Quote from: Pixart on April 07, 2010, 23:51
Are we going to collectively do anything about this?

Actions speak louder than words. The only way they are going to take notice is if the majority of contributors stop uploading (or remove their portfolios) in protest.

Quote from: RT on February 24, 2010, 19:38
I don't but with good reason, I've never held the belief that categories serve any useful purpose other than assisting the sites own administration, now as much as I love BigStock (Dawn and Tim have always been very straight speaking and helpful, and the reviewers very fair) they don't have the volume of sales to justify me spending the time correcting what the site clearly doesn't see as important itself, because if they did think it was important they'd sort it out.

Perhaps you aren't getting the sales volume at BigStock because your images aren't categorized correctly. There are plenty of people that do very well there.

I am - I guess I'm just paranoid about someone thinking I'm spamming my content into categories that don't match the theme of the image.

Yeah, I'm bummed too. StockXpert was good to me, and I hate to see it go.

Unfortunately, I think BigStockPhoto is next. 

Call me a pessimist, but I think microstock is drying up for individual contributors. The agencies are laughing all the way to the bank, as the microstock market is (and will be) very strong for years to come. The problem is that there is just too darn much competition between the contributors, and our individual slice of the pie is getting smaller and smaller each day.

Think about what Shutterstock is doing at the moment: 100,000 new images every week! Five years from now, my individual portfolio will have increased by 5000 to 7000 images. But the large agencies are growing at a substantially much higher rate and it will be very difficult for individual contributors to get noticed in a sea of millions and millions of images.

I'm not betting the farm on microstock, and I'm already working on other projects which I think will give me a higher return on my investment years down the road.

Congrats. I never got along with the crew at Fotolia - their management style is very abrasive, and I'm surprised they have lasted this long running their business the way they do.

Quote from: helix7 on February 07, 2010, 00:09
But for now, I'm keeping my distance from ThinkStock.

Me too. The more I look into this, the less comfortable I am with it. I will not be supporting thinkstock.

I'm going to hold out for a few more days to see what happens (I'm still a little confused by all this), but I am pretty sure that I do not want my images on thinkstock. $.25 per image is a slap in the face for the amount of time I put into my images, and I'd rather focus my efforts on something more worthwhile.

Quote from: sjlocke on December 02, 2009, 00:48
You can get that notice weeks or months later.  They are supposed to show a certificate of destruction that they removed the file from their system.

Just curious - how does one provide proof that they deleted it? And wouldn't it be easy to transfer it to another computer before deleting it?

Quote from: lisafx on October 09, 2009, 23:48


Must be a search engine change.  My sales there have dropped like a rock this month. 

Seriously, they are back to sales levels from two years or more ago for me (when my portfolio was half the current size). 

Me too. Sales have just suddenly fallen off the map at SS for my portfolio, but there have been a few good days in the last week or so. But I agree - something has changed.

Quote from: PedroV on September 08, 2009, 20:27

Quote from: Norebbo on September 07, 2009, 00:44
I was kicked out of Fotolia last year, but they eventually paid my balance. It took a couple months, but they did pay.

What did happen to you to be kicked???

Apparently someone was buying my images with a stolen credit card, so they deemed me to be "high risk" and closed my account. Fotolia doesn't mess around with credit card fraud - and the sad thing is that anyone who uploads to Fotolia is at risk of having their account removed if there is any suspicious activity (through no fault of their own).

I was kicked out of Fotolia last year, but they eventually paid my balance. It took a couple months, but they did pay.

Still uploading, but doing it reluctantly. I like StockXpert, but I just have a bad feeling that we are all going to wake up one day soon to find that Getty has pulled the plug.

From a business perspective, I find this rather fascinating. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the Getty conference rooms when they are discussing their strategy for StockXpert. I just can't understand why they would want to keep it.

This whole thing reminds me of the American Airlines buyout of TWA some years back. AA swore up and down that they would keep TWA employess (and the St. Louis hub) intact, but...it didn't quite work out that way. Ultimately, they got what they wanted from TWA - some routes, planes, and a few employees - but they were very quick to eliminate what they didn't need or want.

Anyway, all we can do is sit and wait...

Perry, that chart actually looks pretty normal to me. I've been with DT since early '06, and your chart is showing a familiar pattern: the first half of a year (especially March and April) is usually strong, the summer is usually weak, and the last quarter is slightly up to flat.

It's just the nature of the business. I wouldn't worry about it.

Quote from: Perseus on June 11, 2009, 17:21

I would say yes (your quote- Fotolia doesn't want my portfolio). It's very difficult to withdraw the damage done once you 've BURNT YOUR BRIDGES.

True, I don't deny that. Maybe it was a mistake to rejoin Fotolia for the second time. I'm sure this thread isn't doing good things for the possibility of getting my account back online there  , but I do find it a bit discouraging how things have played out (for myself and others who are in the same situation).

