Thank you for your advice Jo Ann.

If i use the same Getty contract papers everything is ok? Is there is no thing like "contract copyright inflingement" by using them papers??

Not that I'm aware of

But obviously remove references to Getty Images, any addresses for them or references to which jurisdiction governs the agreement and use language suitable for you

... model release are actually not associated to any photo, i mean, there is no sample of the photo you are talking about when the model sign it. How to know which batch of photos these papers belong to?

There is a date on the release - and the signature date and witness dates should match. Many/most also have a description of the shoot. If any of the shots were sensitive in any way - limited clothing or nudity, for example - I've seen others recommend that those topics can explicitly be mentioned in the description.

If the shoot takes place over several days (let's say a weekend) then the range of dates could be shown.

It's not likely that one photographer on a particular date with a specific model would have some photos included & others not, but if that situation should occur, just make sure the description is clear about what is covered by the release.

I only have 100 files left at iStock, so my total for the Connect section was only 14sales and 2 cents! I assume that's the section you're talking about because the royalty free section, for me, doesn't have those teeny-tiny numbers

But the way they report the royalties shows how individual numbers and averages can appear off, largely because of the tiny numbers that often round to 0 but are meaningful when you add up all the connect sales & then round the total.

So my connect sales gross was $0.15827 and the net royalty $0.02379 - i.e. 2 cents. But three of the items listed individually rounded to 1 cent so I initially though they'd "cheated" me of 1 cent

Looking at the text file I could see where the 2 cents came from - and those 14 sales average to 0 cents too

Download the connect text file and stick it into Google sheets and you'll be able to see the details of this wretched situation

https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2020&no=848417

In this interview to a Korean news site 3 days ago, Stan says, "the company�s goal was to �have the biggest library in the world,�". ...

Thanks for posting the link to that. It's painful reading - so many bubbly words, but saying so little - but one thing caught my eye.

Pavlovsky mentioned Twitter releasing a subscription product, something I wasn't aware of. A Google search found me an article about what Twitter is thinking of (but hasn't yet implemented)

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/31/twitter-survey-reveals-the-subscription-options-its-eyeing-including-an-undo-send-option/

The idea that I'd pay extra to change some colors or have a badge to go with my profession seems mad. But then enthusiastic CEOs making a pitch for whatever initiative they're currently engaging it to woo the investment community often seem disconnected from reality.

I was also amused to see the comment about a grant program:

"We are launching a grant program, which is dedicated to support photographers artists videographers and musicians"

Seems to me, that supporting contributors might have been better done by skipping the June 1 royalty reductions...

Earlier in August, CyberLink announced two new Shutterstock deals for accessing stock images, video & music from within their apps

For the purchased iOS and Android apps, it appears you buy the photos with a small subscription. With the subscription apps, the Shutterstock content is "free" and appears to be just a subset of the library - 30k videos, 150k images and 300 music clips

https://www.facebook.com/cyberlink/videos/shutterstock-photo-library-now-in-photodirector-app-%EF%B8%8F-update-your-app-now-%EF%B8%8F-look/319437999198523/

https://www.cyberlink.com/products/photodirector-photo-editing-software-365/comparison_en_US.html

It's not clear what the contributor will receive from the "free" downloads, but as it's a subset of the total library, perhaps some sort of deal was worked out with the contributors

This is the video on CyberLink's site that mentions the number of images, videos & music clips for PowerDirector 365

https://www.cyberlink.com/learning/powerdirector-video-editing-software/3042/using-shutterstock%E2%80%99s-media-library-powerdirector-365

Here's the video for PhotoDirector

https://www.cyberlink.com/learning/photodirector-photo-editing-software/3072/using-shutterstock's-media-library-photodirector-365

I don't see anything that restricts further use of the images in other applications or projects, but as users get to download the file, I assume they get an RF license to use it broadly.

Shutterstock had said they planned to do more of these API deals, so this isn't a surprise, but I find it depressing that our content is increasingly being used as an enticement to subscribe to something else (in which we don't get a share of the revenue).

...The stock WILL NOT hold in the mid $50's, yet he is trying to sell a lot of shares after he artificially pumped up the stock price. ...

