The economy is supposedly in a very bad state and at the same time most people report here BME, or at least a steady rise of earnings. What's so special about this business that it's been completely resistant to problems in the whole economy for the past 5 years ?
For me it was a BME as well. Both on SS and Fotolia (my two best earners ).

Quote from: MetaStocker on September 28, 2012, 15:30

Quote from: Mopic on September 27, 2012, 17:12
I would love to do a couple of scientific illustrations for example, for some very rare subjects. I'm sure buyers would be willing to pay even a couple of hundred dollars for it, but with unusual subjects micro can't make up the low commission with bigger download numbers. I tried that and for some images which I know are the only ones available (so not much competition) I get 10 subs on Shutterstock. Not worth spending even a couple of hours on it.

Try SPL (Science Photo Library), it's a Getty partner, RF and RM, mostly illustrations, 3D, CGI, photoshopping.

http://www.sciencephoto.com/

I see their images used every day on BBC for instance.
No idea if you can get rich with SPL but it's probably the only agency doing sales in that field.

Thanks a lot. Looks very promising and more or less what I'm looking for. I just hope they're better at responding to e-mails than Getty .

Looking at the 'Balance of account' page I noticed that in the "Paid" column along side the dates (for the 'cleared' sales) there are also 'x' and 'o' signs. Does anyone know what's the difference ?
My last cleared sale is from 17 July.

I was actually hoping that my CG illustrations would fit well with macro. When I look at the stuff that they currently have it's usually a bit outdated and just looks bad in purely technical terms. It's like comparing the original Tron with the Tron Legacy CGI On the other hand things that take more time to create (let's say a few days for a single image) are just too risky for micro. I would love to do a couple of scientific illustrations for example, for some very rare subjects. I'm sure buyers would be willing to pay even a couple of hundred dollars for it, but with unusual subjects micro can't make up the low commission with bigger download numbers. I tried that and for some images which I know are the only ones available (so not much competition) I get 10 subs on Shutterstock. Not worth spending even a couple of hours on it. 

Well ... theoretically I am with Getty via Zoonar, but out of the 500 or so images I submitted there 8 got accepted and 1 rejected. All the other pictures are still pending (some over a year already). Maybe there are other partner sites that get accepted faster, but I get a feeling that artists from Getty partners get a totally different treatment than those lucky ones that submit directly to them.

Quote from: Perry on September 26, 2012, 11:51

Quote from: Mopic on September 26, 2012, 09:52
Why oh why does Alamy use this strange system

It's not a "strange system", it's common business practise. It's the "credits" and "subscriptions" that are strange.

Does Getty or Corbis do that ?

Sure, could definitely be more. I'm just saying I would be very surprised if that number was smaller than 200 people.
Someone asked if that's even possible ... duh!  and it's not just a lucky few

Well .. both Corbis and Getty didn't answer.
Any suggestions what I should do now ? I sincerely think I could have a shot at doing RM and macro. 

Why oh why does Alamy use this strange system and there's a 45 day waiting period for all earnings to get 'cleared'? This month in particular I'm way over the payout limit, but probably won't get my money in October since the earnings from August aren't cleared yet. I don't think any other site does that. 

My guess is that there's at least 200 non-exclusives making more than $2500 a month. Obviously this grows exponentially so the $10k+ group is less than 10 people.

Quote from: Digital66 on September 25, 2012, 22:39
Copycats or just working for the same boss?
http://www.istockphoto.com/kupicoo
http://www.istockphoto.com/Squaredpixels
http://www.istockphoto.com/steex
http://www.istockphoto.com/annebaek
And of course we can't forget http://www.istockphoto.com/laflor
Among many others.

Sniff, sniff...  It smells fishy

Wow ... some of them have the same people in the very same clothes in their ports! Definitely looks like something taken in the same shoot. That's interesting.

As for the "looking at other's ports" I don't think anyone said it's bad in itself. Some of us just stated that it's counter productive and we choose not to do so ... that's all. Look all you want, as long as you don't copy.

Quote from: lisafx on September 25, 2012, 17:27

Quote from: Drexxle on September 24, 2012, 16:06

We all browse through the libraries looking for things to copy, i mean inspire us.

Umm.  Actually, no, we don't all do that.

+1

I actually try to not look at anything else and keep my head fresh.

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on September 25, 2012, 10:13
We have to draw the line somewhere. This post shows intent to systematic duplication and advocates other to do so as well.
The keywords here are "systematic", "clear intention" and trying to "get others on board". If this is something we should just dismiss, then there is no grounds for any claims against plagiarism in microstock and we collectively accept all plagiarism attempts as "OK". I think this contributor clearly crosses the line for what we actually should accept.

