Quote from: cobalt on February 12, 2025, 04:44

But stock is not dead, I expect the media industry to keep growing at a rapid pace over the next 10 years.

Yes, I agree with what you say.

The only big problem is that the stock industry is not respecting our work as contributors.

I don't think that if I sell 15,000$ of photographs per month it is fair to only receive 3,000$ (20% I think is the average between SS, IS, and AS)

I think it is very unfair.

From which I have to subtract the taxes of my country and the costs of production (I do travel and landscape, I need good equipment and I have about 4/5,000 euros per year of travel costs).

I agree with you it is wrong. I'd suggest though one method is to figure out how to do marketing, and then create your own site to sell the photography/videography.

In my 15 years of stock I have always uploaded about 400 images per year ... just over 1 per day.

I have always looked for the highest quality. Sometimes I spent 3 hours retouching an image. In addition to the time and cost to take it.

And this brought me an income of between 3k and 4k per month until two/three years ago. This income also includes the sale of prints and licenses through my website. I also spent a lot of time on marketing.

Then, in the last 3 years, with the collapse of sales on Shutterstock, and the arrival of AI on Adobe Stock and on POD sites, everything became much more complicated and the old strategies no longer worked. And I lose about 1K per month compared to before. Now, I am at the limit for a European salary.

My photos are much better than those of 5 or 10 years ago, but the highest quality no longer works as before.

The reason? I don't know.

Some hypotheses:

- The average quality has increased thanks to new software that is easier to use. So I have new competitors.
- The arrival of AI that allows good quality (at low resolution) and, above all, incredible production speed.
- The tsunami of AI images on Adobe and on Pods sites has obscured my visibility. Portfolios with many images are more visible than mine
- Every year, RPD gets lower and lower

Last year I uploaded almost 700 images and this year I would like to upload 100 per month. I have slightly lowered the quality to increase the quantity.

However, I am not sure that this choice is the right one.

I'd agree with all your assessments/hypotheses here. Also - if your net income "only" dropped by $1k - you are actually still doing quite well in spite of all the new competition.

Knowing that then - the question is - what do you do about it?
a) You can produce more. That is the hamster on the wheel thing though, unless you can spam all you can.
b) You can figure out how to market better. Not as 'easy' to do for people - so - gives you a bit of an edge.
c) Figure out how to make your images stand out more. I do agree with cobalts insight that the east indian spammers simply copy off other people for the most part - so by having a unique portfolio - not necessarily 'best sellers' - but consistent sellers - makes it last longer.

I would not lower your quality, otherwise you reduce your distinguishing features - plus - you won't feel good about it longterm. Money is not the "only" thing. Figure out how to increase your production speed while maintaining your quality.

maybe no one submitted results? (didn't know people still used it).

Anyways - seems to be blank for me too. Perhaps a mysql error, or just no submissions...

Quote from: stoker2014 on February 04, 2025, 10:11

Does anyone sell photos on this site? How is the income?

They sent to the contributors a Happy New Year cut on 01.01.2025. Its the second cut in 3 years. The first one was when the new owners took over. We had a zoom call with the new owners then and they assured us that everything will be as before......well not really. After they took over they started calculating the earnings differently so it resulted in 30-50% down. Now on February 15 we will see what is the damage this time. In fact there is a nice discussion on reddit and linkedin that can shed light to your question. You can see part of that zoom call and what they say . 

https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterEffects/s/dhZz4Zr0kD


Check the comments too.

Interesting thread, thanks! Yes - the isralie company that acquired them seem to be liars, and instead focusing on stuffing their own pockets. I don't upload there any more because it is a waste of time.

I got into shutterstock it seems after a lot of the great sales most people had (I think end of 2018/beginning of 2019 I think it was). For several thousand files (videos + photos).

Not that I ever made "that" many sales there, but after about 2020, just diminishing returns for time/effort put into uploading, with the constant "good news" e-mails from them. Stopped uploading I think around 2022, because it just didn't seem worth it any more.

Right now maybe make (on average) between $50-$100 usd/month from them. (And I think how they've structured the royalites that means they are making gross about $700-$800).

