I've seen all the Dreamstime bashing here.  I suspect that it depends on what types of photos people produce.   Many stock photographers focus on generic model released scenes of the type that is good for commercial advertising. 

I find that for travel and editorial shots Dreamstime is pretty good.   Dreamstime was one of the first to accept editorial shots, and in my opinion is still the best.  They are easy to upload, and unlike other sites don't force you to jump through hoops to caption editorial shots.  They are also much more liberal in accepting just about any editorial shot, including interiors, for which many other sites insist that releases are needed even for editorial use.

I discovered that the problem of no updating of the statistics is an issue in Firefox.  Looking at the same page in Chrome, I do see statistics for September, but sales are awful, worst half month ever.  (123rf, which is usually my worst, has triple the revenue with a much smaller portfolio).  DT has occasionally fluctuated before, but has never fallen off a cliff quite as badly as this.

4 (four) days ago I submitted 20 images to DT.
They just got reviewed (and accepted) today!

Normally I wait about 2 1/2 weeks, but this, I can't explain.
My world is spinning!

Now, if I could just earn half as much as I do from SS, I'd be ecstatic!

I have always found it odd that they take so long to review, as they have the highest acceptance rate of any of the big four.  They are not very particular, and almost everything gets accepted, so you would think it should not take them so long to review.  Unfortunately, their sales (never great) just keep going down and down.   

I regularly get annoying "four years without sales" e-mails from them.  Why do they bother?  It's more their fault than mine, as some of the ones that have had no sales on Dreamstime have had numerous sales on other sites.

I like them so I have continued to upload, but now I am having second thoughts about whether it is worth the trouble.

Quote from: Danybot on April 23, 2014, 15:11

  In most countries, the owner of the house has no right to prevent somebody from taking a photo of his house from the public street. ...

... for personal use, or to sell as editorial, just the same as shooting a person for editorial.
Commercial use is different for people, and in some countries, e.g. the UK, for property:
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/02/12/is-it-legal-to-take-pictures-of-buildings-photography-law-questions-answered-by-experts

If there is no copyright, it generally does not make a difference whether you use it commercially or not.  In the UK, it appears that there is a voluntary advertising standards council that has a policy of discouraging advertisers from using such photos.  That is a concession to the overly sensitive, but it is unlikely to be a legal requirement.  Stock photos are always de-identified, with house numbers etc. removed.  Most houses are not very unique, and for many of the photos being removed by Istock, their owners would not be able to swear that it is their own house as opposed to a similar one a thousand miles away. 

In any event, it is up to the user to know what they are using the photo for and whether that use is legal where they are using it.  I sell hundreds of photos of "personal residences" on microstock sites every year.  Presumably, if there was a major legal risk in using them, people would have gotten wind of it, and stopped buying long before now.   

Removing a photo just because it is of a "personal residence," which Istock is doing, is a downright silly reason.  However, as somebody else pointed out, it is probably a good thing, as buyers who want these will have to migrate to other stock sites, and virtually all of them pay a higher commission to the photographer than Istock.

For me, everything has been pretty normal except DT, which has fallen off a cliff in March.  Total sales are about one quarter of normal, my worst month since 2007, when I had only 300 images on-line (now about 1500).    There is obviously something strange going on at DT, and it would be incumbent on management to make some clarification about it.

Very old thread btw

Out of curiousity just did a quick check.  I've had 3 rejections in the last year.  1 was well deserved and the other 2 are almost random like I was "due" a rejection (they were better than many accepted).  Subjectively, they have the best reviewers.  Objectively, I would expect good reviewers to reject the weaker and accept the better images and 3 of the top 4 fail by that yardstick.

It seems to depend very much on the type of photo you are unloading.   I just looked at Fotolia's "latest uploads" page.   About 90% of what's accepted is photos of attractive models, vectors, and manipulated composite images.   Only 10% are traditional still life/scenic photos.   It appears that Fotolia doesn't want a lot more of the latter types, and for them Fotolia's rejection rate is much higher than for other micro sites.   

Quote from: Danybot on May 13, 2012, 08:24

It depends on what you are shooting, from where.   It's private property if you step off the public street to take your photo.   I think it's well settled law that if you shoot private property from the public street, you can use the photo if it's an old building, which would apply to most of the buildings at Harvard.  (If it's a newer one with a unique design, the architect/owner can claim copyright in the design.)    If people want to enforce privacy against being photographed from the public street, they have to build a tall fence.

Isn't 'shot from public street' the rule for allowable editorial? That's certainly the case in the UK (though some micros err on the safe side even so). For commercial use, it's not 100% certain, but who wants to be the legal case for micro prices?

