"Fender protects headstock shapes, and especially those of the iconic STRATOCASTER and TELECASTER models."

OP post is clearly a Strat, head shape, modern one with the dual string trees.

Why do forum lawyers, who work as art slaves, know the obvious and the agency is just a bunch of dumb professionals, with degrees, who don't understand the law? 

Quote from: Zero Talent on April 18, 2017, 14:09

Quote from: derek on April 18, 2017, 13:19

"anonymous poster claims to make thousands of dollars per month with a few hundred images. OK

Really??  well I am down about 50% since new year and I have a very high commercial value portfolio. Sorry but I dont buy that at all. Everyone I know with quality portfolios are down with the magical 40-50% and none of them are uploading including myself. Whats the point?

I'm stating my own experience. You can believe whatever makes you feel happy.

I'm sharing this experience because I'm convinced that a curated collection is beneficial not only for the uploaders, but especially for customers, therefore also for me, indirectly. Even if we are competitors!

So, I'm not sharing the exact amounts, since it can be easy for someone working for my agencies to break my anonymity with a simple database query.
Anyway, I'm attaching a SS screenshot showing the number of digits earned yesterday and so far, today.
I'm also attaching a screenshot showing an approximation of my SS port size (add some videos to that)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everyday is as good as these days, but these big sales come regularly and they add up. If that matters, today I also got an EL on FT, yesterday another EL on 123RF, etc.

My microstock income is roughly 2.4 times the minim wage in my state. If before doing microstock I use to get back several thousands after filing my tax return, now I'm the one paying IRS several good thousands in additional taxes

So do your math, and believe what you want!

 

Sorry but I dont get it!  I had a single sale the other day just before Easter at SS for 230 dollars and an EL on a saturday of all days but that still dont add up to being a money-spinner and it certainly dont mean its a brilliant site. I am still down about 50%. Four guys I know run what you call a factory with over 100K files and THEY of all people are down 40%.
Anyway if youre happy thats good and thanks for the info.

yes but have a long good look at my stats in the OP!  and this reflects the similarity of a period of three months. It differs in cents!  wouldnt you agree that the odds of this being coincidence are astroniomical, just astronomical. I mean you have to dig really, really deep to come up with some logical mathematical explanation.

You get $230 sale every month, ELs on Saturday? Identical? I wouldn't complain about that, I'd celebrate. Easter was the 16th for those looking at dates and claims.

Well people here is another weirdo week at SS. See what you say about this one.

Monday.  43.56
Tuesday.  41.91
Wednesday. 43.11
Thursday.  43.88
Friday. 42.56

Considering I am down the usual 40% not bad I suppose but Oh dear its just so identical to the past 12 weeks.

Identical to $230 and an EL?

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on April 27, 2017, 15:04

I get the point. No matter what someone says here, you will say the opposite. Now I know your game and I can ignore you.

opposite??  well sorry but it works in my case is there anything wrong with that?  it might also be a reason why SS in particular asks for full size uploads yes? your experience might be somewhat different I wouldnt know. End of story I recon.

For example

Really??  well I am down about 50% since new year and I have a very high commercial value portfolio. Sorry but I dont buy that at all. Everyone I know with quality portfolios are down with the magical 40-50% and none of them are uploading including myself. Whats the point?

I agree I havent been uploading for some time and it doesnt have any effect on sales. its a fallacy. of course agencies want to make out that uploading all the time and sales comes in but its a fallacy
 the search still remains the same.

No effect?

For me with a portfolio of just around 3000 files Adobe is way up and it certainly makes up for the big 40% of SS drop in earnings. No complaints.

I know what you mean!  no for me SS is still lightyears ahead of fotolia and giving the fact that none of them are really producing remarkable results nowadays.

 

Quote from: JimP on April 27, 2017, 12:36

Quote from: derek on April 27, 2017, 10:28

I agree I havent been uploading for some time and it doesnt have any effect on sales. its a fallacy. of course agencies want to make out that uploading all the time and sales comes in but its a fallacy
 the search still remains the same.

So you are saying that Mat from Adobe is lying to us this week when he wrote we should upload for better placement?

Quote from: MatHayward on April 23, 2017, 19:00

Are you consistently uploading new content? That is the best way to ensure your portfolio stays near the top of the search results I have found. Adobe is working very hard to market Adobe Stock and as far as I can tell, we are increasing in volume at a rapid pace. There is strong potential to earn good revenue...it's entirely up to you to produce the content to take advantage of the opportunity.

Good luck!

Mat

Or maybe some places it matters and some it doesn't count as much? SS has written that upload full size for better sales, I find that minimum size sells just as well except a very seldom XL or XXL someplace.

Quote from: flywing on April 27, 2017, 10:00

At SS, my old good sellers are still on front pages. New files get a bit of boost. Old files with not so good sales get buried  . Sometime I stopped uploading for a few months (creative block) but it did not affect the sales there at all.

I find the same. Old good sellers that haven't been replaced by better of the similar, are still on first page. Common old shots have gone back pages. Some best seller similar to others of mine, get sold over and over, I mean one set of 18 almost identical. There's something that pushes sold files to buyers over similar from same artist. Result is a good files makes many more sales than it's brothers and sisters.

