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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
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676
« on: February 04, 2022, 13:10 »
...I haven't received a code, even though I've sold over 10,000 licenses in the past year... Did you upload files last year? In addition to the sales rule, there's an "active contributor" rule: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/royalty-details.html"An active contributor is an Adobe Stock contributor with at least two (2) submitted and approved qualifying assets in 2021."
677
« on: February 03, 2022, 13:45 »
How long will the code be available in the portal? Can I wait to redeem the code until my current plan expires?
Thank you very much!
I didnt redeem my 2020 code until a month ago. The blue bar had actually disappeared by that point and I had to reach out to Adobe support, but they were very quick about getting me a new link with no trouble.
In the past, support would get a new code for an expired one (I had done that with the very first one issued), but if you read the current help on this, they explicitly say they will not provide a new code for an expired one: https://helpx.adobe.com/gr_en/stock/contributor/help/how-to-redeem-creative-cloud-bonus-code.htmlIn section 6: "This code will expire in 12 months if not redeemed. Replacement codes will not be provided for expired codes. "
678
« on: February 02, 2022, 22:02 »
FYI for anyone redeeming a code who has some time left on their existing plan. It does end up tacking 12 months on to the existing expiration date, but for a few nerve-wracking screens it looks as if it didn't work.
I checked my current expiration date (in May 2022) and then went to redeem my code for another 12 months. The redemption was successful but said my service would end on February 2, 2023. I opened up a new tab and went to my Adobe account page and it still showed May 2022. I only have one Adobe account, so there's no possibility to mistakenly redeem in the wrong account.
A few refreshes later (about 2-3 minutes I think) and the Adobe account page updated to show May 2023 as expected.
After all the warnings about making sure you do it correctly because you can't change anything, it would be great if the confirmation page when you redeem could show you - even if it asks you to wait while it updates your account - that you've completed the task as expected.
679
« on: February 01, 2022, 16:24 »
Nothing has changed since last year. My valid 4-digit contributor number still isn't OK with the tax form page (I used the link at the beginning of this thread) and it says "Valid vendor number contains 5-10 numerics". Then it dawned on my to try adding a zero at the beginning of the number and it worked!! I now have a PDF as well as the paper that arrived a few days ago in the mail. I guess I should save the link from this thread as I can't see anything in my contributor profile that shows me where to go...The link is in the help section, not in your contributor profile: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/Contributor-tax-FAQ.htmlSee "Where can I download my 1099?"
680
« on: January 27, 2022, 16:01 »
...The good news is that keywords you add in Lightroom (both versions) now retain the order you added them when the images are uploaded to the portal (remember to list the most important keywords first!). They are still displayed in alphabetical order in Lightroom to maintain the organization there...
That's good information to have - thanks. Feedback about showing keywords in Lightroom differently from how they were added by the photographer is that editing will be impossible. If you realize that what you entered - in priority order because you knew you were uploading as stock - needs to be changed, how can you do that? You can't see the priority you first used and so can't change priorities or add a new "top 5" keyword in the right place, bumping the others down. The only way to serve both uses, IMO, is to have an option to alphabetize or preserve entered order. Or enter keywords in Photoshop 
681
« on: January 27, 2022, 13:43 »
I uploaded some images yesterday - keywords entered in Photoshop - and my order was preserved. I only mention this to suggest it's a Bridge-specific issue, not a general snafu over keyword order for all uploads where the jpg is correct.
683
« on: January 25, 2022, 14:25 »
I'm asking about a sale that has empty row in "paid" section, as you can see, there are other sales in July that were cleared around the same month and paidin august, but not that particular sale.
EDIT: There are four sales, that were cleared in July and paid in August, but not that with an empty row in "paid" section". Shouldn't that sale been paid in august too?
Alamy doesn't pay out a set amount of time after the sale shows up in your list (which is often a long time after the actual use occurs, which is also a while after the download occurs). They pay you when they get paid and apparently the blank line hasn't paid up. I've chased a number of these in the past when several months have passed and Alamy support always answers and say's they'll chase up the account people and (blah blah). I have always been paid though, in the end.
