Quote from: Mantis on November 17, 2016, 21:55

Quote from: tickstock on November 17, 2016, 16:01

Quote from: Mantis on November 17, 2016, 15:57

I got the email again pretty much begging us to help them.  Let's be clear here. Signing the petition means helping THEM not US.

No matter what your feelings on Getty are, this helps everyone from contributors to agencies to customers.

From where I sit, I'd be helping their model influence other models to the point where everyone is getting 2 cents. How on earth is that helping other photographers?

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about.  What they are asking to be changed affects Shutterstock (along with their buyers) just as much as Getty, there is nothing exclusive to Getty in it. If there is please tell me what it is?

Just speculation, but Getty have a software company that can embed identifiable information in an image.  One might imagine that they have asked Google to use or buy this software and omit found high resolution images from their search results.

Looks like they love experimenting. They're probably testing to see if just sheer number of images will bring in more sales. And if they don't like the result, they could just put the Premier Select platform on top of the standard collection for all buyers, just a guess.

Not a bad guess, but it's a bit more incremental than that.

Cathy, do you believe in your heart, that you will succeed in getting more money by putting your signature under a petition? Are you not afraid that you get blacklisted when you do so?

Sounds like you are suggesting that Shutterstock is a vindictive organisation, hope you are wrong they might not like being called out on a public forum.

Quote from: cathyslife on November 06, 2016, 05:50

Seems like the agencies are moving towards turning microstock all back into high dollar images, with high returns for them (macrostock). Good for them and the elite contributors that are in the club, but the fact remains the market for microstock is still there. Someone will still need to supply that market. And 2 cents per download for the contributor isnt going to cut it.

One big problem for us rank and file microstock contributors is that when the money was good, a lot of us invested in expensive equipment and models to make high value images. These are images that can easily compete with high end collections, and should be included in them.  But for some reason, if your pictures,  even HCV ones,  have been in micro, they are treated as tainted and inferior by SS when they choose Premier Select, or allow contributors to Offset.

Adobe, so far, treats images as equal and doesn't turn up their nose just because they are microstock.  In very early days micro may have been inferior quality, but for long time much micro can rival Macro and other top tier collections. 

If you don't want cheap micro images competing with your premier expensive images, don't hide them in the back of searches.  Put the top quality micro images in the higher end collections.

Premier Select is not a collection of high end images, but a group of top earners, which might suggest high end images, but does not guarantee it.  Two advantages of Premier Select are access to the ever expanding number of Enterprise customers on their dedicated web site meaning new images are not buried under the influx of millions of images a month, and having the Enterprise Team working for you bringing in all those lovely SODs.   
If you want to compete at this level get yourself a syndicate together of twenty or so with 50,000 or 50 or so with 20,000 decent selling images.  A group of such syndicates together should have enough selling power to force a way in to Premier Select, but no bluffing it's win or lose. I think that the window of opportunity is a little narrow for this approach as they need to expand the Premier Select group now to make it more diverse and give Enterprise buyers more choice and it needs to remain relatively select. If you have not had your invite yet it's time to crash the party.   None of this makes any difference to most of us.

Adobe, far from treating images/contributors equally, is already heading down the Shutterstock route, it's where the money is.

They also say this "We understand how important it is for you to have real time data on the performance of your content. Moving to the same back end technology platform as Getty Images means that we�ll be able to provide better stats on customer interactions with your content than was possible previously. We�ll have the foundation of this new stats approach in January and will enhance it over time. " So totally confused...who writes their stuff?....."customer interactions with your content"...that means views and sales right? Actually all they need to say is "From January we will be improving our stats of views and sales" (If indeed its whats intended).

and refunds.

so it wasn't even a typo for 20c which would be bad enough....
((((

Not a typo, but a big mistake by Istock. Theoretically, the lowest possible minimum is $0.03 according to the tables I've seen.  Setting a safety cap at $0.02 tells us to expect heavy discounting of at least 33% for a long hard twelve months. Seems they want their market share back, but they can only do that with your help and your asserts and they are confident that $0.02 will keep you on board.

Quote from: obj owl on October 26, 2016, 06:33

With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case?  Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used.  In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose?  Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.

Lobo answer that doesn't answer your question.

No, to be honest it was a rhetorical question given that they think that they have come up with a simpler system means that they have not asked themselves the difficult questions, not that it is that difficult, well not until they try to put it into practice.  With the addition of discounts no one will know what they are being payed for what, but payout at $0.02 per download may be a long time coming and the question will be long forgotten by then.

With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case?  Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used.  In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose?  Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.

There is also a MY UPLOAD HISTORY tab on the Contributor's Dashboard, but I can't get to that via My Account page.

Good post!!  its a well known fact and the old FT admitted that once turned Emerald or gold you were automatically pushed down in search to give preference to new contributors who demand less in royalty.
I dont know if they are still doing this after merging with Adobe?

Some year back files of higher commercial value was automatically given exposure on the first couple of pages but with the incredible magnitude of new uploads I guess its an impossible task. Well frankly sometimes I dont think the agencies themselves have got a clue about the algorithm as long as they keep selling any old files.

Shutterstock go further than just the first couple of pages for files of higher commercial value, they gave them their own website, which only their ever growing number of Enterprise clients have access to. That means Premier Select contributors get two bites of the cherry for their new content regardless of the algorithm.

Too simple by half, Shutterstock constantly test their algorithms to increase profitability and adjust them accordingly.  So if the top earners consistently sell new images as you might think they would the algorithm would put them up above low earners who never sell new images.  Or alternatively, as has been speculated, images by new contributors may rise to the top as they cost Shutterstock less.  Just two scenarios among the many that would have been tested and may or may not have been implemented.  The algorithms will go through many iterations to make sure there  is no detrimental effect on the bottom line so within a short time would be quite complex Hence the many conspiracy theories and speculation why some contributors would appear to slip through the net if that is the case?  Trying to work it out would be akin to an alchemist trying to turn lead into gold but a lot more profitable

My keyboard seems to have stopped putting in comas and full stops so if it don't make sense it could be for one of two reasons

Quote from: obj owl on October 17, 2016, 07:15

Get over it, move on does not add to our knowledge or understanding.  Some people seem to want to put a full stop to a thread that appears to have no relevance to them, why?

They're just trying to make sure the people who think it has relevance to them, understand that it might not actually have all that much relevance to them.

That sounds patronising to the point of being insulting, not only are our images crap, but we are that stupid we need to be told to upload quality, find a niche and, be positive and stop discussing this subject.  I don't think the thread is relevant to video, not yet anyway, but if you have any personal experience as to why new images don't sell I really would like to here it.

Get over it, move on does not add to our knowledge or understanding.  Some people seem to want to put a full stop to a thread that appears to have no relevance to them, why?