It's been as low as $47.xx today so far, having lost over 13% while the overall NYSE is at a record high (that's insane too, but that's a different story ). Doesn't look like the market is happy with Jon's plan...

Edited to add: $48.87 at 11am PST...

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3603703-shutterstock-founder-to-lighten-stake

https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-announces-proposed-public-offering-common-stock

SSTK closed at 57.17 today & dropped to 54 in after-hours trading

A little more on JumpStory - a post here from May that suggested they get content from Pexels (presumably under some sort of agreement)

https://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/bigger-photo-sites-comparison-some-good-news

And a blog post from one of their founders this week (looks unchanged from the May version) claiming JumpStory is transforming the industry

https://jumpstory.com/blog/transforming-an-industry/

"The world doesn�t need another stock photography platform. That is for sure! Getty, iStock, Shutterstock, Stocksy, Fotolia, Crestock, 123RF, Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels and I could keep on going. Millions and millions of photos, videos and icons can be downloaded online, and there are just as many license terms and limitations to understand."

They see themselves as the Spotify of the stock industry...

They claim to believe in 100% transparency and published a road map through September 2020

https://jumpstory.com/publicroadmap/

They still don't say where their images come from but do say they don't want new partners in the sourcing process (!) at the moment.

This man kissing a plant photo is from Pixabay, and this Pexels image is the man with a wheelchair from the first "People" search on this JumpStory page:

https://jumpstory.com/search-and-style/

So two of the platforms they dismiss in their copy are their sources of images?

The telescope up top is from Freepik.

I also found one of the images (open diary with Summer written & a drawn umbrella) further down their search page (in the Samples section) was from a free site I'd never heard of, Pxfuel.

Pull on that thread some more. In the "diary" search on Pxfuel that included the summer umbrella drawing above I saw a flatlay picture of objects on a desk and searched that - it came from stocksnap.io!! There's some sort of freebie image sharing farmer's market? I guess the ad revenue means there'll be a long stream of these look-alike free sites. I wonder how ads and Shutterstock referrals cover the hosting bills though...

Screen capture in case they change the JumpStory page:

Take a look at how much more Jon made as a result of them boosting the share price with the Q2 announcement

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1291422315352211457

Nearly $770k more

That'd be a reason for Jon to hire a finance guy to replace him as CEO.

I lost in the last battle, but I did join and send in a few dollars.  Good job.

Thanks Sean.

I'll extend the same invitation as I did to Martha. If you'd like to have one of your images featured in a future cover for the Coalition, that'd be great. Needs to be horizontal  and not have too much important stuff around the edges - you can email it to me if you want t do that

...Once you have it officially approved and running, please be sure to provide a DONATE button so the rest of us can help support it financially.

That part you can access now - at the web site (that's how the fees for filing got paid!)

https://stockcoalition.org/donate/

There's also a RedBubble shop where the proceeds go to the Coalition, should you have a coffee mug emergency

https://www.redbubble.com/people/stockcoalition/shop

They have a 90 day period in which they can do that. See section 4d of the terms of service

https://submit.shutterstock.com/legal/terms

You can read the earnings call transcript here - it would be funny if it wasn't so serious for all of us.

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/07/28/shutterstock-inc-sstk-q2-2020-earnings-call-transc.aspx

Some random thoughts on why SSTK closed at $51.06 today and the claims made in the earnings call.

Wall Street was happy at the profit numbers being so much higher than earlier guidance.

There's a new VP of Investor Relations - I guess that highlights where Stan Pavlovsky's attention is focused. Fire the reviewers and hire someone to sweet talk investors...

They claim over 340 million images - that doesn't include video and I don't see how they came up with that number. Not sure it matters as IMO the bigger story is the piles of junk they're adding to the collection. There is still some good stuff coming in, but when they were claiming 170k+ per day at the end of May and today it's 123k+ it's not good news. As I've mentioned in some tweets, a lot of searches I tracked at the end of May have many fewer images today, even though the collection numbers are up. I think the difference is image spam and stuff from newbies that should never have been accepted and will never sell.

