When earnings of a company which mainly consists of equity of a third party rises without adequate compensation for those entities which deliver the original content something is wrong. We need and deserve a raise. Period.

SS 'earnings' (in the proper financial sense) are pretty much directly related to contributor compensation. You can hardly expect to get a raise based on the share price which is subject to the whims of the market. Would you welcome a decrease in royalties if the shares fell in value?

The truth is that SS alone have stuck reasonably firmly to the basic principles of microstock since I joined them in 2004. All the others got much too greedy, much too fast ... and thus they blew it. Don't blame SS for that. Back in 2004 I had an RPD of 20c with SS. Nowadays it's nearly 80c. That's a four-fold increase, in less than a decade and right through a severe recession. Remind me what the problem is again?

I don't understand why some people are whining. SS haven't changed their terms (unlike almost every other agency). If you didn't like SS's terms when you started with them then why did you ever contribute to them? SS's discipline in keeping their heads and sticking to the original business plan (when all around them were losing theirs) is precisely the reason for their success.

I have made a lot of very easy money through SS over the years and it continues to rise, month by month, year by year. This evening I am raising a glass (of an excellent Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey) in honour of Jon and his extraordinary success. I hope he goes on to make $10B and also wipe the floor with Getty in the process.

Cheers to Jon!

Without another penny going to the photographer!  This is another big problem with the RF license - people can download their own digital libraries with a single subscription and then use those images in perpetuity without paying another cent.  Great for the designer, very bad for the content producer.  RF images really need an expiration date so they self destruct after an agreed period of time.  It isn't right that someone can continue to make money selling designs with our images for years and years without paying any other royalties.  The RF model really doesn't work for photographers in the long term.

Sub  images do have an expiry date ... unlike RF licenses from Istock for example. Here's an excerpt from SS's ToS under the YOU MAY NOT restrictions;

18.Stockpile, download, or otherwise store Images not used within six (6) months of the expiration of the subscription under which you downloaded the Image. If you fail to use an Image within such six (6) month period, you will lose all rights to use that Image.  

http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml

Quote from: cclapper on June 21, 2013, 04:58

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 04:40

The buyer is the problem here, wanting to get images for peanuts, or a tenner.

We all say our images are sold too cheap, and when the pricing goes up we complain buyers dont want them. Catch 22. We need to make up our minds.

No, it doesnt matter what we want. The buyers are the ones complaining and leaving, as they rightly should. Heres an idea...why dont the micro sites work together, like many other industries, and all make a move to slowly raise prices on all their sites? That way, everyone keeps their piece of the pie, and everyone wins, assuming those price hikes are shared with contributors. The answer, of course, is that it will never happen...because of greed.


And every time someone like getty cheats the contributor, they get even more contributors! Again, blame is being placed on contributors when the problem is the greedy corporations. Raising the prices that much doesnt seem like the right answer to me.

Did I just walk into the twilight zone? I have seen so many comments complaining about buyers expecting top quality images for peanuts, and now all of a sudden they are rightly doing so by demanding a lower price or walk away?

The world upside down. Is it true what they say, photographers have no business acumen?

The world is certainly upside-down, however it is not the photographers who are being greedy but the agencies who take up to 85% of the purchase price. That is where the problem is.

If we had the standard agency agreement for digital products (like app's, music downloads and e-books), with 70% going to the content creator and 30% to the selling agency, then photographers might actually have an incentive to create.

Oh, and under the agency agreement, the content creator also gets to set the price that their product is sold at too __ not the agency.

Imagine how the microstock world could be under those terms.

I think I have figured this out on my own...

Shutterstock now sells 2 images for $29 - 30% commission on $14.50 is $4.35

They used to offer (up until last month) 1 image for $19 - 30% commission on $19 is $5.70

I've already had 2x $5.70 SOD's this month. Like I said there are clearly different prices/packages being offered to different customers. You can't buy fewer than 5 standard licenses in the UK.

Quote from: daveh900 on June 18, 2013, 08:20

Correct me if I'm wrong... It appears that buyers can't buy a single image anymore. It used to be $19 for 1 image, now it appears to be $29 for 2 images which may account for the lower commissions ($4.35 vs $5.70) that I have been seeing.