I was successful with take-downs of images that were plagiarism of my own work (at least @ Shutterstock), so I'm pretty sure you have enough leverage in the industry to protect your work properly. But we need to do something about it. The worst thing to do is to say "that's just the way micros work".

I know some of you think that it's just a guy with 8 pictures, but my work has been copied by people with big, high quality ports. The last case is a guy with 40k+ images. People do this because they think they can get away with it, but the more often we act and send infringement claims, the more chances we have fighting plagiarism.

Quote from: luissantos84 on September 24, 2012, 16:22

ain't that a little too much? a woman with a headset or a guy behind a desk looking at a laptop? wasn´t that done back in the 70s or 80s? or the famous handshake? Yuri copied them too?

I'm pretty sure there were no 'looking at a laptop' photos in the 70's. The same goes for headsets by the way

But on a more serious note. This is not about very broad subjects, but copying very specific characteristics of an image. Trying to recreate the same 'look', lighting, colors, composition etc. I think most of us can spot a plagiarism.

this resembles me my own adventures on Shutterstock and my efforts fighting copycats. And this is not only newbies (this guy from DT was just stupid enough to post about it ), but I've been riped off by people with 40k+ images in their port.

Shutterstock forum thread

Just shameless.

Quote from: JPSDK on September 23, 2012, 01:55

Quote from: Mantis on September 23, 2012, 01:24

Quote from: JPSDK on September 23, 2012, 01:18
There are buyers on the ss forum, just as there is here.

Yea but when someone pimps a dog in a toy fire engine I doubt that buyers are looking for that.  In fact I doubt that buyers look for their needed images in forums.  The reality is that pimping is like pooping.  The only one that cares and feels good is the pimper/pooper.

There could be a buyer with a subscription, who thought the pimped image was nice, beautiful or usefull and just downloaded it.

In theory you could also win the lottery.

It's not only the summary page. Things that I noticed are not working correctly:
- gallery views - I've got zero since Friday
- total earnings all across the site
- number of downloads for individual files in 25-a-day, or darkroom gallery stats.

The summary page broke early Saturday for me and I'm stuck with 5 dls. On the plus side I had my BSE - best Sunday ever In terms of downloads at least, not $$ unfortunately.

Quote from: Pond5 Contact on September 13, 2012, 15:56

Apologies, but we don't have templates worked out for images just yet. It is something we are actively working on right now. The workaround is to use CSVs: http://help.pond5.com/customer/portal/articles/625381

So far I have managed to apply the template one-by-one from the edit page. Takes a couple of seconds for each image, so still one of the fastest submission process in the industry.
One more thing that doesn't work for a long time now, for images as well as videos, is the view count. But I'm sure you know about it.

Quote from: velocicarpo on September 14, 2012, 19:19
Another thing what always comes to my mind when searching as a buyer is that I notice that there is PLENTY of room for new material and ideas. There are lots of niches which are not well covered, and this is actually good news.

Yep. I was once looking for some photos of bike lanes, roads etc. and it wasn't that easy to find what I needed. I would have thought those subjects are covered completely, but I guess not. I think I finally bought a couple of photos from DT.

Quote from: Vonkara on September 14, 2012, 18:53
Or you don't know how to search on Istock. Take a look at Shaun search guide for buyers. The fact that you have no other experience than this bad experience with searching Istock image tell me that you might need it.

The other fact that this result makes you happy also tell me that you made this post for the only purpose of taking down an agency you are not successful at and didn't bother to go further your first image search result.

Yes ... it's the client's fault. Istock is great and would succeed commercially but it turned out that clients are total twats and don't know how to use the site properly. 

I was convinced since about 2006 things are going in a very bad direction in terms of the whole economy and didn't really believe at the time this business will survive a day. I wish I understood sooner how wrong I was, maybe I would concentrate more on microstock and went full time 3 or 4 years earlier. 

Today I open up the 'summary of items sold' page and see more than 50 new thumbnails showing sales, so my right brain hemisphere immediately goes "we're rich I tell ya!" ... and then my left hemisphere goes ... "look at the prices and license". All novel use. Got fooled again! 

had anyone worked out how to apply a template to many images at once. Apply video template doesn't work (file xxx is a sound clip error). When I make a sound template it gives me 'this is not a sound clip error' 
Applying the template individually to files in the edit window works fine.

I priced all my pictures $18 and so far had two sales. I'll definitely upload the rest of my port.

I even forgot I have registered and uploaded anything, but I did get 3 sales in May and now again 3 sales in September within the first week. Very strange and random sales. With $23.92 I might even get a payout in a foreseeable future