They got lucky with an earnings boost from unused subscriptions as a result of the pandemic as well as our royalty cut (which was for only 1 month of the 3 in Q2) - buyers weren't downloading so Shutterstock didn't have to pay out royalties but kept the subscription revenue.

Stan's all eager puppy about  growing platform solutions - the most recent of which is the Microsoft ad deal. Yesterday Kate offered in the Shutterstock forums that what contributors would be paid was proprietary information but it wasn't the minimum subscription amount:

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1287952508699082752

I can imagine their excitement at having more revenue sources (fees for the API deals) that don't involve paying royalties - i.e. contributors don't get a cut of any fees, only some subscription royalty when images are used.

Stan on the API integrations as a source of growth: "...we are redeploying capital into our platform solutions offering and undertaking significant global expansion of our sales and technical integration team"

I don't have a clue what this word salad means, but somehow I think Stan believes that Shutterstock gets to interact with the end user of images served up as part of ad placement deals. I don't see how that comes about. He said Shutterstock benefits "...because we are accessing our customer's customer, we expect these relationships to effectively open up new market segments for us" and that these customers are more likely to stay (customer retention & "stickiness")

They've fired reviewers and are using AI - looking at the content they could save money on the AI as there's so much dreck (you can look at twitter posts from @joannsnover for pictures)

They've put the best spin possible on the enterprise side of the business continuing to decline (blah blah about the new sales teams being in place): "We expect to always have some meaningful non-subscription component of our business, including editorial and custom but expect that it will become a minority of our revenues over time. " So don't count on bulking up contributor earnings with a return to large SOD royalties

I love "margin expansion" as a way of referring to cost cutting, but they can't goose profits for the "back half of the year" the same way they did this time - more royalty cuts? More "leftover" subscription revenue they keep?

"Subscribers increased 30% to 223,000." - I'm surprised it's that small a number given the boast of 2 million customers overall. Subscriber revenue averages $281 for Q2, or $1,124 per year (if the mix stays the same).

There was talk about acquisitions but nothing clear about what they might buy. This is from the CFO in reply to a question on M&A from an analyst who asked for "incremental color":

 "we believe that these are businesses that are often additive from a content-type perspective and may give us a leg-up with this specific type of content, give us access to a new contributor community. "

I wonder if the need for a new contributor community might be as a result of having royally ticked off large chunks of their existing contributor community?

The CFO went on to blather about tools & utilities a creative uses - meaning, I think, Canva-like design tools that make social media banners & ads easy to create. And he said they look at AI & machine learning for identification of content, performance of content. I assume this is all trying to help their API customers select images and track how they're doing.

One analyst asked about competition and which competitors they might eliminate - the answer was dancing around the subject (Stan didn't mention any competitors). "Integrating deeper" with customers and improving the "margin profile".

An analyst asked about whether the new video subscriptions had contributed to the subscription growth and the answer was they don't give details by product. Stan did say that the "prosumer" segment with smaller subscriptions is growing faster than the bigger subscriptions. Pavlovsky used the term "casual creatives" which I think means users of Canva-like products

Only one analyst, Lloyd Walmsley at Deutsche Bank, asked about "changes to the royalty payouts to contributors". Pavlovsky dodged the question, saying there were multiple things affecting gross margins "...including hosting costs of our data centers, content ingestion costs, credit card fees, royalties."

The CFO followed up with a note on the lower unit prices of subscription products "And we believe that the structure we have in place today enables that." I translate that to say that switching to a percentage basis with a 10� floor for subscription royalties allows them to heavily discount and still make money. He talks about gross margin "stability" and not to expect an increase in gross margins in Q3 & Q4 because price is the other variable. So they can keep their percentage of the take constant but don't expect the absolute numbers to jump up.

The CFO also claimed that their costs will be lower because there's less need to bring in net new customers, just to retain the ones they have. I think he too needs to look at the garbage they're accepting to anticipate a future attrition in subscribers because they can't find what they need.

The idea that Stan the clueless talks about "transitioning" to being a subscription business made me laugh. I think he means that they're not so focused on growing via the enterprise route, but it sounds as if he's forgotten how Shutterstock started

The buzzword-laden talk by Pavlovsky is worth a read just for a chuckle. Possibly it impresses the analysts??