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Messages - sharpshot
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526
« on: August 02, 2016, 04:53 »
Well, I just found out why my sales were down slightly for the month of July.
Found an infringer with over 100 pieces of my work on SS. It was some of his best sellers too. This guy literally took my work, changed some colors and re-uploaded them. Just unbelievable. Who'd thought that one of my competitors would be... myself.
If your sales are down, I suggest you do a search for your best sellers with the exact same title. These guys are too lazy to do their own titles and keywords. They copy everything word for word because they can't do it themselves.
We need to be paid the money these people make. If SS just kick them off and pocket the money, what incentive do they have to stop this happening? It should be easy for SS to spot this, if they are using almost identical images with the same titles as the originals. Have you asked how much money this person made and when SS are going to pay you? Maybe they inform every buyer that they are using stolen images and need to buy the correct one but we are never told if that happens.
527
« on: August 01, 2016, 08:58 »
Two big single and other sales in the second half of the month transformed July. Was heading for my worst month in years but finished just short of July last year.
528
« on: August 01, 2016, 03:06 »
Would they really try and cut commissions again? It has worked out so badly and now it would probably kill them. Most of us don't need istock now and I doubt people that are willing to upload for less than 15% are going to give them high quality images.
Perhaps they are doing this to stop exclusives deleting images when they scrap exclusivity?
529
« on: July 30, 2016, 05:37 »
This much - actual rpi in blue, flattened trend in 6 month blocks in red
Did something big/bad happen in November/December 2012? I was on a couple of sites back then, but not iStock.
The bad thing happened in 2006 when Getty bought istock. It took them a couple of years to start ruining istock but since 2008, it has been one bad thing after another. No idea what happened in 2012, I had gone past caring by then.
530
« on: July 28, 2016, 12:39 »
If these photos were uploaded by contributors, wont the sites just blame it on them and wont they end up being sued?
i am not sure what you refer to... as i do not see the comment you're answering to,
but if you are talking about the loophole
like those sites providing contributors to porn ..or youtube,etc..with those waivers (we are not responsible
for any copyright infringement, we are just the provider),
yes, that would be a point the defense will be using, for sure!
all in all, be interesting to follow-up on her case.
I think its a bit more than a loophole. The Alamy contributor agreement clearly states that the contributor has to be the copyright holder or have the copyright holders agreement. That's why I never understand people that think its OK to upload photos that are still in copyright that they don't have the copyright holders permission to sell. What would happen if the US government thought this would be a good way to get some extra funding for NASA? Might not be likely but if Donald Trump becomes president, who knows 
531
« on: July 28, 2016, 11:54 »
If these photos were uploaded by contributors, wont the sites just blame it on them and wont they end up being sued?
Will the sites now remove all the public domain images they have? That will be a lot of images.
Shame to see Alamy involved, I don't care about Getty but it wouldn't be good if Alamy get in a long legal battle.
532
« on: July 28, 2016, 02:03 »
I wonder how many people have paid Getty for images that are in the public domain over the years? The other sites have them as well, like the NASA images. If this case is won, I wonder if people will start asking for their money back? I've never sold unaltered public domain images, it never seemed right. I don't mind if people totally transform a NASA photo but if it's almost the same as the free photo, I don't see why people should be paying for it.
533
« on: July 26, 2016, 16:40 »
It isn't difficult to average a lot more than 28 cents a download with SS. For many years, earnings were good there. I have no problem selling for low prices if there is high volume. Some images are ideal for low cost high sales volume and others are ideal for high cost low sales volume.
534
« on: July 26, 2016, 16:09 »
going macro makes a lot of sense.
And going micro never made sense.
Funny how one of the largest advocates of micro and "test" shots for pennies is now suggesting macros makes sense.
Funny how you can't see that micro made a lot of sense at one time and still does for a lot of people, especially for those of us that couldn't get in to macro. I know the argument is that selling for pennies ruined the market but you can't stop the inevitable.