684
« on: January 24, 2022, 19:13 »
In addition to the good points above, I'd offer a couple of very general comments, both related to thinking about the buyer of your images. The big one is keywords. I think both Shutterstock and Adobe Stock are showing me your actual keywords (but it's possible they're suggesting topics, in which case ignore my comments!!). Be specific about places and details of your image, but do not put multiple locations, multiple seasons, all possible food ingredients for all meals. This type of keyword stuffing means the images will show up in searches where they're not relevant - it won't help your sales and may even hurt them as they get passed over a lot. Some of your images are rather dull and flat and others have super-saturated colors (not in a good way). Buyers need to be able to use your images in designs & on web sites and most won't want to spend ages processing the images they license - especially if there are many other images of that subject to choose from. Try to get the look of your images more ready-to-use, if that makes sense. Here is an example of an image that is very flat and a second that is over-saturated, which might help explain my point a bit: https://stock.adobe.com/images/beautiful-wooden-balcony-of-old-house-in-the-woods/341663571https://stock.adobe.com/images/fresh-coconut-cocktail-on-the-table-holiday-mood-costa-rica/334190965And you'll need to grow your portfolio a lot to see consistent sales. Try to find scenes or places you have access to - or some hobby or other interest of yours - that perhaps isn't already covered to death in the (very large) existing agency collections. Good luck!
685
« on: January 24, 2022, 00:04 »
...Is there any minimum royalty in effect?
Having watched the custom royalties after the Pro Edition was announced in April, I have been happy to note that nothing has been lower than the 38 cent minimum on subscription royalties....
Mat would not provide more information at the time about contributors seeing lower rates for sales than 38 cents (for me; 33 or 36 cents depending on lifetime sales). I've been watching the numbers since and had been pleased to see nothing below 38 cents for a custom sale, and in January, some higher custom amounts than in 2021 - $1.99, $2.20, $4.95 instead of $1.2x or $1.3x) Until this evening. I had a "custom" sale for 33 cents. Then a second one. I am really upset that Adobe's gone this route. I realize this is only one two sales, but it means they've eliminated the floor on royalty amounts and punched a hole in the dyke.
686
« on: January 23, 2022, 17:07 »
Has anybody been able to get this to work using Python? Nothing I try works and I'm wondering if anybody else has had success. I use Python to automate all my uploads rather than using the GUI of an FTP client.
I didn't try with Python, but I gave up trying to get SFTP to work and just use the drag & drop interface on the web site instead.
687
« on: January 22, 2022, 13:44 »
688
« on: January 20, 2022, 20:38 »
...I'll be back in touch next week to share more detail of what has happened ...
It's nearly the end of "next week" now - Thursday evening on the US West Coast and very early Friday morning in the UK. I looked in the Alamy forums and don't see any update (other than the previously locked threads have been mostly unlocked). Even if the update is to give a new date for an update, something from Alamy would be appreciated.
689
« on: January 20, 2022, 12:57 »
I went to take a look, but I don't understand where I can find a description of what you're actually selling - for $6,273.90. I was a bit taken aback by the price.
I am a totally clueless clod with respect to OpenSea's marketplace, but I expected to be able to find out if I would be buying a JPEG, a license, a print, the copyright, or...?
I clicked on the link about unlockable content, but saw a popup with gray lines and a note that "This content can only be unlocked and revealed by the owner of this item." Is that what I would get if I would purchase?
Your photos are lovely, but I'm guessing that's not the primary appeal for an OpenSea buyer. I could just license an image of yours from iStock.
It's an interesting experiment - good luck with it - but can you elaborate on what exactly you're offering with your NFTs?
