I don't submit to many agencies, but download numbers are as usual for me on all of them, so are my earnings expect for SS, where they are - obviously - down by a huge chunk despite having almost the same number in DLs as last month.

I haven't seen any major fluctrations on any agency the whole year, so I am not sure I am seeing any effect of the economy situation other than the one Shutterstock caused itself.

Quote from: Mantis on June 24, 2020, 12:10

Quote from: Firn on June 24, 2020, 12:07

I have a lot of restepect for Africa studio for disabling their port. They are big enough that even with the now much lower payment from SS, it still means they are missing out on thousands of $ each month by pulling their port. I am also glad for them, because that must also mean that they are making enough profit on other agencies to still keep their company sustainable even with the loss.
I hope the loss of such a huge contributor will help stir customers to other agencies.

I think they are back up under a different name. I hope I'm wrong.

Yes
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/newafrica
Also from Ukraine�
And the style of images is very similar to the "old" Africa studio

*sigh*
So much about that.

I have a lot of restepect for Africa studio for disabling their port. They are big enough that even with the now much lower payment from SS, it still means they are missing out on thousands of $ each month by pulling their port. I am also glad for them, because that must also mean that they are making enough profit on other agencies to still keep their company sustainable even with the loss.
I hope the loss of such a huge contributor will help stir customers to other agencies.

This poor guy is hurting so badly.......

No, this guy could not care less whether 10 million images are missing from the database, because he still has 320 million images left.

As I said multiple times, but no one wants to hear that and I am 'being negative'.  No, I am being realistic.
They made sure that they make so much more extra profit without any extra work now, that even a major loss of sales will still make them come out with a bigger profit than before.

At this point my earnings are down by around 50% compared to last month and looking at the SS forum, others seem to be al a loss of at least 20-30%. This means, even if SS lost 30% of all content and EVEN IF we assumed that they lost 30% of sales along with it (which is not going to happen. If a customer can't find one image of an apple in the database, because it has been taken off, he will just buy a different image and not necessairly go to another platform, especially not people who have a yearly subscription and can't just go somewhere else. SS still has the biggest database to offer. Yes, there are some who will look for very specific images and might search somewhere else if they can't find what they are looking for on SS, but these will be a minor part of customers), that would have to mean that 30% of the database would have to go, so 96 million images would need to disappear from the database, before SS would...come out with the same profit than before instead of more and that only assuming that every image gone represents a sale gone, which we all know is not the case.
 So, if losing over 90 million images in the database would not scratch them, how do people really believe that the 5 millions images less in the database compared to last month will have any impact at all?
This guy really means it: He could not care less whether 1 or 20 million contributors take off their content. SS is making more profit than before, what they did had the desired effect. For now.
 I still hope that word will spread further around and more customers will start to shop for their images at other places eventually. At this point that's really the only thing that could reduce SS's profit.

 It is, unfortunately, like very often, mostly in the hands of customers. It reminds me about a debate about meat production in Germany, where some politicans say that we don't need any additional laws and regulations, because it was "in the hands of the customers" to make sure that animals are treated fairly and workers payed fairly because they could decide to buy more expensive meat if they wanted to...which we all know is not what the majority does. Only that in this case, other agencies are not necessarily more expensive. Adobe's biggest pack is cheaper than SS's for example, so maybe there is still hope.

(Btw. It pisses me totally of when that guy wrote "think the world is getting easier for us?" You're, what, a fu***** milionaire? The world is easy for you, and even if it becomes more difficult for you, it will only mean you might not be able to afford 10 cars compared to the single mother of two who struggles to pay for food because you reduced her income by 30% or more)

I feel most buyers do not care about contributors in general.

I agree, most probably don't. But I am sure some do, or, at least, don't care where they get their images from as long as it is not more expensive to them. I know for example from a SS contributor who works full time in an company that purchases from SS, he told them about the new royalities and asked them whether they would mind using a different agency and they agreed. I think as long as they don't have to pay more for the images (which is why I don't think Alamy is a good choice to try to redirect sales too. That, and some other issues I have with them.), it's all the same to them and most stock agencies have similar plans to offer to their customers, otherwise they would not be competitive.

