in addition to income taxes. Employers pay extra. Yes, part of this money goes towards other benefits such as unemployment, national pensions etc. But a large part is to pay for the NHS.
Imagine someone earning a reasonable 50,000 per annum. They pay 5500 a year in National Insurance. A typical person works 40 years, so that's 220000 over a working life not adjusting for inflation etc.
Now imagine if that money was instead invested in an annual investment plan. Even at a modest 5% a year that money would grow to somewhere near to 1,000,000 - easily enough money for retirement and health.
What would you rather have - free NHS and a small Government pension, or one million pounds in the bank?
Or a crippling disease or illness where you are so destitute you can't afford painkillers. Your perspective on the NHS is more about money you may have as opposed to health.
64
« on: April 01, 2021, 10:05 »
Horrible month. I had to cancel my "affordable" health care coverage (bronze @$400 a month).
The economy is going so well but this year has been just awful for me. I never thought I would have to cancel my health insurance.
Fortunately over here in the UK we have the NHS, I can never understand why the richest Country on the Planet you have to have all these separate insurance policies at different levels. In Germany, France . . etc, they have a integrated healthcare system part insurance, part state and no one drops through the net. America just doesn't seem to care about the ability of it's population to work efficiently, effectively and happily.
65
« on: March 22, 2021, 10:20 »
This is really just a thought, all these moves by Oringer smack of cashing in, shareholders, commission cuts and really now he has shown his hand, I don't expect these commission cut to release as much cash as he wants.
So what are the alternatives for him?
Shutterstock are in a very healthy financial position despite any wishful thinking otherwise. A more plausable question would be "What are Shutterstock going to acquire next"? They have liquid assets of over $400m.
The company has plenty of cash. The hateful thinking who ignore the facts, wishful but distorted thinking, the company is doing just fine. People, many others besides Stan and Jon have been selling big blocks of stock. Easily documented for months and months because it has to be reported. Jon has millions if not a billion, he doesn't need to care. Stan gets his bonus shares from cutting our commissions, he's worth millions. He doesn't care.
Shutterstock is not failing or losing money. When the earnings from our loss, start to level off, the stock will drop down again. But by then, the people riding the wave, have sold millions of dollars of their shares for double what they paid or double the value when they were awarded them as compensation.
Here's part of who owns SSTK https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/stockdetails/ownership/fi-a23mec
and https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/stockdetails/ownership/nys-sstk/fi-a23mec?ownershipType=institutional
66% is owned by institutional entities. Jon used to own 55% himself.
"Jon Oringer (Shutterstocks Founder, Executive Chairman of the Board and largest stockholder) is selling 2,064,000 shares of common stock in this offering." August 2020. @ $48.50 a share. In very round numbers $1,000,000,000 of his shares were sold and he put that money into the bank or whatever else. Buying his new home for $42 million is nothing. He could pay cash for it, and still have $950,000,000 left!
@H2O how much cash do you think he needs or wants? I don't see any financial problems for Jon at all. 
"I don't expect these commission cut to release as much cash as he wants."
Just a later thought... will Shutterstock buy iStock? Getty is a different business.
Well you have a point, maybe it was wishful thinking, but wishing never did any harm, though in this case I wish it would. If it was the other way around with Getty being bought by SS, then all the scumbags would be in one basket as I am sure they would combine all the websites into one go to place for ripping artists off.
66
« on: March 22, 2021, 07:00 »
This is really just a thought, all these moves by Oringer smack of cashing in, shareholders, commission cuts and really now he has shown his hand, I don't expect these commission cut to release as much cash as he wants.
So what are the alternatives for him?
67
« on: March 16, 2021, 06:38 »
Just been looking at the Forum on Shutterstock, it's full of, if's and maybe's, all trying to figure out why some have been paid a few cents for a On Demand images and the difference between subscription prices.
There is a lot of anger over there, with some of them sending emails to SS, getting rubbish replies, if they reply at all, etc. . .
Basically it just comes down to robbery by Jon Oringer and his side kick Stan Pavlovsky, this is what happens when you have a unregulated Capitalist market; down the ages most business owners have exploited there work force, first offering a decent remuneration and then as the years go on, once they have cornered the market, offering slave wages.
This is apart from the striking, unethical and immoral position that this puts Oringer in, a man of no conscience, which many business leaders and politicians seem to sympathies with.