While I do understand some people being upset they didn't meet the requirements (and yes, it would be nice to know in 'advance' - but on  the flip side - also makes sense that Adobe would not know until the end of the year)...

IT IS A BONUS! Why are you crying that you didn't get a BONUS??? They could have very well said 'meh, we don't feel like doing it'. But it's nice because it is a BONUS!
So the people who qualified - congrats! For people who didn't - be aware that yes, obviously there are a lot more (pakistani/east indian/etc) 'contributors' - and you've known the requirements seemed to have increased yearly to qualify... So - make sure you submit more/get more approved/etc... And remember - it is a BONUS! It is a NICE thing to get if you happen to qualify! Kind of like winning a mini lottery. So that is good!

I'm genuinely surprised by the low figures from Shutterstock and Pond5 this January. Considering their business practices, I can't help but wonder if they might be manipulating the numbers or hiding sales�but is that even possible?

I'm experiencing a drop of around 70% compared to the same month last year. Is anyone else noticing something similar?
 

Very easy to do programatically. Its literally a couple lines of code, and yes - that is a risk you have selling on a 3rd party platform.

Easy way to test - get several friends to purchase several of your assets. If you are not credited with ALL the sales, then yes - they are manipulating the numbers.

I believe someone (here) had done that 1-2 years ago with shitterstock (& posted the results), and came to the conclusion that shitterstock was indeed keeping/hiding some sales. You should be able to do a search and find that.

Most likely its part of the id2020.org "push" to try and "force" people for a "digitalID". Especially if they say a 3rd party is doing it.

The "long game" of the "digitalID" - if it was to come - would be then to be able to dictate terms to people, and if they didn't comply "ban" them. If "everyone" needed a "digitalID" then it would be easily to permanently ban them with little to no recourse. That's what is "really" going on. Nothing to do with "safety/protection" - but more track/trace/control.

So generally speaking, you should not do that, and/or request that the company opt out and/or find alternative means.

I have a feeling Adobe is preparing the frontend UI for separating the AI and the "real" collections by price. AI assets will be cheaper and the "real" ones will keep the current price. In this case it makes sense to show the customer the more expensive content by default, and allow him to see cheaper content by clicking a toggle. With their huge AI collection Adode doesn't need to pay the same amount as before to AI producers anymore - their work in growing the AI collection is mostly done.

Eh... no. That is poor reasoning, one could say - eh, Adobe doesn't need to pay you any more, because they don't need you.

The reason istock is not yet taking ai created content by producers is because the legal situation with content created by midjourney and stable is murky.

There's actually nothing really "murky" about it - its actually quite black & white. Midjourney engaged in, and regularly engages in, massive, massive theft.
A lot of other so-called "ai" companies (i.e., even chatGPT) are basically thieves. They are thieves on a MASSIVE scale. They just want to hire expensive lawyers, & lobby to get the "laws" (which by no means are necessarily "moral") - but they want the "laws" to basically endorse their actions.

They COULD pay the authors they stole the works from in perpetuity going forward, as WELL as retroactively. They are hoping people don't realize that. SUPER easy to do.

The bigger picture most likely of what they are TRYING to do - is get "support" for it - by getting a lot of other people to benefit from their theft.

Kind of like a robber (aka midjourney/chatgpt) that robs 100 million from a bank - but as they leave the bank - every person they see on the street they give $1,000. When the cops come to investigate and say they need to recover ALL the money - the people that received $1,000 are much less likely to "give up" the robbers - simply because they benefited indirectly from the heist, may have already spent that $1k - and are reluctant to pay out of pocket the $1k they got.

THAT, I would say what midjourney/chatGPT + various other "ai" companies are REALLY doing. The "AI" is not a thinking machine, "TRAINING" is not "learning" - "TRAINING" is THEFT.

There is absolutely nothing "murky" about what they did, nor what they are doing. They are thieves on a very grand scale. They are simply trying to get support from other people - so it is less likely they get caught and/or in trouble.