No at SS I find that full size uploads sell better and sometimes much better in fact. At FT in my case it doesnt matter the slightest BUT thats in my case I cant speak for others.

Lets put it this way if an agency house 100 million files do you really believe another lets say 500 uploads is going to make any difference any dent at all.

I get the point. No matter what someone says here, you will say the opposite. Now I know your game and I can ignore you.

Stockimo

No algorithm will be "fair" except the ones that put my pics at the top of course ;-). Different sites prioritize differently. If they are wise its to reflect their customer base.

No, they must always put my pictures on top!  My new photos should be first when new to be seen properly, and my old should be first because they are old and have proven sales. Middle age files should be up front, because they need the advantage over the new files flood of others and they are surely better than some old files, not as good equipment or size, from years ago. My files should always be first because they came from me. [truth and sarcasm get no respect]

No algorithm is ever fair.

The best design is for company sales earnings and to put the best matching work in front of buyers. Notice, none of that has anything to do with us as individuals, our age, gender, location, commission level, work history or standing. It's all about making the most profit and pleasing the customers. New files get a boost everywhere I've seen on the upper sites. People who are active and keep uploading seem to get a boost on many sites. Old files with proven history are also more towards the front. The buyers see what will make the  agency most attractive and make the most money. It's a balance of all possible attractive files, to present them to the buyers.

Favoritism or special treatment, manipulation of the search to hide sellers or files, is not in the best interest of the agency.

I'd like to see Alamy try to automate the process of identifying the most important keywords - which is I think what the supertags concept was intended to do. I'd like it to be possible for the user to change the automated results if they want to.

I'd also love to know what's up with the theory going the rounds on the Alamy forums that use of supertags hurts search position rather than helps it. More here. Alamy says just tag and supertag as directed and it'll work out - I assume meaning that if there is any negative effect of a supertag it's a bug and will get fixed at some point.

Using the title and description should give some clues about important content even without doing image analysis. It'd also be nice to have an option to take the first 5 or 10 automatically. I keyword in Photoshop and for new images am putting the important keywords up front to take care of Adobe Stock/Fotolia's need for important keywords in the first 7.

I'm not anticipating anything being done about this, but it'd be nice...

Like all theories, consider the source, motivation, evidence to support the theory and whether the science is a new theory without sufficient research. Supertags may not be activated if you read between the Alamy replies, so they could do nothing, but some day in the future will be more important. I'm not buying the negative search aspects because I tried some of my own and the photos did move up.

Using my own arguments, that proves nothing. Just that I moved some words to supertags and left a similar photo with common words. Searched for the supertag words and the changed images, after a week, did move up, but the old images didn't move down.

I'm not sure the programing is working right now. But changing supertags and not waiting for at least a week, is not letting the changes take effect in the search.

Anyone can test for their own. Take two images, only two, that are identical tags now. Look at their position. Record the positions in written notes. Change one image, with supertags for the best keywords. Leave the other untouched. Wait a week. Check the position for those identical words, those two images, after the change. Check results against the notes.

Do the same for ten different subjects and images, to control other variables like views or search weighting or new images.

Now report back, what you found.

This topic comes up every 3 months. I still don't think there is any truth in it. My numbers fluctuate daily, not by just a few percent, but by over 20% sometimes. I think it's just a coincidence that some people see consistent numbers.

Historically, April has always been a lousy month (for many industries) because of Spring Break and Tax Season. Kids get off school for a week and some parents take off work with them to go on a trip. For taxes, some people like us are saving up to pay the government instead of getting a refund.

People will see what they want to see. Ghosts, UFOs, bigfoot, sea monsters, face on mars or accusations of tampering or illegal allegations for microstock earnings. The more it's written doesn't make it more true.

March on SS was BME and I'm well over ten years at this. Shouldn't I be on some limit and it's not the newbie insulting claim to discount anything that doesn't fit the conspiracy. IS has dropped like a lead balloon. Easy to see why. But like the rest, there's no reason for agencies to tamper with earnings or sales, they want the most and the biggest. There's no hiding good files from buyers when the goal is sell the most, make the most.

Quote from: Artist on April 20, 2017, 05:04

Quote from: derek on April 20, 2017, 02:50

April down 50% so far!  micro is getting tough no wonder one hear about lots of people quit uploading. I read in a private stock forum about american based agencies might be switching off servers to Europe now and then. Can they do that??

I don't think they will ever do such thing, can you link the stock forum here?

I cant see why they would buyers would be up in arms

Makes no sense that anyone would shut off any source for income. And Stock, micro or other will never be the way it was. Times change, technology changes, everything moves forward. If SS hadn't started subs, someone else would have. Just like the electric light, telephone, modern bicycle, automobile or airplane. All of these are natural advances where technology drives the new inventions. Different people are inventing and innovating at the same time. One of them does it right, first or has the best plan.

