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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
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826
« on: April 15, 2021, 10:50 »
The FAQ doesn't really give contributors much information about what to expect from this new plan - dropping the minimum royalty is probably a massive loss, but it depends on what sorts of prices the 33% is based on. We don't even have a range.
Extended license for all sales sounds terrible - will users of these plans be able to sell unlimited numbers of items for resale (like large prints) for one small price? Is the extended license the same as your current extended license or different? Contributors don't need to know every detail of every corporate deal, but we need to know just how much of a rights giveaway this new plan is. I wasn't reading carefully enough. It's an enhanced license, not an extended license Adobe Stock is offering. Still more rights for less money, but not as bad as allowing resale items, etc. I still got it wrong! Pro Teams get enhanced; Pro Enterprise get extended. You have to ask why Adobe would offer extensive rights like that in an unlimited subscription. "Consistency" - I didn't realize that enterprise customers already got extended licenses for their downloads...
To clarify what the actual payout is, if a subscriber pays $100 per month (hypothetical) for the new plan and downloads just one asset some month, will the lucky contributor of that one item receive a $33 royalty or is there some other deduction from the gross payment before the contributor portion is calculated?
Will Adobe have any rules to prevent a busy subscriber from downloading the entire collection in one month and then unsubscribing? In other words, what does "unlimited" really mean?
And to echo the question above, how will Adobe report the "custom" download when the number sharing in the monthly take isn't immediately known.
I can't see any good news at all for contributors (to the standard collection) from this. What is the theoretical good news for us from Adobe's perspective?
827
« on: April 12, 2021, 23:49 »
I looked at my support folder and the only email I have for FAA is this [email protected]
828
« on: April 11, 2021, 19:26 »
...Maybe it is time to finally kill distributor sales - in the past they have mostly been low (< $20), but I don't think I have ever had one under $1 net before. I guess now that we only get 40% of regular sales the distributor sales aren't so much lower, but they have moved from good microstock levels to poor microstock levels....
The volume of sales at Alamy (for me) is low, but funnily enough, last October I decided to opt in to distributor sales after being opted out for many years. I thought I'd see how, if at all, that improved sales volume (I'd opted out on principle because I consider it outrageous that the distributor makes more than I do). Since October 2020 there have been only 2 distributor sales, the two smallest sales I've had in that time period. Gross numbers, one sale was $3.51 and the other $2.28. I am glad that the higher value sales (top 3, gross, $250, $119, $95) were direct through Alamy. A few months isn't long enough to make any decisions, but based on what I've seen to date, opting in to distributor sales was pointless 
829
« on: April 10, 2021, 14:41 »
I received email from EyeEm Dec 20, 2020 about the rate reductions to be effective Feb 1, 2021.
I took that as my cue to close my account there - they were very helpful about that and I received the money I was owed.
830
« on: April 05, 2021, 11:42 »
Hi,
I found one of my images sold online as a poster (they changed the color and added a text) by a small French company. They have their own website.
I contacted them and they said that they bought the image on Adobe Stock. I have not sold any extended license so they must use a standard license.
I send a ticket to Adobe Conributor support who told me to contact [email protected].
It's been 2 weeks and [email protected] has not answered my mail, I didn't even an automated answer.
Do you have any experience with them?
I would at least want to know how they handle this case. I wrote to them that I expect not only an extended license but also a financial compensation.
I don't have any experience with Adobe's support in that area. However, I would expect that Adobe will allow them to offer an image for sale without an extended license as long as they purchase one regular license for each poster sold. That's the arrangement that is made with the larger companies (like WallsHeaven, one of their API partners) where they can display the entire Adobe collection and only pay for a license if the item actually sells. I understand the problems from our point of view with this arrangement, but the argument started with Fotolia back before Adobe purchased them. Probably no harm in asking them, but I would not expect you to get an extended license purchase for this sort of use.
831
« on: April 03, 2021, 16:29 »
Sold a shot on Alamy for quite a bit but have been waiting since 18th december 2020 for payment to clean $146 how much longer and is over a 3 month wait normal.
If you click the Account Balance button (not the Sales History) you will see which sales have cleared and which haven't. Alamy's generous terms to their buyers are part of the reason for higher prices - customers don't pay when they download, but when the sale is invoiced (and that's often after an image is used). And they have 45 days to pay invoices. In the past, when I've found an image in use - credited to me/Alamy, so I know where it came from - and there's no sale showing, even uncleared, I've written to support. They reply promptly, typically saying that they can see a download but the sale hasn't been invoiced yet. Once, I sent several more emails as the sale still hadn't shown up a month later. (used in November, paid the following April) In terms of invoiced sales that don't clear, I think the longest was about a year (I did eventually get paid). Apparently Alamy's policy with large customers who make partial payments on big invoices is that no contributor sale is cleared until the entire invoice is paid in full. I think that's unreasonable - Alamy gets to sit on the money earning interest for a long time in some cases - but it wasn't bad enough for me to decide to leave them. It hasn't happened often (and I've been selling there since 2007). One of the irritating delays was around their last royalty cut - when the image was used, the rate was 50% but when it finally got invoiced 3 months later, the rate was 40%. I wrote to support who said that it's the invoice date that counts, not the publication date. They said it was "industry standard". Experiences will obviously be different for other contributors, but if you're new to Alamy and are used to the microstock pay-when-you-download model, generally things work differently there from the micro agencies.