It's pretty much EXACTLY the same playbook they used during convid (& yes, its the same group of people). They gave convid cheques to people around the world - so as they were printing literally BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars to give to friends - they gave $2k convid cheques to people (which, lol they are trying to "recover" from people, so they are even trying to steal back the money they "gave" people). But because they printed all this money money money - a lot of people aren't looking at what REALLY happened - but focused on themselves.

It's the same thing here.

Incidentially - its the same reason most likely the shutterstock execs don't care about east indian theft. Because (a) they benefit directly from the theft of sales. and (b) if enough people complain about an account, they "seize" the funds and keep it for themselves, getting more MONEY. They don't give it back - they don't contact the people who purchased the assets and say 'Oooh, sorry, we found out you were sold stolen assets, so we are refunding your money'. No - they KEEP it. So the shutterstock execs LIKE east indian theft. Because it BENEFITS them. It is SUPER easy to stop the theft - one would be simply to reject east indian accounts. Second would be to simply compare new images to existing images in their database, and flag new accounts that upload similar/identical content for further investigation. Super easy. But they don't, because they don't want to.

"AI" - as it exists in its current form - is simply theft. Nothing "murky" - it's quite black and white.

Amazon is another company benefiting on a MASSIVE scale. They don't care if people use AI - in fact they LOVE it - because "millions" of people are trying to "get rich quick" selling "ai" books. What they care about is MONEY MONEY MONEY. As long as it doesn't affect their bottom line - they are all for it.

What is going on right now - is the people with the "AI" tools are trying to justify their theft, and trying to get away with it.

What the PROPER solution would be is:
a) Retroactively pay back ALL contributors who had 'ai generations' based on their works they stole. Programatically EASY to do.
b) Going forward, allow artists to opt in/opt out at the % revenue share THEY (the artist) specifies, for image generations, and be paid in perpetuity (i.e., regular daily cheques).
c) Have opt/opt-out models rebuilt DAILY, so if an artist every wants to opt out - quite simple to do - and the new 'trained' models do not include their data in generations. If the artist 'opt-in' again - then it is included in generations, and they are compensated in micro payments for any use.

That would be "ethical" AI.

The psychos running the "ai machines" don't want to do that because they greedy pyschotic sociopaths - but THAT would be an "ethical" solution. VERY feasible. And it will happen once enough artists start DEMANDING that they be compensated FAIRLY on terms THEY set for use of the stolen assets.

Quote from: Pacesetter on January 11, 2025, 17:48

Quote from: HalfFull on January 11, 2025, 15:15

Doesn�t surprise me. I was reading an article in a broadsheet the other day about complaints that the internet was being buried by poor quality AI imagery. I could also imagine a lot of buyers will become fed up because, let�s face it, while there are some good AI images there is also a lot of rubbish and it must be a PITA wading through all that just to find something good countless times a day (image buyers for advertising agencies etc).

I was watching a Youtube video the other day (and of course I forgot who I watched now) and they claimed that Youtube is not promoting videos with AI content but rather original human-sourced content. Now that is a simplistic recollection of what was said but I see that if this is indeed the situation and online creators have identified experiencing this, whether that is on Youtube or any other platform, then the demand for AI will naturally fall.

i dont know if it's a new feature but yesterday i logged in my yt account to upload a video and there was a notice on top page saying that from now you can decide if your yt videos will be "given away" for ai training ... it's an option in the account settings ...

Wow, interesting, thanks.

Details here:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/15509945

Quote from: Wilm on January 10, 2025, 14:37

The USA is a technologically highly developed country. With so many technical achievements and innovations.

What I just don't want to understand are the power lines that still look the same today as they did 100 years ago. If we know - as has been proven by extensive studies - that the main cause of such fires is defective power lines, why on earth are they not buried in these areas? Especially in areas where storms are always raging so violently that the cables snap and their sparking ends set fire to dry bushes or trees.

And why are so many houses built entirely of wood in these areas, which contribute significantly to the immense flying sparks and feed the fires additionally?

Wouldn't it make sense to prevent the fires from taking on such devastating proportions in the first place?

Yes. America is one of the most dangerous english speaking countries in the world to live in now. Their governments do not look after its people. There is not enough money in internal revenue to give sufficient infrastructure and protection against their rapidly rising climate problems, because zuckerberg musk and bezos want their massive tax breaks.