From the standard English reference book, Gray and Gray, Elements of Land Law, 4th edition, p. 229:  "It is no trespass to watch your neighbour's pursuits in his garden, as long as you do not enter his land, even if you use binoculars to improve your view... the onus has been cast on the aggrieved landowner to frustrate external visual access by raising his own boundary fence or other barrier."   

From the ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers:

"Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right � and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. "

Generally, the legal distinction between editorial and non-editorial is that you can use the photo editorially even if there is a copyrighted design in it.  Shutterstock, however, often imposes a stricter standard.  The photos sell for pennies, and they already have something like 20 million of them in stock.   As you pointed out, it's not worth their while taking a risk of a lawsuit, even if they are likely to win it.   

However, it is rather funny how inconsistent the rules are from site to site, and even from reviewer to reviewer at the same site.   At iStock, they are not fussy about buildings, but if you show the back of anybody's head in the photo, even if his mother wouldn't recognize him, it has to be editorial, while SS (quite sensibly) doesn't seem to worry about that.   

Hi All,

I'm only in my second month as a Shutterstock contributor, with just over 100 files on-line at this point.   I'm fairly impressed with the rapid pace of sales so far.  If that could be extrapolated to a larger portfolio, it would make my income per photo at SS more than double what it is at iStock, where I have been contributing for a few years, and have a large portfolio.   That seems out of keeping with the 100/67 ratio shown in the poll at the side here.   

I'm curious, however.   Is there something that streams newly accepted photos to customers, so that the download rate is more rapid when they are new? 

Oddly, some photos that are among my most popular at iStock have hardly sold at SS, whereas a couple that haven't sold at iStock are among my most popular at SS.

As a matter of fact, I also don't have any RF at Alamy.   The one to which I was referring was an RM "novel use" sale.  (I just checked, and it turns out, it wasn't $1.50, but $1.25.)   In the past several months, most sales have been novel use ones in the $4 to $10 range, all RM photos.   In 2010, I did have a couple of individual sales over $200, but in the past 12 months only one over $100.  For me at least Alamy has been going downhill fast, and I have stopped uploading to them.  

People are always comparing RF to RM and how much sold and values and all that, but it's the same thing. Photos of WHAT and how unique are they?

Alamy will never be micro style, I hope not, and what you wrote about sales, is generally true, the volume isn't there. The buyers are different. The needs and demands and content are different.

The line from the commercial with the investment kid covers it. Very funny: "You have the same chances of that happening as being attacked by a polar bear and a grizzle bear, in the same day."

Yes, someone sold a license for six figures, however... your results may vary. I might average $80 a download and someone else with common RF images, identical to what they sell on 50 other sites, may average $1.50 a download. It's not all about averages or hypothetical numbers as much as it is the content that we are selling. Also what I have on Alamy is one of a kind, moment in time material, that in some cases, no one else will ever have. In others, there will be similar images, also just as unique, but from other people. Nothing is staged or ever going to happen again. Editorial News shots.

That what I chose to shoot. To each our own.

I don't know much German, but generally I've been able to figure out what they are about.

looka t the good side ,it can only get better (hope?)

I'm not sure about that.  Just because it's already very bad, doesn't mean it won't get worse.   I have a portfolio of over 1500 on Istock, and 500 on 123RF.   My revenue so far in February on 123RF is $34, beating my revenue from Istock, which is a miserable $33.   That's about one-third of what I made this time last year on Istock.  Buyers have probably realized that Istock is very overpriced.   On 123RF, I get a 50% commission, so buyers have paid $68.   On Istock, I get a 16% commission, so buyers have paid $206 for about the same number of photos.  I've completely stopped uploading to Istock, and eventually will have my entire portfolio there duplicated on other sites.  Gradually, their selection will become relatively poorer, and buyers will have even less reason to go there.   Their attempt at making a huge profit margin is just not economically viable.   If they attempt to cut their prices to make themselves competitive, and still pay me only a 16% commission, I will just delete all my photos from there.   Why should I sell my photos for a dime on Istock, if I can always get 35 cents at Dreamstime or 123RF?

The only way Istock can remain viable is to cut their margin, and I'm not sure they have the foresight to do that.

Thanks guys.   I'm going to make all my photos that get any sales there Photo+. 

Probably not a good idea to max your quota.  Photo+ means the buyer is charged a higher price for the photo.   Your commission rate stays the same, and you only get paid more because the buyer is paying more.   So you should only increase the price on those photos that you think are sufficiently attractive/unique that they will continue to sell at double the price.  It's called elasticity of demand.