I sold one or over 44$ a couple of days ago.

I think the prices Daveh900 is quoting are total prices to the buyer, not royalties received by the contributor. I think he is also referring to standard licenses too rather than the 'specials' responsible for SOD's which, as I understand it, are quoted on an individual basis.

As it happens I had a pretty good day at SS yesterday with SOD's at $100 and $75 and also 3 EL's.

Hobbyist or not has nothing to do with right and wrong.

Soooo ... every time we see an image of ours in use, in your view, we are supposed to hassle the user as to where they bought it and what license they purchased, just to determine it was 'proper'?

It's not a question of 'right and wrong'. It's a question of professionalism.

Quote from: Dan on June 17, 2013, 13:55

Anyone  else  have  best  days  for  sales?

Yes

Me too sometimes. Sometimes not though.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 17, 2013, 15:15

However, IMO, if he spots "something fishy", but "would just smile and move along" he's letting them off with it and doing all of us a big disservice.

A disservice was done to all of us in this case.  Someone spotted what he was sure was a misuse, decided he had to shake down a customer, and it turned out he was wrong, making the whole microstock community look bad.

I think we're seeing an obvious divide in opinion between those who do microstock for a living and those who do it as a hobby.

Quote from: lisafx on June 16, 2013, 16:34

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 16, 2013, 15:01

Reaching out to the customer after the sale and demanding to know where the image was purchased and what type of license it was is unprofessional, no two ways around it.  The agency looks bad, the contributor looks bad, and all of us are damaged.  You placed your bet on the customer being in the wrong, and you (along with Dreamstime and all of microstock along with you) ended up looking foolish.  Thanks.

Well, since this comment, and Tickstock's agreeing with it have gotten some -1's  my +1's to both posts aren't visible.  Just wanted you to know I wholeheartedly agree. 

Some people have WAY too much time on their hands.

And I have just given a positive to you but you I unfortunately can't get rid of the other to my mind undeserved negative.

I can! Stockmarketer and Lisa are absolutely correct.

Does the OP imagine that Yuri, Sean and other top microstockers go through this absurd rigmarole every time that they spot one of their own images in action? Or do they spent their valuable time creating great new content instead?

I just checked and a file SS has been touting as an all time best seller has dropped off the front page searches.

A 'test' of this nature is utterly meaningless unless you know the actual keywords (used by buyers) that made it a best-seller. It's not always the most obvious keywords. The image in question might well be on the front page of searches using different search terms. Even the order of the search terms used makes a difference ... 'meeting business' will bring up different results to 'business meeting' for example.

I think that is a bit paranoid of you.  I don't think that Leaf is going to have favourites just because somebody pays 25$ a year.

Sshh! Don't let the truth get in the way of another conspiracy theory.

Seems to me that...

1. Your time could be MUCH better spent just focusing on creating new content.

2. Many people here told you that the usage was most likely covered by a regular license, yet you pressed on making noise with the customer, DT and the ms community over nothing.

3. If I ran DT I would see this as extremely unprofessional behavior and I would sanction you.  You contacted the customer implying they did something wrong, when they were perfectly in the clear.  I would be hesitant to buy from DT again for fear one of its contributors would come after me later questioning my legitimate use of an image.  So not cool, man.

4. What's next, you're going to go after every third party poster reseller or eBayer who is offering the poster for sale?   For god's sake, let it go.

When I jumped into microstock, I had to swallow the fact that sometimes my work will be used in ways the license doesn't allow, or worse yet, outright stolen.  I can try to monitor every usage and go after people I think are infringing, or I can keep my nose to the grindstone.  I don't have to like the misuse or theft, but I know I will not move forward if I keep looking back.

Well said. Almost every business suffers from some degree of 'shrinkage' as it is called. The loss of stock and/or property, most of it usually stolen by the business's own employees, is almost unavoidable without taking impractical measures that would cost the business more than the loss it is intended to prevent. Unfortunately it is part of the business ... of being in business.

You are best moving on and utilising your time & energy to create new content.

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