The video says 3 million images, videos & audio - i.e. not the entire Shutterstock library. Any idea what contributors get paid for these uses?

Also, today SS announced they've hired a new General Counsel. Getty's former General Counsel - does that mean demand letters is a new business division at Shutterstock?

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-names-john-lapham-as-general-counsel-301223494.html

Let me try something for those who think we should get paid commission for image theft and fraud. You work in a store and someone steals a pair of shoes. You work on commission for the sales you make. ...

I don't think the analogy is apt. First, we have no clue why refunds are made and have no control over (a) the policies that allow refunds to customers or (b) the fraud prevention mechanisms in place to control payment issues.

In the case of refunds because the customer doesn't like the product, a certificate of destruction with zero follow-up on the agency's part to see if this is being abused is hardly reassuring to the agency's supplier (i.e. us). We can't even get the agencies to take thieves' portfolios down promptly, let alone pay the copyright holder what they were owed for any sales made. Bottom line is that our product has been transferred to the customer.

In the case of credit card fraud, if the agency issues refunds of royalties, what incentive do they have to implement any loss prevention mechanisms? The agency is in a volume business, so letting some digital goods out the door when the agency doesn't get paid hurts them minimally, as long as there's a decent volume of real sales. An unethical agency might decide to cut costs on fraud prevention and just ignore the loss to their suppliers (i.e. us) when those goods are usable by the "customer". In the case of retail goods, the store owes the supplier for a stolen item even if the sales rep doesn't get a commission...


When the agency takes upwards of 70% of the gross, I believe the agency should bear any losses their slipshod, lazy, inept or careless business practices bring about. That gives them an incentive to improve them, and it's their cost of doing business. If suppliers have to pay bandwidth fees (for the bandwidth for the customer to download the image), storage fees (for the length of time the file is at the agency), and on and on, then the agency should take no more than 30% of the gross. They can't have it both ways. They can try, and because they're now large and powerful they might get away with it (think of car dealers' "documentation fee" for sales paperwork), but it's a disgrace.

The other thing I would want, if there were an ethical agency "charter", would be a requirement for transparency on any chargebacks - what exactly was it for and somewhere on the web site to keep a history of such transactions. The "trust me" model of accounting only works if you actually trust the other party.

This thread reminded me to check on my GL stock account - there have been no sales there in years. I don't expect to live long enough to get from the current $20+ balance to $50, so I've deleted my best sellers and written to them to request they close my account.

It's outrageous that they should fall flat on their faces and still refuse to pay balances, in spite of what the contributor agreement states. I asked to be paid, but I don't expect them to suddenly grow a conscience. It was a pain to delete a selection of images, but it avoids growing my losses there should a sale just happen by before they get around to deleting my account.

My prediction is that he will talk up Miami as the next big tech hub for startups. He's so far off base, IMO.

I got a huge chuckle from an article about investors and startups fleeing Silicon Valley (to Austin, TX and elsewhere). It mentioned there was a contingent in Miami trying to tweet Miami as a tech hub into existence

No clue, but here's what Google found for me:

https://trademarks.justia.com/856/35/lightstock-85635636.html

https://www.lightstock.com/

Lightstock is in Plano, TX. Ring any bells?

I don't create 3D models, so I know very little about that as a stock marketplace. I thought I'd see what articles I could find about how many agencies/marketplaces there are and how they rank. I thought I'd share some of the articles (all within the last year as I don't think anything older would be all that useful)

An interview with TurboSquid about selling 3D stock (they don't name the person they interviewed)

https://cgsociety.org/news/article/4872/how-to-make-money-selling-3d-stock

Best places to sell 3D models online, with pros/cons for each

https://www.lifewire.com/top-places-to-sell-your-3d-models-online-2079

Part 2 of the above, talking about royalties, traffic and competition as ways to evaluate the merits of sites. At the end: "Despite Turbosquid's low royalties, they get an incredible amount of traffic, meaning if you do manage to carve out a niche there you can make some real money."

https://www.lifewire.com/where-to-sell-your-3d-models-2066

Various thoughts on income-earning potential from former employees, contributors and buyers

https://inspirationtuts.com/is-selling-3d-models-worth-it/

TurboSquid comes across like the Shutterstock of its market segment - high volume, low royalty rate, widely used. This article mentions they've been around for 20 years, but it's a small organization. Haven't found anything that explained why TurboSquid is for sale.

https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/how-to-sell-your-3d-assets-online

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/turbosquid

https://craft.co/turbosquid

This issue is now moot - the deadline to get an electronic 1099 was Jan 13th - but I thought I'd note by saying I never heard anything from the tax center beyond the automated reply that they'd get back to me in 24-48 hours.

I contacted them a second time on January 11th - same thing; auto reply and then silence.

This group or contractor did a really terrible job here:

The original email was sprinkled with misspellings; the page to opt in didn't work correctly; support for the broken opt-in process was non-existent; a Jan 13 deadline seems very early - perhaps now they're done with 2020 opt in they can start trying to make things work for 2021?

If the OP is so thin skinned that a few questions from once-bitten-twice-shy contributors scares them off, how on earth will the business fare when it hits all the inevitable difficulties of a start up?

In case the OP is now lurking, you need to drop this idea of "nothing to lose by joining us ". Contributors have a lot to lose by turning over their valuable content to an unknown business, not to mention the time it takes to upload files.

Any contributor with any intention to license their images long term already has the metadata embedded in their images; next to the quality and usefulness of the image, the metadata is the most valuable part of the asset. So for the experienced contributors, your keywording offer is irrelevant. For anyone new who hates keywording - those folks who uploaded to Wirestock and saw images from Portugal keyworded as if they were from New England - you are doing them no favor by putting irrelevant keywords on their work.

And you didn't mention marketing - how are you going to find buyers? If you don't have, or aren't willing to share your marketing plans, you won't attract any/many serious contributors.

And the name needs work...

... If a buyer use it for commercial, contributor isn't liable at all, I think....

The issue isn't whether in the end a court would find you liable or not. That determination would be made at the end of a lawsuit. As someone licensing images for low royalties, you do not want to end up tangled in a lawsuit with all the attendant expenses.

Even if an agency would in the end be found to be the only one at fault, you can't stop someone from including you in the lawsuit.

We don't make enough money from licensing images to pay for lawyers. Make sure you check the correct boxes when uploading.

A long time ago, agencies started to allow image resellers - prints, wallpaper or other merchandise - to display images from the agency without paying any royalties up front. If an image sold, each print/mug/whatever would generate a regular license sale.

Fotolia was the first to do this, I think, and their reasoning (when contributors complained about this) was that an individual could purchase a license and then get a print made for themselves without paying an extended license fee, so this was no different. If a vendor wanted to mass produce multiple copies of an item for sale (like a print or wallpaper) then they had to buy an EL.

Policing the scheme is obviously an issue, and I only recall one occasion when a couple of contributors put the arrangement to the test by doing a couple of purchases.

I'm guessing that any POD site you now see is following the display via API/purchase a standard license for each product sold model. Sometimes you can see the  watermark to know whose API they're using.

This is FYI for anyone else who is a long-time Fotolia contributor and who, like me, has a four digit account number.

I tried to opt in to the electronic 1099s this morning but got an error that  my number had to be 5 to 10 digits. I've written to support to ask what to do. I'll post here when it's fixed or there's a workaround

EyeEm was very helpful - and prompt. I received my outstanding balance this morning and they will be closing my account. The partner stuff will take a while to be removed from Getty, and I think (but have requested confirmation) that any balance due from that after the 180 days are up will be paid later.