SS and IS had the right ideas and ran parallel ideas for a good long time. The rest are trying to catch up, but won't. Exceptions will be special houses like Stocksy or maybe Canva or Evanto types. The other big one will keep growing because they have the smarts and the marketing and the money. Adobe FT is a sleeping giant which can take over both SS and IS in time with the cloud connection and the intelligent organization.

That's it. Three and there is no way it used to be. Times change.

I suspect they're also stock rejects. If you look at many of the photos at 100% you'll see they're OOF, noisy, have motion blur or have other technical issues. So they offer them free and make money from the ads. Some also start charging after a while or offer some kind of "premium" collection for $.

Also the free photos are just as above but usually terrible. Then the good ones are links for partner to API for sites like SS where nothing is free. This is also called bait and switch. There are free photos but anything anyone wants will be pay and the free site gets a percentage for sending buyers to a Microstock site. Also known as nothing is free.

ShadySue is right, the search function doesn't behave as expected. I often get a 'No result found...' page, and annoying loading bars. If I do get results, there is very little content.

And once you search for something, sports for example, and go to the home page, it loads sports, not the home page. https://www.stockiste.com and yes it always says, content not found, then starts the spinning circle, every time you go to any page. Very weak collection. It looks more like a personal site.

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on April 13, 2017, 12:09

The real money for musicians lies in touring

A $9.99 download on a program like iTunes nets artists a modest 94 cents, less than a 10% cut. The record company takes $5.35 and Apple keeps the remaining $3.70.

Artists get nine cents for each individual song downloaded on Napster and iTunes. You would need to get about 13,000 downloads a month to equal minimum wage.

Being a musician is worse than trying to be a digital photographer. Anyone with a pencil and paper can be an artist and draw. Musicians work hard and study for years to get underpaid because honestly, really good guitar players are on every street corner. That's how some make a living. Singers are even more common. Buy a camera and make 15% is better than what musicians in the real world make. Sure there are some stars and then the other 99%. Same for Microstock.

Dare to dream and hope you make it, but a dose of reality is also good for the soul. Don't expect that the world will come to you, expect that you need to be different and the best of the best just to barely make it in the arts.

The real music lies in advertising. Licensing a famous song for a commercial can easily cost $1 million or more. I was surprised McCartney was offering some of his library (post-Beatles, of course) for practically nothing....only $250K.

Interesting and true. He's still trying to buy back his own works, from the Beatles era, from Sony. But also, more modern of his own is not going to get the play or residuals that The Beatles will get over the long run. There's just so much long term with the Beatles that McCartney doesn't hold. However he is still one of the best.

What was he trying to license for $250K that's pretty low. Or was it one song or what?

As for other people who think Napster or iTunes is the answer, go read some more about how bands make more on touring than on the songs or albums or iTunes. They can make more on shirts in one concert tour than an entire lifetime of royalties for an album. It sucks but that's the world now with digital.

Ask any musician which takes more study, time and life investment. Learning any instrument or pushing a button on a DSLR or phone. I'm not trying to put down musicians, but just point out that there's an abundance of over the top exceptional players and most are working a job to support their musical talents. It's like actors in Hollywood. You want pretty faces and knock out bodies, go look at cocktail waitresses in Las Vegas.

I can throw a rotten tomato in Chicago and hit a blues guitarist that just makes your fall over because they are so talented, amazing to hear and skilled. New Orleans, jazz people that play on the street that are capable of any top working backup band, or club. Branson has country musicians up the hills that can play as good as pretty much anything you'll hear in Nashville. You want classical, tryouts for most of the major symphony orchestras in the US draw thousands of hopeful applicants for a chair. The ones that aren't good enough for a violin will take a second or viola seat and be happy to get that. Rock and roll? If you can work and cover your expenses, you're a success. But don't quit your day job.

Dime a dozen for musicians isn't just an old term, it's pretty much still true. Microstock is even cheaper because with technology someone can take better photos, but music demands a deeper soul and much more personal investment in practice and experience.

If somebody doesn't have something different, cutting edge or marketable, they are just another starving artist. Pick your area, painting, drawing, music, photography, metals, pottery, oils, basket weaving, writing, or anything creative. There are just far too many, very talented and capable people. I've seen thousands of them. I'm in awe of their skills and talent. I can turn a corner tomorrow and see a thousand more.

There's no end to the number of creative people who are far above the really good or talented level.

That's the competition. Nothing is easy.

The real money for musicians lies in touring

A $9.99 download on a program like iTunes nets artists a modest 94 cents, less than a 10% cut. The record company takes $5.35 and Apple keeps the remaining $3.70.

Artists get nine cents for each individual song downloaded on Napster and iTunes. You would need to get about 13,000 downloads a month to equal minimum wage.

Being a musician is worse than trying to be a digital photographer. Anyone with a pencil and paper can be an artist and draw. Musicians work hard and study for years to get underpaid because honestly, really good guitar players are on every street corner. That's how some make a living. Singers are even more common. Buy a camera and make 15% is better than what musicians in the real world make. Sure there are some stars and then the other 99%. Same for Microstock.

Dare to dream and hope you make it, but a dose of reality is also good for the soul. Don't expect that the world will come to you, expect that you need to be different and the best of the best just to barely make it in the arts.