Half of its nation has been brainwashed into thinking that national healthcare, education, science, and safety are not important issues, so they go and vote for a president who says drill, baby drill, because they are frightened of immigrants and not having a gun.

Not only are they in danger to themselves, but to the rest of the world. They cannot fight earth, the earth will win.  These fires, which are so horrible and sad to look at, and all the horrible climate events that have been getting worse, are not the end. There are a lot more coming as predicted by scientists. So far, scientists have been right. Climate deniers have been wrong. But they won't admit it. When will it stop?

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. - old native american saying.

a) "Climate problems", aka "climate change" is a narrative designed to manipulate people into austerity. "Climate change" for the most part is manufactured via (i) regular chemtrail spraying, (ii) haarp (resonance frequency 'cloud' dispersal), (iii) "wind turbines" which "blow" the desired weather patterns into various regions.
The military (not 'just' the us, but worldwide) tends to be used as a tool to do that. Lol - "climate deniers" is a term invented the last couple years to basically try and avoid thinking - aka - "if you don't agree with me, YOU ARE A CLIMATE DENIER!!!". No. That is a manipulation tactic, and a weak one at that. "Climate change" for the most part is manufactured, "created".

b) Plenty of $$ in 'internal revenue', and easy to 'tax' people via money printing, threat of coercion unless 'income tax' is paid, etc. Most countries have slaves, and the slaves don't even know they are slaves. Tell-a-vision has conditioned them to believe they need to have a ball & chain to be a 'slave' - when if you stop and think about it - if you are "giving" 6 months of your income to random individuals - in essence - for 6 months of the year you work for free. For the rest of the 6 months of income you collect, you have to figure out how to feed yourself, house yourself, & if you are lucky - you have a little bit left over for "entertainment". You aren't "supposed" to work 52 weeks out of the year - you've been conditioned from birth, however, to believe that is the case.

c) "National health care" is actually very, very bad - if you are referring specifically to allopathic (i.e., 'whitecoat') doctors. Through conditioned (tell a vision, schooling, etc) - people are led to 'believe' they are good - when in fact, they are very very bad. Many doctors just "follow orders" & "prescribe medication" - which is very, very bad. The allopathic/rockefeller medical "industry" is a FOR PROFIT industry. There is no money in healthy patients (plus, "they" don't really want healthy individuals that can fight back) - there is money in sick patients that regularly need treatment. The allopathic medicine is designed to HIDE SYMPTOMS - NOT CURE. Naturapathic (among other non-allopathic medicines) medicine (which they attack visciously) - is designed to heal & cure.

d) "Edjookatchun" is designed to teach people to (i) obey authority without question, (ii) try to break their willpower & just follow orders, (iii) keep them dumbed down to about a grade 3 level (reading/math/etc). You have "university graduates" who can't add two numbers in their head, and need to use a calculator to figure out how to give exact change. Public education would be better described as public dumbing down.

e) "Science" - or rather most "scientists" get $$$ based on how many papers they publish, and many times are 'sponsored' by "drug companies" etc to promote a certain narrative, so fudge results. "Peer review" does not actually tend to be what one would think "peer review" means. (I was in academia, among other things).

f) "They" - assuming you are speaking about natively born americans - are not "afraid of immigrants" per se. "They", however, don't like certain cultures which have (for the most part) no ethics, are extremely corrupt, and easily manipulated by "money" - aka - they will do ANYTHING for $$$.

g) With respect to "g3ns" lol - em, have you even "visited" the us recently? How many places are set up (in metropolitan areas) - there are "security officers" everywhere, "for your safety", you really can't enter ANY popular venue with one (i.e., concerts, stadiums, etc) "for your safety", you need "permission" (if you are law abiding) to get one, etc, etc - so in essence - it is a little bit of an illusion if one believes they can "own" one - simply because they can't really take it anywhere with them (unless they are say at a range in a forest) - and need to get a lot of "permission". Of course - "criminals" don't care - but they never cared - and that is true pretty much for any country.

h) Out of curiosity, how does one "fight earth"? Also, who "loaned" earth - I never recall any bank notice about an "earth loan".