833
« on: March 30, 2021, 21:54 »
Maybe they intend to populate istock's offerings with newly acquired Unsplash content. Then increase their profits by skewing the search results towards said content. Customers need not know the content is also available as creative commons. Contributors need not be paid because they already gave away all rights.
I think that's exactly what they'll do.
Does unsplash content typically have model or property releases?
https://help.unsplash.com/en/articles/4179580-dmca-verification
834
« on: March 30, 2021, 21:41 »
If I understand this correctly, Unsplash is inviting companies to provide images with their products and logos in them so that Unsplash users will effectively advertise the product for them when they download and use those images. In the articles below, they detail both paid ad content by brands as well as just adding branded images to the collection (in the paid case, the brand pays Unsplash to show the brand content in searches where they think it'll work; content is still free) https://unsplash.com/brandshttps://medium.com/unsplash/introducing-unsplash-for-brands-3b60d1b4ad0cThey claim Unsplash is used more than Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and Getty combined (no idea if that's accurate; just noting that they pitch this about themselves) https://buffer.com/resources/unsplash-for-brands/Here's a collection of Surface devices as an example of brand linkage https://unsplash.com/@surface
835
« on: March 30, 2021, 14:05 »
Ah, the "good" old days.
That chart's very out of date - Veer, Stockfresh and GraphicLeftovers are out of business and Fotolia is now AdobeStock. I don't think any of the agencies impose a maximum size on online display of images, but if there still is a limit it's much larger than it was
The issue of enforcement of license violations is also worth considering - considering there's another post today from someone pointing out that Creative Market is offering Adobe Stock and Shutterstock photos in a bundle of sky images (and saying in the description that they're doing that), the agencies don't exactly stand out for protecting their contributors.
836
« on: March 30, 2021, 13:58 »
Well thats one way of disrupting the free giveaway model of stupidity.
Buy them, move the images to thinkstock/getty
close it down
Make money
Bear in mind my crystal ball is not all that good, but I'd guess they want Unsplash for all the API business so Getty can copy what Shutterstock has been doing with API customers - the fees for the API hookup aren't shared with the people who create the images and there are some small per-asset royalties that get paid when the end user downloads something. https://unsplash.com/developersI'm not sure how many of the people who previously uploaded to Unsplash will continue to supply them once they know they're feeding Getty
837
« on: March 10, 2021, 14:01 »
Licenses vary from agency to agency, so it might matter where you license, but I believe you are covered by an extended license - in that almost every extended license allows you to sell physical items with the image on it (whether mugs or canvas prints). Every agency allows you to alter images when you use them (as long as you don't get into the sensitive use areas for images with people) so how you alter it isn't really an issue.
Remember years ago there was an artist (might have been Leroy Neiman) who sold his art of NFL games and the NFL went after him for not licensing the rights to use their games - he hadn't used anyone's photos, but this was just about what he was depicting. I wouldn't imagine you'd run into this, but perhaps stay away from editorial images.
The only other issue is whether you can copyright your work - I think the court rulings have to do with how much has been altered as to whether your work deserves its own. May not matter to your planned use, but just to think about.
838
« on: March 05, 2021, 16:42 »
Anyone else having issues with the GL site not loading?
I'm just getting a blank page
I'd guess it's totally abandoned. I asked them more than a month ago to delete my port, no reply ever since.
I sent them two emails - Feb 1 and Feb 26 - asking to close my account (and asking them to pay me the balance owed even though it's below the $50 payout threshold). No reply - but the emails didn't bounce either... Just re-read the "Exciting Changes @ GraphicLeftovers.com" email from August 2016 where they talked about being acquired by a group of online marketing professionals (their words).
839
« on: March 03, 2021, 17:57 »
Didn't follow your link but did happen upon an article in the Verge on the same subject https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faqNot really sure how it relates to stock licensing, but possibly this might be interesting for people looking for a side hustle to boost income if stock royalties are down from years past. As always, the real trick is finding buyers; second consideration, avoiding all the administrative & financial hassle so one can spend more time making things to license.
841
« on: February 22, 2021, 11:06 »
They've been around long enough they were a Fotolia affiliate before it switched to Adobe...
They use their API, I believe. It's according to the rules Adobe has set for API users - they display everything but only pay if a customer buys something
842
« on: February 19, 2021, 11:09 »
Stock contributors are not compensated by the task (or hours worked). The level of control by agencies over the content contributors upload is minimal and over the quantity virtually non-existent.
Adhesion contracts ( take it or leave it where there's no real "meeting of the minds") are used in dry cleaning; that doesn't make dry cleaning like stock agency supply agreements. In other words, not every unreasonable or unfair contract is similar.