What you say is true if you really want to believe it. In my books micro never made sense, but yes now we have the inevitable where you can't get out of microstock. Why couldn't you get into macro? Oh hang on, I keep forgetting it was a closed shop. Albeit a closed shop that opened up based on merit.
Typical, I don't know why people that were accepted in to the macro sites think they are so special? I think it was more luck than anything else. You just happened to have what they wanted at the right time. Lots of people were very good but got nothing but rejection letters. The macro sites caused their own downfall by not adapting to the internet and the digital camera era. Now, years later, we still get these ridiculous condescending comments from people that really have no idea what they are talking about.
Tell me all about rejection letters, I tried several times to get into the macros, the third time lucky. From first time to third time was a span of a few years. I simply upped my game through experience. You want to call that thinking I am so special and condescending, go for it. I worked my way up and it felt really good.
Lots of macro contributors couldn't pass the initial SS review until they lowered the standard. Having seen the standard of many macro contributors, I still have no idea how they chose who should be accepted and who got the rejection letters.
535
« on: July 26, 2016, 06:12 »
going macro makes a lot of sense.
And going micro never made sense.
Funny how one of the largest advocates of micro and "test" shots for pennies is now suggesting macros makes sense.
Funny how you can't see that micro made a lot of sense at one time and still does for a lot of people, especially for those of us that couldn't get in to macro. I know the argument is that selling for pennies ruined the market but you can't stop the inevitable.
What you say is true if you really want to believe it. In my books micro never made sense, but yes now we have the inevitable where you can't get out of microstock. Why couldn't you get into macro? Oh hang on, I keep forgetting it was a closed shop. Albeit a closed shop that opened up based on merit.
Typical, I don't know why people that were accepted in to the macro sites think they are so special? I think it was more luck than anything else. You just happened to have what they wanted at the right time. Lots of people were very good but got nothing but rejection letters. The macro sites caused their own downfall by not adapting to the internet and the digital camera era. Now, years later, we still get these ridiculous condescending comments from people that really have no idea what they are talking about.
536
« on: July 25, 2016, 09:32 »
going macro makes a lot of sense.
And going micro never made sense.
Funny how one of the largest advocates of micro and "test" shots for pennies is now suggesting macros makes sense.
Funny how you can't see that micro made a lot of sense at one time and still does for a lot of people, especially for those of us that couldn't get in to macro. I know the argument is that selling for pennies ruined the market but you can't stop the inevitable.
537
« on: July 25, 2016, 02:14 »
As a musician, I know well things about copyright in music. You can be sued for copyright even for 6 notes, but only if those six notes represent some very recognizable phrase. Also, no one can sue you even if you copy entire harmony of a song, if this harmony is often used in similar songs. Country music, for example, have basically several harmonies, and if you record something with another type of harmony, it will not sound like country music. So, you have to use one of those several harmonies (maybe sometimes with slight variations) to make a country song and no one can sue you.
But, if you use something like these 6 notes in the beginning of Beethoven's 5th symphony:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhcR1ZS2hVo[/youtube]
Someone could sue you for sure...well Beethoven won't...that's for sure also 
But I think this is NOT the case with this map.
Beethoven must be out of copyright. Many pop songs copy classical music almost entirely. As a big ELO fan, I am pleased they copied Beethoven and Chuck Berry https://youtu.be/HgcKhqlFz4Q
538
« on: July 24, 2016, 12:58 »
I can see why people want to remove their portfolio from istock when going non-exclusive. Getting less than 20% is an insult. Not being able to remove images could cause problems. The amount of money you can make there as a non-exclusive isn't worth it. I don't regret removing all my best images and leaving them the dross. It motivated me to work harder with Alamy and they have replaced any earnings I lost from istock.
539
« on: July 24, 2016, 01:22 »
I still sell for higher prices with Alamy. They still sell for four figures and you get half. That might be very rare but it has never happened to me on a microstock site. Alamy have drastically lowered prices for web use but did they really have a choice? They do have to compete with microstock or have very few sales.
