Does this discussion make any sense?
Do you expect any positive result?
Will SS make any changes?
Do you feel better after your comments?
Do you realy know what SS is all about?

Would it make sense to stop this dispute for ever?

I take it you're being the devil's advocate here given that you are following and contributing to this thread, but I'll take the bait anyway.

Yes, this discussion does make sense.  As the OP has come to the conclusion uploading new content no longer makes sense it gives us pause for thought and to question if our situation is similar to theirs.  It's always good to reevaluate business activities continuously and the OP's conclusion will be a key point to take into consideration.

A positive result for sure, as even keeping the status quo in my relationship with Shutterstock is best done with my eyes wide open to any new developments and feedback from the forum is often useful to take in and ruminate over.

SS is always making changes, it is not about having input into those changes, but understanding how those changes affect us and the changes we make.   I've seen the figures, Shutterstock continuously improves it's turnover and profits quarter after quarter, year after year and despite increased competition their direction of travel appears set for now.  Contributors on the other hand are in more dodgy waters and I expect to see differing opinions on how to proceed from here.

Feeling better for my comments is not the purpose, this is not therapy and I'm not here to get my ego stroked.  I may feel more comfortable with my comments and decisions if a consensus develops, or I might set my path again the stream of opinion and enjoy the challenge of putting across my perspective, but feeling better or worse is not a relevant consideration to me.

Yes, SS is all about selling images to me and when they make changes that reduces my sales, like the OP I too have to reevaluate them and make a decision on whether or not to continue uploading or not. 

What dispute?  Is Shutterstock dead?  Obviously not, but as a contributor is it productive to continue uploading when new content does not sell, that will always be disputed depending on your perspective and a question that should be evaluated continuously and this thread may provide useful information in that regard if it's not side tracked by philosophical questions.

My position, well it's not the same as the OP's, I work outside the industry.  Non the less, income from my earnings has, when times were hard, fed my cat and if any money was left over fed me as well.  Since then, over the last two years my income from Shutterstock has halved and uploading has decreased.  The stats tell me one eighth  of my earnings for the past two years has come from new content despite few uploads in the last twelve months, so uploading new content may well be on the cards for me, even though closer scrutiny shows only the occasional new image takes off and contributes, most do not sell.  They sell elsewhere so it's no hardship for me to keep Shutterstock going.  The drop in earnings I put down to increased competition, dilution call it what you will.

As for contributors in the OP's position, well you're buggered because they are not only squeezed by open competition like me, but also from the closed competition at the top.  With the Enterprise Team working for the top earners on the Premier Select group those outside that barrier will have noticed a considerable drop in income commensurate to the growth within Shutterstock of the Enterprise Team who will be creaming off all the best customers for the chosen few.

If you don�t hit the market you will die, reversed, if you do hit the market you will gain. All complains about falling sales are worthless and a waste of time. Make better photos, videos or illustrations, that�s all.

Quality will always help, but if all contributors are not equal and there is a bar stopping you from being more equal than others uploading better content is just pissing in the wind. 

That's why I opted out as well.  I don't need any more discouragement, I'm at my limit.

Let's do the math.  Pond5 has 200,000 clips in the membership program now.  They pay $100,000/month to contributors who participate in the program, right?  Membership is $69/month now, but will be $99/month eventually. 

https://www.pond5.com/membership

It will take roughly 1,000 membership buyers to cover the cost of paying contributors.  After 1,000, it's all Pond5's.  If they get 2,000 members, They make $100,000/month by selling HD/4k clips for about $20 per clip.  Before the membership, probably the buyers used to pay $50+ per clip.  Now, they get it for $20/clip although the selection is limited, but vast at the same time.

Is my math correct?

Contributors also get a cut of any sales over the $100,000 threshold, a little difference, but enough to keep the contributors in the scheme salivating.  Surely there must be a salivating smiley.

Quote from: obj owl on May 19, 2016, 15:57

... Although, I still sell the occasional deleted image.  Any image that has sold or even used as a mock up and saved without being purchased, can still be sold at any time in the future, Canva keep your images forever and a day, deleted or not.

Not always. I was removed from the site (they didn't like me asking about the deletions of things actively selling and why they wouldn't provide guidance to contributors on that) and they explicitly said that my images would be removed so they wouldn't be available, even to those with existing designs. Mind you, they also said I'd get a list of images, sales and payments for my records and they never bothered to follow through on that.

I still think the Canva business model - micro-rights managed - is a very promising one. Its just the implementation that's a problem. There's no worry with tracking a customer's usage because they never get the image by itself, just the finished design.

If anyone does decide to contribute to them, just remember to keep your mouth shut with any criticism of anything they do. They're desperately thin skinned and vindictive (but then again, so is/was Getty - booting out Sean Locke and Rob Sylvan in 2013 - and Fotolia at various times, so tread softly.

If I though it would work for me I would be glad to slag them off no end.  I sold an image today that was deleted last July at the latest.

Does anyone have experience with filing an infringement claim with Amazon against one of their third party sellers? I submitted one yesterday and I'm wondering how long the process takes.