The main problem with the new royalities seem really to be the huge yearly sub plans that are causing all the 0.10$ payments even at higher levels and I think, for now, there is not much we can change about that anyways, because these customers have yearly plans. They can't change to other agencies, even if they wanted to. But when their subscription plans run out, some might look into other options, compare prices, see where they can get the best deals, but also, the best images. And maybe, if we can get it stuck in their minds that Shutterstock treats their artsist like crap, that might at least consider looking at other agencies.

At Adobe, for example, a yearly plan with 750 images is 159,99� per month.
At Shutterstock a yearly plan with 750 images is 199,00� per month.

(At least these are the prices in Germany. I know they have different prics in different countries)
So, why should customers not switch to Adobe if it means better deals for them, better images (as Adobe never let in the mass of crap that SS let into their database, even though their standards also don't seem to be all that high) AND better payment for contributors. It's a win-win situation for contributors and customers and only Shutterstock loses. That's exactly what we want, so that's the word we need to spread around!
And, hopefully at some point Adobe will also accept all editorial content. It does not affect me much, but I know it's a big problem for contributors who do lots of editorial content and I think it's also one of the reasons that might keep potential customers away, who need this kind of content.

If I can do it, after $150,000+ earned in more than 10 years, you probably can as well.

Sorry for picking out this one sentence, but I have a problem with this point of argumentation. Just because you have earned a lot of money with Shutterstock, does not mean other contributors are in a position to deactivate their accounts. I feel like the whole undertone of this post is that the contributors who do not deactivate their accounts are "betraying" the ones who do. I am pretty sure that around 95% of all contributors, including myself, really wish they could deactivate their accounts and would do so if they were in a position that allowed them to do so. But many people depend on the income for their living. Some do Stock fulltime, others do it part time, but even for a lot of them this is not just extra money they earn with it. I myself am in a very depressing situation where my normal job is currently not bringing in enough money to pay for my living costs like rent and food. I depend on my income from Stock.
It absolutely does not matter how much you have earned with Shutterstock in 10 years. It means nothing to me, it changes nothing about my personal financial situation, unless you are willing to hand over that $150.000 to me, and it certainly does not mean that I could 'probably' deactivate my account just because you earned a lot of money. There is no logic behind that.

Remember that thread about the women who commented that with Shutterstock's royality cut she would now not be able to pay for food for her and her son anymore? What do your earnings have to do with her situation? Because of the new royality payments she can now already not pay for food and now you are basically asking her to put herself in a situation where she can not only not pay for the food anymore, but maybe she will also not be able to pay her rent anymore if she gives up even on the reduced Shutterstock earnings.

For many people the money they earn from Microstock is not just some extra pocket money they can spend on new expensive camera gear with a fun side activity. Many people depend on it and Shutterstock has alrady put them in a horrible situation (on top of an already horrible situation many of us are in due to the Corona crisis) and now you are asking them to put themselves in an even more horrible situation.

I do understand that for many people the idea behind this is that they hope that if enough people deactivate their accounts, Shutterstock will change their minds, but, completely regardless of how unlikely this scenario is, many people do not have the luxury to deactivate their account and lose money even for just one single month. Even if, Shutterstock changed their mind, by the time they do so, these people might be already living homeless on the street, or might have sold their camera gear to pay for their living. These are desperate times for many people already.

Believe me, I am very frustrated about not being able to join the boycott myself and I am sure many other people are, but you also have to try to understand their possible situation. For many people even just making $100 or $200 less in a month is not a matter of missing out on that new pair of shoes, but of possibly not being able to pay for rent, gas, electricity, food or doctor's bills.

I hope as many people join the boycott as possible, that everyone who does not depend on this income or does not even make minimum payout within a month does, but I also wish for a bit more understanding and respect for people who can't. The idea of the statement I quoted seems to be "See, I am missing out on a lot of money, so you can too!". But missing out on extra income for a person who has a stable income and is not influenced by the Corona Crisis does not mean the same as missing out on income when your normal job does not pay enough to cover your costs and you need that money to break even with your bills at the end of the month.

I just wish people would have more understanding about such possible situations when trying to urge everyone to join the boycott. We are not the prisoners betraying other criminals to walk free for our (well deserved) sentences. We are the people thrown into jail without having committed a crime who are told we have to attest another innocent person did the crime, or otherwise we would be starved to death.