Oh well. Water under the (burnt) bridge. Perhaps forgetting this whole issue (and FT in general) would do good things for my blood pressure... 

I'm done.

Quote from: gostwyck on June 11, 2009, 16:42

Quote from: Norebbo on June 11, 2009, 16:04
A stream of emails to Fotolia (tech support and management) have gone unanswered.

I really don't know what to make of these stories without hearing the other side of things. It hardly makes sense that any agency would simply ban individuals without good reason __ after all they are trousering 60%+ of the sales revenue and they would just be encouraging exclusivity with their biggest rival.

Agreed. There are two sides to every story. Unfortunately, Fotolia refuses to tell me what their side is. I honestly have no idea, and it's been a month since I've been banned.

I guess I just have to accept the fact that Fotolia doesn't want my portfolio. 

Quote from: tan510jomast on June 11, 2009, 16:35

I suggest you be patient and write them instead of using the forum . It's not only more businesslike, it's just plain common sense

I have been trying to contact them for about a month on this issue. Unfortunately, they refuse to acknowledge me (and others in the same situation, apparently).

I am not calling anyone out here - I was just hoping there is someone here from Fotolia who can give me some insight as to what is going on, that's all.

oops. double post.

Quote from: puravida on June 11, 2009, 16:15
My only guess, and I repeat.. it's my guess, is probably how you handled your communications with Support and Fotolia in general.
Through my experience with Fotolia, they (Support) have been very communicative with me. I have not got the "runaround" that you mentioned,etc..
Perharps, it was how you handled this case, ie. putting it here and / or in other forum,etc.. that brought up the bad blood between you and Fotolia.

Other than that, I cannot really GUESS why Fotolia would want to "screw" you, or anyone else, for that matters.

Possibly. I didn't make any threats or anything (lol!), but I was initially upset. All follow up correspondence has been business professional, but they refuse to acknowledge me. It's a shame, really. If they choose to ban a contributor, that's fine. But it would seem logical that they would offer some sort of explanation.

I really think I am on their "blacklist" for whatever reason. But I can't fix the "problem" if they don't tell me what that problem is.

Long story short: I joined Fotolia last year. Someone purchased a handful of my images with a stolen credit card, and I was banned. If that is the way they decide to run their business, fine. Took a long time to get my balance from them, but they paid up eventually. Just last month, they agreed to let me rejoin. I started uploading images, and within 4 days, I was banned again with no explanation. A stream of emails to Fotolia (tech support and management) have gone unanswered.

And now I am reading that others are going through the same thing (most recently, michey).

Is there anybody from Fotolia reading these forums that can help us out??

Quote from: volk65 on June 11, 2009, 15:19

They just deleted one of my photos without any understandable reason, and took back 1 year of earnings from that photo. They didn't even care to give an explanation.

This is what drives me completely insane with Fotolia. They usually take drastic action to simple problems, and then refuse to give an explanation of the situation. I've personally been in that situation with them twice. It's maddening.

Quote from: lisafx on June 08, 2009, 18:21
I do upload constantly there and still sales are dropping like a rock.  I think they have been gradually losing their (small to start with) market share.   

It is barely worth bothering with them anymore.    If their upload system weren't extremely easy I would have cut them lose.   

Agreed. I don't know what has happened, but I've never seen such a drastic drop in sales in such a short period of time. But uploading there is extremely easy, so I'll continue on for now.

Quote from: loop on June 05, 2009, 16:01

Quote from: Norebbo on June 05, 2009, 15:45

Quote from: leaf on June 05, 2009, 06:48


iStock however, takes the hit themselves.

Nope - I was given notice of a refund by iStock yesterday. Luckily, it was small (only a couple dollars).

Nope. Refunds at istock don't are related at CC frauds, nor to past sales of deactivated files for copyrigth reasons --we would had known that when they decided to deactivate hundreds of "luxury cars" images-- but to files being returned right after being bought; normally because of mistakes of the buyers when downloading (wrong size, dowloading several times the same file etc). And for me it's a very different matter and it's ok.

Oops - yes, you are correct. I just went and looked at the refund message, and it was indeed refunded because of a size error. Not that it makes me feel any better though, because how do you "return" a digital item? Does anyone really think that the buyer actually deletes the large file when they repurchase a small one?? Hardly.

Oh well.

Quote from: leaf on June 05, 2009, 06:48


iStock however, takes the hit themselves.

Nope - I was given notice of a refund by iStock yesterday. Luckily, it was small (only a couple dollars).

Well, this goes to show you: for every person who deletes their portfolio and never uploads again, there are an unlimited supply of new contributors to come in and fill the void.

This is what is going to end up killing the micro business, IMHO. The agencies know that they have incredible power, and they will be able to do what they want without much fear of reduced uploads from contributors.