691
« on: January 15, 2022, 14:42 »
This is an interesting read about NFTs (and also about blockchain, the nature of platforms and the difficulties of change in decentralized systems). Search for NFT if you want to skip to that part. It's worth emphasizing a point at the end about how the intermediaries - in this case OpenSea - are gatekeepers to access your secure-in-the-blockchain item. "All this means that if your NFT is removed from OpenSea, it also disappears from your wallet. It doesnt functionally matter that my NFT is indelibly on the blockchain somewhere, because the wallet (and increasingly everything else in the ecosystem) is just using the OpenSea API to display NFTs" https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
692
« on: January 14, 2022, 16:30 »
... but big picture is that we are making more sales and our average price is very stable and has been for a number of years. It means that anyone making 7-8 sales per year on average will stay in the standard 60/40 split, and for any that dont, you still get promoted to the 60/40 as soon as you hit $250 gross if you are on 80/20
I had many more sales than your 7-8 annual average in just the second half of 2021, but the average (gross) sale was just $4.48. Compare that to the first half of 2021 (again multiple times your supposed annual average) where my average gross sale was $50.29. Or compare that to 2018 where my average gross sale was $49.66. I obviously can't explain why your stable average price over time doesn't in any way match up with my own experience, but I think if Alamy were confident in the stability of sales it wouldn't be penalizing contributors by reducing their royalty split. Edited to add that my numbers were just for sales (gross), not including the DACS and ASCRL payments (another post mentioned that their numbers included DACS, etc. thus boosting the average sale numbers Edited Jan 31 to add that a sale showed up Jan 28th (not sure when during that 45-day-clock for termination sales actually stop) and that was for a whopping 93 cents gross/ 37 cents for me. Slightly less pathetic, but still light years away from 7-8 sales will get you over the $250 gross mark.
693
« on: January 14, 2022, 14:18 »
... these types of deals are a requirement in todays market so you will see them from time to time, and we're not alone as an agency in having to provide such licence types.
4 cent royalties for a contributor on any type of sale is a complete non-starter. Unless the volume is through the roof (which is not a sustainable situation for a perpetual royalty-free license) single digit cents just doesn't cover anyone creating content for you, no matter how low they keep their costs. I've already made my decision - I started my 45-day termination clock earlier this month - but no matter how hard you look into it, you have two major problems. One is the pittance for royalties, and it isn't just the Chinese distributor at the end of December - I had an 8 cent royalty on a direct sale from Alamy in November. The other is your change in royalty structure that cuts a contributor's royalty from 40% to 20% when the July 2021 - July 2022 gross sales total is less than $250. Once, that tiny gross sales figure would have been a doddle to exceed, but with 21 cent gross direct sales and 15 cent distributor sales not meeting the threshold suddenly becomes much more likely. Alamy gets to grab a larger slice of the pie the worse the contributors' situation gets. In my book, that's not reasonable.
694
« on: January 14, 2022, 12:34 »
... What I find surprising in this post is that some contributors
appear to have no problem allowing the SS to manipulate and
change the original agreement you had with the agency when
you first signed up with them. ...
The agreement with Shutterstock - and with all the agencies - has always included terms that permit them to modify the agreement at their sole discretion and your continued use of their site indicates agreement. It's not an ideal situation, but it's what all contributors agreed to. The current section is 18f which says, in part: "Please note that Shutterstock reserves the right to modify these terms at any time in its sole discretion...Shutterstock will notify you of any such change by an announcement on this page, your login page, and/or by other means ...By continuing to make Content available through Shutterstock, you agree to be bound by all such changes...." Edited to add that I went to the Wayback Machine to look at the old terms of service back to 2004 and the agreement allowed Shutterstock to modify terms unilaterally. For example (when it was just bullet points, not even a numbered list!) "Shutterstock reserves the right to modify these terms at any time and to notify you by email of the modifications." from Nov 26 2004.
695
« on: January 13, 2022, 13:33 »
...But we don't really know if someone is so stupid that they use 200 images a month and buy the 750 plan or do they actually pay attention and buy the 350 plan? And I ask myself, who uses 750 subscription images a month or who's willing to pay $199 a month for up to 350 images a month? Why? For what?...
As with all the agencies, we don't really know anything about who's downloading what. We have to trust them. However, the very likely source of unused downloads is corporate buyers where the people who handle the budget want to be able to allocate a sum to cover all the needs without any further requests for money from one department or another. During vacation-heavy seasons - spring break, summer, "the holidays" - there will be low usage of the annual subscriptions such organizations probably buy. Shutterstock's VP of Finance pointed out early in the pandemic how well SS did from unused subscriptions - money coming in but no royalties to pay - so it really does happen even now. Way back when, Jon Oringer was direct about wanting to see how download patterns changed after a price increase before increasing our royalty amount per subscription. But that was when it was still 25 a day - which gave them a built-in buffer of weekends with few or no downloads. The other factor to consider is discounts - amounts below the posted price offered to entice a would-be-departing customer to stay or a new one to subscribe. All the agencies do that (look at your Adobe Stock subscription amounts to see discounted royalties from the nominal $3.30, $0.99, $0.66 amounts). Shutterstock can now afford to discount much more heavily than when they had that 38 cent royalty to consider...