There have been reports of contributors having their hole ports deleted due to too many similar images in the SS forum in the past months, so Shutterstock seems to be cleaning up their database a lot.
I remember one case where the contributor had milions of images in his port. Someone did the math and apparently he had been adding 600 images daily (!) for years, mostly grunge textures. With 600 computer generated textures daily for years, it's not surprising that they ended up looking all the same at some point.

She is as important at SS as a traffic light in GTA.

We don't know what she does and what her task are though. Surely just being a forum admin can't be all? She literally doesn't do more than 5 posts a week and questions and PMs towards her stay unanswered. Unless her working hours are like 3 minutes a day only, she must surely have some other tasks at SS? At least that's what I always assumed, as she is so inactive on the forum that I can't really imagine that that's her actual job. Always assumed it's just a side-task.

Just saw this on Dreamstime's forum:

Clarification: The announcement we posted says that all purchases made beginning June 1st will award the increased royalties. This means that all plans purchased as of this date will give you +10%. Keep in mind that plans purchased prior to this date may still be active and used by our buyers and for those downloads, you will receive regular royalties. This is why for some sales you have increased royalties, for others not yet. In time, as the current plans get used up, all your sales will show the updated royalties. I hope this clarifies.

So, that explains why none of my sales there this month have earned me any additional 10%.

So this promised increase not only came at a very convinient time, but they also left out a quite important detail from their mail announcement. 

I think they don't care, but customers most definitely will. The market constantly calls for new fresh images. Especially on the illustration side of things. Stuff gets dated soooo quickly and trends change up fast.

I partly agree, but the fact that I know from many long term contributors that their images from 10 years ago still sell frequently, while their new content doesn't sell much from them (everyone might make different experiences, but that's what some older contributors have told me personally) makes me think that for many customers how much up to date an image is does not matter all that much. 
I am sure that there are areas where having up to date images is very important - technology or city shots for examples are two things where customers will not want to use outdated images, but I think for many very universal topics, the date does not play such a big role.


Also, and that's something I find very noteworthy - if you look at the current numbers on Shutterstock you will see that, as said, while the number of images in the database has gone down, their newly added image count is staying pretty constant, so they are still getting the same number of new images.

Many contributors are praising Adobe. What about if Adobe just follows SS?
In my oppinion this is very likely.

I was having a similar thought. We are all focusing on Adobe, telling other contributors to go there, telling customers to buy from there and in 2 or 3 years Adobe might bite us in the a** as thanks and lower their royalities the same way.

However, one reason why I have high hopes that this will not happen is that Adobe, most of all, is a softwear developing company and only secondary a stock site. And imagine what happened if they pissed of contributors the way Shutterstock is doing now? We photographers and illustrators are not just contributors for Adobe, we are also customers for their softwear! So, by following SS, Adobe would piss of both their microstock contributors and their softwear customers at the same time and would have much more to lose. That would be a really stupid move. It's one thing to say "I don't agree with what SS is doing, I will pass on all possible earnings I get from them", because that actually is a sacrifice on the contributors end. One many are not willing to take, especially the ones who depend on their microstock earnings. However, I would not find it too hard to say "I don't agree with what Adobe is doing, I will not purchase their products anymore".  (Okay, I am getting their softwear for free for submitting to them, but not all contributors are)
There are decent alternatives out there, many of them even cheaper than Adobe and the only sacrifice I would have to make would be to get used to a different softwear interface. I would rather not have to do it, but it would not be a sacrifice comparable to deliberately accepting a loss in income like it is with closing your SS account.


So, if someone from Adobe is reading this: Think really hard whether you want to piss of your contributors, who are also your customers before you ever consider following in SS's footsteps.

I also did not get any 10% increase on my sales. Looking at the forum it seems to be random. Some people get them, some don't, some get them on some sales, but not on others. A mod there told people to write them with the image ID if they did not get the extra 10%, so maybe some of you want to do that. It's does not seem worth the hassle for 3cent.

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/image-representation-greed-that-company-has-1748302739   

Whoever got that accepted, well done!
Better yet, extra marks for somehow getting "fuck you" accepted as a keyword.

Not bothered hiding the uploading ID because i dont think he cares - he currently has 1 file online and its that!

This is a true masterpiece.