To compete against the likes of China and other totalitarian regimes, Capitalism would be advised to move on from this model of business.
We basically need a new enlightenment.
68
« on: March 11, 2021, 08:28 »
Well done a lot of hard work.
Shame the site has been trashed in the name of greed.
69
« on: March 11, 2021, 08:25 »
They owe me $45 for at least two years, and the site has vanished.
70
« on: March 02, 2021, 11:57 »
Well done.
Jon Oringer is nothing more than low life scum as we say in the UK.
71
« on: March 02, 2021, 08:24 »
Its funny that Justanotherphotographer had written this as I was just looking to close my account after 10 years, Im still dithering as to whether to do this, or just let it sit there.
I have always had a payout from them every month, except from the beginning of this year.
I wrote them a email in the middle of Feb asking why they had refunded a download from 2017, I have had no reply.
In the past, this is about 5 or 6 years ago, I had numerous vector logos that I had designed that sold really well, one of them selling 4 or 5 times a week, then out of the blue they deleted all contributor logos, replacing them with designs they owned, these where absolute rubbish; they had commissioned the production of a massive collection of childlike logos, pages and pages of them.
After about a year they allowed the contributors to re-upload their logos again, I strongly suspect that their logos didnt sell, but in doing this with their greed, they had killed that market and reloading all my previous logos these dont sell very much.
I get more refunds on them then any other site, and I believe that these are not so much refunds but a fraud, they are basically taking our cash and using the refunds as a cover story.
They have also continued to cut the commissions on several occasions in the last couple of years.
Im not sure if I want my Portfolio on a site run by crooks.
72
« on: February 25, 2021, 08:11 »
Over the years I have had hundreds of these Lifetime Rights requests, at first I priced it fairly, no sale, then I dropped the price lower, which I still thought would be more than reasonable, no sale, I have also tried the suggested price on many occasions, no sale.
Then I put in a really high price for a while, no sale.
These days I always put in the maximum, no sale of course, I think the people asking for the rights only won't to pay a very low price like $10.
Of course if you have the image on multiple sites and it sells you have all the trouble of going through them all and deleting it, this could take quit a while if you also have to request this with sites like istock.
73
« on: February 25, 2021, 08:01 »
I stopped uploading ANYthing on SS since their commission robbery.
Now I don't sell more videos and I have a lot of $0,87 or $3,.. sales, and almost even no extended licenses anymore for vectors
I don't know if it's kind of a coincidence but I take it as if : very massive sales on P5 this month and last night amongst many 28 and sometimes 70 sales, 4x 175 on Adobe Stock! Farewell SS
I have done exactly the same thing, except I sell only Vectors and Photo's and sales have gone up on Adobe Stock. SS sales are not only down, but of course so is the commission, last month was the first time in nine years that I didn't receive a payout.
74
« on: February 23, 2021, 09:58 »
Meanwhile for many of us, P5 although it pays a lot more sells far fewer videos than AS or SS.
Looking at last year, SS video made me roughly 5x what P5 did for the same video clips.
Every single month P5 yields many hundreds of dollars less income than th are e same content did on SS due to the bigger volume.
This year so far SS is a little below P5 but AS is 3x that.
Im not going to stop uploading to SS and lost potentially 5x the money that P5 brings in for the same thing.
If that equation changes (and last month hinted it might) then i'll reconsider but it seems somewhat stupid to give up a large chunk of income, based entirely on principle with no means of recouping it elsewhere.
This may seem like a good idea, in reality it is just short term thinking, SS are finished, it is just a matter of time, if you want to be undervalued and basically compete against yourself then carry on, but you are unfortunately wasting your time, and I mean this literally. If you stop uploading your sales will gradually decrease, this is the way forward and out of the clutches of SS.
75
« on: February 21, 2021, 16:57 »
this is as wrong as Sean is wrong in naming the user H2O by the wrong name.
Did I? They ( or their twin ) is posting the exact same thing on FB including the same wording about retroactive.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/stockcoalition/permalink/444978646740060/
I am NOT that person, you are just wrong, I'm not even sure why you would say such a thing. Sure this Nikola has posted something similar, other people are allowed to have the same thoughts, indeed one can often see virtually the same photo on Microstock sites.
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