540
« on: July 24, 2016, 01:15 »
SS were great but I fear they are going the same way as istock in the long term. Since they lowered the standard to get in and started accepting almost everything, the number of images on the sites has gone crazy and its obviously going to be harder to make money with so much competition. I've lost motivation to upload to SS, I really hope they don't go the same way as istock but putting in many hours of work when the future isn't looking promising doesn't get me motivated.
541
« on: July 23, 2016, 15:36 »
Communism and a co-op are two very different things. There are lots of successful co-ops where the people running them earn more than the workers at the bottom but they don't have the problems that ruin many companies that have shareholders and are often controlled by people that don't really have anything but a financial interest in the business.
We can be in a capitalist society and have a successful co-op without having anything to do with communism. Is Stocksy a communist site? I don't know if we will ever have a successful site that is controlled by contributors but we don't have to become communists to do that.
542
« on: July 23, 2016, 03:33 »
Why is everything looked at in extremes? A stock agency run by photographers is not communism!
Dear god what's happened to the world?
I agree. I find unregulated capitalism just as frighting as communism. Does anyone really understand how a hedge fund can buy a debt ridden Getty, saddle it with more debt that they use to pay themselves then sell it on for a profit to another hedge fund? Does anyone think what happened in 2008 when the banks gambled away trillions but almost nobody was held to account was good? I still don't understand the size of national debt, budget deficits and personal debt around the capitalist nations. Most people don't worry about that but anything that is remotely nearer to communism scares them, even if it works very well.
543
« on: July 22, 2016, 12:39 »
Agency made by photographers? That is not a new idea. Ever heard of factories owned and run by workers? It is called communism.
I come from a post-communist country and all I can tell you from what I see around me every day is NO! Leave managing to managers. We decided to be photographers, illustrators, videographers, lets stick to that and do it well.
No, communism doesn't work because the government owns the factories. There are companies earned by their employees, not the government, in capitalist societies that do very well, like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_Partnership
544
« on: July 22, 2016, 12:30 »
yes pauws but ldv says its just basic economics, supply and demand
I don't know why people can't accept that it's obviously a change in the search. The same has happened with other sites when they changed their search. The only other logical explanation I can think of is that they have had a technical error recording sales and they would probably of told us about that by now. Some people don't get hit by a change in the search and some do better but a lot of us see a massive fall in sales and if this is like the way Fotolia did it, we are unlikely to see our earnings ever recover. It hurts much more than the slow decline from over supply that had been happening for years and is possible to cope with. If SS are now penalising contributors that have reached the higher tiers, it should be bad news for everyone, as eventually, others will reach the higher tiers and they will suffer the same fate.
545
« on: July 21, 2016, 03:13 »
I would rather have a level playing field, we all get the same amount per download and there's no bias in the search. When FT turned my downloads off, I lost all motivation with them. IF SS are doing the same thing, microstock will be dead to me. The only site I still have confidence in is Alamy. They will probably be bought by Getty the way things are going Hopefully SS will change the search again but I doubt it because things never seem to get better with sites when they start thinking about short term profits instead of a sustainable long term strategy.
546
« on: July 19, 2016, 01:58 »
If they lose enough exclusives, they might scrap exclusivity and give us all 20%. It would be a way to make it look like they were increasing their commission without costing much. It might make me consider uploading again but I doubt it.
547
« on: July 19, 2016, 01:53 »
I'm mostly a niche image-maker, and I've seen the same decrease as Rinder and others in this thread. Up until this month, the decrease in both downloads and money had been gradual, but something drastic has been going on in July. It's more than just the summer slowdown. I'm on track to have 50% less downloads than July 2015, and 25% less downloads than last month. My recent daily earnings are roughly the same as what Mantis has stated, quite a substantial decrease from my average. I've been doing this since 2006; long enough to see major trends.