696
« on: January 13, 2022, 12:32 »
... I think that an NFT would definitely fall into "primary value of the product is associated with the asset itself."
One would think so, but look at this law firm's view of these transactions, in particular this quote: "With respect to the reproduction right, if the NFT includes a digital copy of the asset, there is potential for this to amount to an unauthorised reproduction that may amount to infringement of copyright. However, in circumstances where there is no reproduction of the underlying asset in the creation of an NFT, there is arguably no infringement. " https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/1a1abb9f/nfts-and-intellectual-property-rightsOn a separate note, given agencies' general lack of vigor in pursuing infringements of other kinds, I can't imagine them going after NFT abuse of license rights. More likely they'll open an NFT marketplace! Associated Press has done it...
697
« on: January 13, 2022, 11:39 »
...It's pretty straight forward if they don't have a license at all (I think? doesn't an NFT "point" people a version of the image which a seller would have no right to display without some kind of license?). It would also be good if I could tell the ones who do have a license to quit it by pointing to a clause in the license forbidding it.
None of the agencies specifically forbid offering a licensed work as part of an NFT, but you see language like (from Adobe's license page) a standard license forbidding: "Create merchandise, templates, or other products for resale or distribution where the primary value of the product is associated with the asset itself." I can't imagine anyone paying for an extended license to sell an NFT - but that would be analogous to selling prints with an extended license, which is allowed. If the NFT was offering a web page with a mix of content - like syndicated articles with an embedded licensed image - I'd think that would meet the license terms. The value would be in the whole collection of content, not just the image. Have you been able to find any specific language for an NFT offer from any of the charlatans who have contacted you? That might help to pin down if they've violated any license terms. Edited to add links to a couple of articles explaining just how little "there" there is in NFTs. You own the record, but that's about it. https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faqhttps://www.protocol.com/newsletters/protocol-fintech/nft-ip-rights?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1From the above, this quote: "The NFT rights question comes amid a swirling debate over compensating creators.... Its a debate about whether creators should retain rights forever, or whether NFT owners should reap the rewards of participating in and promoting those NFTs for the creators. With NFTs seeping into more of the broader creator world, expect to see these issues heat up." The article below mentions one instance of a DMCA take down notice being sent to a would-be NFT seller who had ripped off the original owner of a work. But as you'll see, this is a really messy area https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/what-are-copyright-implications-nfts-2021-10-29/
698
« on: January 13, 2022, 11:16 »
NFTs can be offered without any ownership implied or required. That's why it's such a useless fad.
The record of the transaction is "secure", but that's it. I could sell as many NFTs of the Brooklyn Bridge as there would be gullible buyers to take me up on the offer.
And if there were detailed promises or terms with a deal, who would enforce that if the seller later reneged?
Anyone who uses one of your images without a license (directly) from you or an agency representing you needs to get a license. Your costs to go after them may be more than you want to pay.
699
« on: January 11, 2022, 17:41 »
Here are two examples from my (soon to be ex) Alamy account. The first is a direct sale for 21 cents gross and the second a distributor sale for 15 cents gross.
700
« on: January 11, 2022, 12:56 »
BTW, (in case you don't know, and if you do know, it might help someone else) you can see what you've netted for each sale on the 'Net Revenue Sales Report', which is downloadable from your homepage via the 'Download Sales Report' button.
Thank you for the pointer. Just as a note for others who want to see or download this table, the default organization of it is by Date Paid (drop down list by the date range). If you want to see the most recent "sales" - like the 15 cent nasties - you need to change that to date invoiced. That way things that haven't yet been paid will be in the list And there are more reports in Alamy's forums of non distributor sales for small amounts - one woman said she had one for (gross)25 cents this week. Opting out of distributor sales will only address part of the problem in other words
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