Yes I filed a claim last year, no response, items still available at .com and .co.uk.  I found some more items for sale recently with my images on, but it is not worth the effort, worse than sites in India where I had more success after some initial reluctance.  I compare the two because the same images were being used on similar products if that means anything?  I am now avoiding buying from Amazon.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on March 29, 2016, 14:41

Support tells me that these adjustments are for very old transactions - from 2010 and 2013 was what they said. They confirmed that the sales occurred when the files were active

Your Mileage May Vary (and your brain might wonder how this comes to light in 2016 and why there was no text explaining this in the e-mail and probably some uncharitable thoughts about their competence)

But they still sold "adjustments" to these "old transactions" in 2016 after the files had been deactivated, when their previous email noted that "license adjustments should not occur for files that had been deactivated and that we do audit content prior to these negotiations to ensure that the files are still active."

So they still have not provided an adequate explanation why this was allowed to happen again, nor any assurances that it will not happen in the future. In fact, this latest round did happen in the "future" since they told you in 2015 that this "should not occur."

People deactivate their files for a variety of reasons, some of which might be to avoid potential problems with inappropriate uses, model/property releases etc. Deactivated files should be totally off limits, even for different or continued usage of an image purchased when the file was active, unless the photographer agrees to it.

Be careful what you wish for, it seems to me to be the lesser of two evils letting them get away with keeping a few customers happy or forcing them to change the Terms and Conditions to allow this sort of thing in perpetuity.

Some days ago I got a bit over $13 for EL. This is extreme. It is over 50% pay-cut and I am on the highest tier, I can't imagine what it would be if I was on first royalty level.

If you are willing to accept $13 how much do you think they will be willing to pay you?

One thing everyone seems to be missing here is that there is a Royalty element in this membership program. Everyone is guaranteed $0.50 per month per clip even i8f they are never downloaded. That $6.00 per-year per-clip for no downloads.

Once they collect $100,000 a month (200,000 images in the collection) then the rest of the revenue (minus their 50%) is paid out to the contributors whose images are actually downloaded. Thus, if your images are used your likely to make much more than your $0.50.

In addition, the way search is structured this 200,000 image collection is likely to get much higher attention than the rest of the images on Pond5. And the non-subscription clips of the videographers whose clips are in the subscription collection are likely to get much more traffic than those of videographers without any subscription clips.

At least that's how they explained it to me for my story for my Selling-Stock.com newsletter.  http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/pond5-introduces-improved-search-and-membersh

It may not be a great deal, but it is very different and a lot better than other subscription offerings. I'm amazed that Pond5 didn't clearly explain the royalty aspect of this subscription model to those of you who have clips in the collection.

How it really works as do all these schemes is:
Pond5 increase their revenue for increased downloads for less money paid per download to contributors.

It is possible the total payment paid to contributors by Pond5 is greater than it is now, but Pond5 will have to take a lot of customers from other sites to do that.  It is possible that those who only submit to Pond5 and are in the scheme will make more money, but only if they are selling little at the moment and only after sales at the main library at Pond5 and at other sites has reduced dramatically.
They are not creating new buyers with this scheme, just hoping to take market share from other sites and if their current buyers go for this new membership they could potentially cut their own throats.  Competition between sites means less for contributors anyway you want to spin it.  The truth is the only way for contributors as a whole can benefit is if the numbers don't stack up, in which case they will scrap it.

If they double the memberships to $200,000 "that's potentially 20,000 downloads at current membership prices, which will not downloaded from elsewhere", that's $100,000 for the $0.50 paid out regardless of downloads, $50,000 to Pond5, leaving $50,000 between those whose files were downloaded.  That's an average of $2.50 per download is it not?   

I don't think anyone was forgetting the Royalty element in this membership program, but you are good with figures Mr Pickerell can you make it look more attractive, or anybody else for that matter?

You might find this interest if you are worried about people appropriating your images on Instagram.
http://petapixel.com/2015/05/21/richard-prince-selling-other-peoples-instagram-shots-without-permission-for-100k/

If I sell rights managed I would have to delete it on SS. I didn't want to delete the image from ss...

Only if the buyer wants exclusivity, in which case offer it for 2 years for $?00, but if that was the case it's very unlikely that they found the image on a RF only site.

Quote from: Mantis on February 26, 2016, 07:03

Been two months since my last one. I used to get 3-5 a month. Now basically zero, with one SURPRISE every so often. They are done for me.

3-5 a month??? wow! annually accustomed to get one to four 28 every 4 months or single 85 dollars
every two months. this past year to date , the only thing i get is 2.50 to 5.00 singles.

this is depressing. did ss replace those 28 dollars/85 dollars with lower cost??? is that why we now see 2.50 and 5.00 +-  instead of 28/85 dollars???

As SODs come from the Enterprise Division, which now represents 25% of Shutterstock revenue, and the Enterprise Team have been looking after Premier Select contributors for the past 12 months you might jump to the conclusion that SODs have found a new home, but Shutterstock said this would not happen so it's probably dilution again.  Still all things being equal you might expect 25% of your earnings to be from SODs.

Quote from: Minscer on February 25, 2016, 08:47

Bring on the noobs. I don't see any reason to be too concerned about them if you know what you're doing. Majority of them are inexperienced and have no idea what they're doing.

If they're good, so be it. We'll just have to be better.

Yes that's reality.....and some of the less than newbies aren't as good as they think they are Darwin called it natural selection

Problem is that the selection is not natural when some of the older beasts are protected and the younger ones are favoured, those in the middle are having to scavenge for the scraps.