Quote from: Mantis on February 16, 2015, 18:47

Ron is right. Overall sub downloads and OD's are down. Subs are down 50% for me but when I get a video sale or SOD it pushes me back into "the norm". Once SOD's, EL's and OD's die for good, that's it.  We are now relying on "miracle-type downloads" to make the month.

As far as Rinder's comments, they are true but shouting it out on the form is not going to work as we probably make up .01% of all contributors.  To regain control you either leave, find other outlets to sell, accept being taken advantage of (most of us do this now, I do) or influence 90% of contributors who the agencies are relying on to pull their content. That is next to impossible.....unfortunately.

For microstock, my bolded statement is the only solution.

I think you can speak for many of us Mantis and we probably have totally different portfolio's so there is a pattern, no doubt about it.
My subs and od's are down but now and then an EL or big SOD drops in to make the month somewhat bearable.
Their way of saying "hey, here's something to chew on for the rest of the week, now shut the f.ck up and continue uploading or be gone"
Again, we still keep up with it because despite all this the money is still good but that is changing rapidly since we are finding new ways to make money or we pick up our old ways again and will eventually be able to leave micro. We deserve a lot better, for some it takes a while to get that, others are too naive and will never get it.
I know a lot of people hate Yuri for whatever reason but I went "Finally" when he made that bald move. He made a better deal somewhere and kicked all the others because he was fed up with it. We don't see him celebrating (oh right one post in 5 years promoting his business?) or venting about his success or downfall, he just adapts to the situation and that is how we should all act. While some of you love to take him down you should actually applaud what he did. He treats this a business, treats agencies the way they treat us, goes for the money just like they do by making deals. If we don't follow his example we are doomed in this business.
Disagree or not, bragg about how well you are doing and what I said is horsesh.t, if that gets you trough the day then be my guest just don't be surprised when you wake on day being on the other side and experience what many of us do. Over the years I've seen plenty of people cheering about their success one year while screaming about their downfall the next.

We are lucky to work whenever and wherever we want, but at what cost?

Quote from: KnowYourOnions on February 16, 2015, 03:04

Quote from: helloitsme on February 15, 2015, 16:51

Gone down to half in 5 weeks.  what just happened there?  Pond5 is accelerating instead during that time.

wait...recently you claimed the opposite 
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-video/pond5-sales-down-in-january-shutterstock-sales-surpassed-it-for-the-first-time/msg405047/#msg405047

Pond5 sales picked up significantly in February for some reason.  I make more money per video on Pond5 than Shutterstock.  So, it's not a bad thing to have buyer moving from Shutterstock to Pond5.

Quote from: KnowYourOnions on February 14, 2015, 21:30

Account closure doesn't stop anyone from opening another one or submitting to another agency...

Maybe true some places. But Shutterstock is really strict about it. I think they have ways of knowing if it's the same person trying to set up a new account. It's easy to blacklist an IP address, email address, and you have to submit personally identifying information in order to get paid, so unless you can fake an entirely new identity, it's not so easy.

Of the many people I've seen banned for copying my work, I have yet to find images from any of them back on the site later on.

If you have copied or overly-inspired images in your portfolio, delete them now while you still can. Otherwise you will get caught, and the penalty from companies like SS is severe.

and we should never forget our biz is based only on professional buyers who need a properly licensed images, not random bloggers lifting images online, they're irrilevant as far as we're concerned and they would never buy images even for a pittance, the same logic and the same scenario has been discussed to death regarding Warez and pirated apps/games.

Quote from: KnowYourOnions on February 12, 2015, 14:07

Just adding to this black list...

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/video/free-trial

http://www.pond5.com/free

There's a big difference between just giving images away free, like some of these sites, and a limited free trial offer where you automatically opt in to a monthly subscription and have to give your credit card information (and I'm assuming the videographers get paid for each download), as with Bigstock.

What I like is that I see the name of curator that is reviewing the photos.

So, there is a guy Archana Sharma who reviewed my photos (I've sent 35 just to test how that works) and rejected 2/3 of them. All for a reason "too blurry and noisy".

But their 1099 wont match your accounts then? Just asking as I am not US taxed, I dont know how it works in the US.

If I get my normal royalties I dont see an issue with promotions to attract and bind new buyers