An Uber driver can't be driving on multiple journeys simultaneously for multiple ride hailing companies, but stock contributors can license content multiple times via multiple agencies at the same time. Driving a car to ferry passengers is inherently a different type of activity from receiving royalties for music, stock licenses, book sales or any other activity related to intellectual property. Ours isn't an "hours worked" type of business.
No comparison, and unfortunately no sign of legal relief from the outrageous contracts stock agencies use.
843
« on: February 16, 2021, 18:03 »
Have those people who didn't sign up for the electronic 1099 now received their paper copies? I haven't received mine yet (and no response yet from the Adobe tax team). Just wondering if mine is lost in the mail somewhere.
Yes, I received my paper copy several weeks ago. I never received any response from the tax team support questions I emailed to them when I was trying to opt in to electronic delivery - zero for two as it were.
844
« on: February 13, 2021, 15:39 »
Did they delete your images/ close your account? I sent them several messages for the last 2 weeks but no reply until now. Deleting one by one is a pain.
Not yet. I've checked back a few times to see. Each time I've deleted a few more images until I get fed up I need to send more emails and be more of a nuisance!
845
« on: February 13, 2021, 15:38 »
Thanks for posting a link to an official post about this program. Kate's post had some concrete details - supposedly they were to have given this to contributors ahead of the program going live... Unlimited content is selected from underperforming - 2 years old minimum and no sales - content from level 1 to 5 contributors. Level 6 contributors are exempt. This begs the question of what happens in January each year when everyone is level 1, but I'm assuming Shutterstock will grandfather level 6 folks for this purpose Royalties are the same - a percentage of the price paid with a 10 cent minimum. I can't imagine there would be a case where the royalty is more than 10 cents given the unlimited downloads. No opt out permitted. The only good news (less bad news??) is that the content is only usable on the platform that sets up the API partnership - not downloadable separately for other uses. Someone asked if contributors can see which items of theirs are included - no answer yet. I would guess not as some people might then delete those items. A question was also asked about what would prevent an end user from skimming images or videos from the platform to use elsewhere - no answer. That's really not that different from people who steal content from an internet site that has legitimately licensed it - agencies don't go after such thefts.
846
« on: February 13, 2021, 15:18 »
I can't imagine that a snarky reply to email would be a violation of the Terms of service. I was banned last summer because of my public criticism of their royalty reductions, but they don't have to have any reason to close your account. They do have to have a reason to withhold money owed to you. They also have an obligation to provide a 1099 if you are in the US and earning more than $600 in 2020. I still don't have my 1099 from them, but when I wrote in early February I was told I would get a paper copy in the mail and it would be a few weeks before I received it. They did reply promptly. I think I'd take the tack, in more emails, that you want to have details about the basis for withholding your earnings because you are planning to take legal action if it isn't paid and are sure you haven't committed any of the violations in the TOS that allow Shutterstock to withhold earnings. I'd also point out that the payment for January is owed by February 15th. "If your account is terminated for a breach of the material terms of the TOS, in addition to its other rights at law or in equity, Shutterstock shall have the right to retain any royalties and/or other compensation otherwise payable to you hereunder as liquidated damages." As far as the video still showing up, it may not be for sale. It takes them a long time to remove all vestiges of content, but there's a while where it show up but can't be put in a cart, or if it can, can't be purchased. My portfolio still shows the sets even though they've scrubbed my account (done last July) https://www.shutterstock.com/g/jsnover/setsTheir IT isn't the best You could try messages to the VP of Content via LinkedIn if the emails don't get you your money and 1099. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljbrennan/You could also consider kicking up a stink on social media if the emails and LinkedIn messages don't get you anywhere, but they will quickly block you, leaving hashtags as your only way to give them a public scolding.
847
« on: February 12, 2021, 10:37 »
Random history note: This divide the pool method is not new. That's how 123RF paid subscriptions when it first started. At the time, it generated much lower earnings than Shutterstock's per download number, so it wasn't long before 123RF moved to a flat amount per download for subscription royalties.
I can't imagine Canva would be transparent and disclose what portion of their subscription revenue goes into the royalty pool - but that would be the only way to determine if the allocation was fair to the contributor community.
849
« on: February 09, 2021, 22:30 »
Not sure if I am right or wrong.
The page says that they are giving Unlimited access through API, nowhere it says that you can download unlimited.
From the blog post: " Instead, you tell us what you need and give your users unlimited content access through our API for just one flat annual fee. " "And as promised, you never have to worry about penalties if users license more content than you originally anticipated" "Now, through the power of our API integration, your users will get unlimited access to Shutterstock images, videos and audio files and you never have to worry again predicting usage volume." From the signup page in the business section of the web site: "No user restrictions. No download caps. No overages. Just unlimited access when you sign up for free."
850
« on: February 09, 2021, 14:52 »
This is not a new program. It's the API program.
The API program is not new, but the Unlimited downloads for one annual fee is, I think. The blog post was dated Monday (Feb  and says "Introducing Shutterstock Unlimited: Keep your customers happy with unlimited access to world-class content through our API and never worry about your usage costs going through the roof"
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