Too many of us are observing the same patterns; something has changed independent of portfolio quality and time of year IMHO.
yet another person to testify.
i think this thread has run its course. the verdict is unanimous that while dls may or may not be up,
FACT -earnings is down by 50% or so for many,
FACT - single earnings 28 -102 dollars have vanished
regardless of quality of new images being uploaded
FACT - new images are not being dl because they are not being seen
in spite of the fact that based on the proliferation of factory and large numbers of poor composition
LCV images added daily
FACT- many experienced contributors port are falling off the cliff
finally, there is also a handful of denials coming from whoever they are
FACT- who insists "nothing is going wrong... i am doing really well"
but yet no one wants to provide rinder and his colleagues any definite proof that
they are in fact doing well.
so, perharps , they are part of the floor that is responsible for the terrible incidents
that have plagued this once great microstock #1 agency...
and only one scapegoat has been sacrificed.
What we don't know is why have so many people had a big lowering in earnings and aren't selling new images? The most obvious answer to me is that Shutterstock make more money if they sell images from contributors that are on the lower percentages. It looks like that's what FT did a few years ago. If this low sales goes on for a few months, I will be moving on from microstock.
548
« on: July 19, 2016, 01:48 »
All other sales, such as they are, are 36 subs. I'm lucky not doing this for a living. But I feel sad for those of you who are.
At 0.36 per sale for a commercial use you will never make a living at this. This particular mindset has completely ruined it for those of us that do it for a living.
You think constantly moaning about it helps? I would rather we all sold for higher prices but that horse bolted well over a decade ago. I don't think its accurate either, some people do very well selling at microstock prices. Before microstock, it was like a closed shop that most of us couldn't get in to. That left the market open for istock and the rest is history. The problem now is that we have no control and the sites can do whatever they like. They obviously want to make more and more money but they aren't concerned about how much we make because there's an oversupply.
549
« on: July 18, 2016, 03:59 »
What's needed is another bruce to start up a more inclusive version.
bruce who? lee? he is dead and does not know squat about running a microstock company
and don't say the other bruce who sold ss's only real contender
and left everyone with the litter box 
...
and the one ss is soon to emulate with all the ex's being parachuted to ss
who are not ruining running ss like a well-oiled machine in our you-know-where
I like to think he is is making amends having seen what getty did to his baby
but what's there to amend? being a deadbeat dad made him very very rich!
I don't see what he did as a bad thing. He sold out to Getty but most people would for the money he was being offered. He acknowledged that the low percentage istock was paying contributors was a mistake and Stocksy is about as far away from istock as it could be. Would of been great if he had got it right the first time but now Stocksy is one of a very few sites that pay contributors a fair cut and makes them money.
you're full of compassion.
so if Oringer does the same thing and you will say it's not a bad thing too LOL
What's happening with SS at the moment doesn't seem like a good thing for us. Swamped with images and having shareholders to please isn't going to work out well for us. When they can no longer increase profits, guess who will lose out? We have already seen a detrimental cut in the amount we get for EL's. So if he decided to leave and start a new co-op agency paying contributors 50%, yes, it probably would be better than our long term prospects with SS at the moment.
550
« on: July 17, 2016, 17:52 »
What's needed is another bruce to start up a more inclusive version.
bruce who? lee? he is dead and does not know squat about running a microstock company
and don't say the other bruce who sold ss's only real contender
and left everyone with the litter box
...
and the one ss is soon to emulate with all the ex's being parachuted to ss
who are not ruining running ss like a well-oiled machine in our you-know-where
I like to think he is is making amends having seen what getty did to his baby
but what's there to amend? being a deadbeat dad made him very very rich!
I don't see what he did as a bad thing. He sold out to Getty but most people would for the money he was being offered. He acknowledged that the low percentage istock was paying contributors was a mistake and Stocksy is about as far away from istock as it could be. Would of been great if he had got it right the first time but now Stocksy is one of a very few sites that pay contributors a fair cut and makes them money.
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