I spent a few days in June looking at how the income is developing.
Then I deactivated all my files.


For example, I have some very good selling unique pictures in my portfolio.
These pictures are not really copyable. They are standard images for their niche worldwide.
I deactivated my portfolio on Wednesday, June 3rd at Shutterstock.
These pictures are currently only available for licensing from AS.
Funnily enough, since Thursday I see a relatively strong increase in sales of these pictures at AS.
Well, there are always fluctuations.
If the sales of these pictures will increase permanently at AS will be interesting to see.


In my opinion, however, these special files are an important aspect of deactivation.
Deactivated standard pictures, of which I also have a lot, do not weigh that much.
But the unique files can hardly be replaced.
This also hurts Shutterstock although there are not that many files...

I will leave my files deactivated for a few months at most, but if nothing significant changes at Shutterstock, I will delete my account.

Don't let Shutterstock take away the fun of being creative.
There are always other ways to go.
Our creativity is our real capital.
Where this creativity can be bought, soon the standard-files buyers will also show up.

Well, that's it for me with them.
I currently have over 80,000 files at Shutterstock and I've been at it for over 15 years.
From a friendly, nice agency, which I had even visited once in my early days and met some nice people there, has become an ugly, greedy agency.
That was unfortunately foreseeable, the flotation announced it.
The steady deterioration since then has already made me delete some files - I once had over 100,000 files with them.
I only have two microstock agencies left anyway.
Now I only have one...
Adobe gets my microstock stuff now exclusively.
If they screw up too, that's it for me in microstock.
Economically simply no longer interesting.

After this move, I wish Shutterstock only the worst.
A slow steady descent.

May the (please insert here the worst insult you know) choke on their greed!

They're crazy! Then I will just delete my account with them.
Too bad about the work, have uploaded in the years about 10000 pictures.
But finally the sales have decreased more and more.
Have you ever tried to find pictures there? You have to rummage through tons of badly keyworded files, in addition there are many pictures with unbelievably bad quality.
This reminds me of a customer to whom I told that some of my pictures were listed at Alamy. "What are you at this chaotic agency? You won't find anything there. I haven't bought there for a long time" - so to speak.
Well well, then I don't sell any more there either.

Greedy Alamy - byebye

Quote from: sharpshot on March 15, 2013, 15:08
I still can't get over the disappointment that Jon Oringer has allowed this to happen. 

As was expected the rules of the game changed when SS decided to go public. 


When I left Istock I decided not to lay all my eggs in the microstock basket.
I do RM, POD and Micro.
Last year I started with contract photography for companies - it's going well.

For me photography is more diversified now.

Microstock is not everything...

I was in the bridge and I closed my account immediately 'cause i think this bigstock-thing is a kind of test balloon for shutter and therefore i wanted to give them a clear feedback.

What a waste of energy, time and money.

They better improve their sales and marketing performance than playing in the sandpit...
my 2 cents

Quote from: ShadySue on February 22, 2013, 21:58

Quote from: jotovs on February 22, 2013, 21:53
at this moment 1 credit is 0.8 EURO cent,

Not being very familiar with euro currency, does '0.8 EURO cent' mean 80 cents (european)? or 0.8 of a cent (european)?

May I help?
1 Euro are 100 EuroCents
so 0.8 Eurocents is 0.008 Euro

The price for 1 Raw is 225*0.008 EuroCent=1.8 Euro

Quote from: brianholm on February 20, 2013, 17:56
Hi all

I believe I've seen a topic about this recently - Pocketstock. I've just received a mail from them, where they state that they would like to represent my portfolio, and if I upload before this and this date, they will set the royalty rate to 40 % on all future uploads. Anyone else received this email?

Anyone of you in here represented on Pocketstock? Any sales?

Please enlighten me :-)

Oh, and my 50 cents regards Stocksy..... No answer yet for me either.

Brian

Did you check the site?
Could you find something special there?
A sensational image selection, innovative licenses or other unique features?
I couldn't.
It seems to be an ordinary, fanciless new microstock site – nothing special.
So - how could they be successful in a fiercely competitive market?
The only thing that crosses my mind is - low, lower lowest prices or cheap tricks at photographer's expense (see the Veer deal)

Btw: The owner of Pocketstock is Russell Glenister the former owner of image100, a royalty free agency which he sold for good money to Corbis a few years ago.

Now the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question:  What could be the reason for Russell to start a new game with nearly no chance to find success in the market?

PS: They asked me in February last year – I decided not to join - pointless in my view

Every image that is given away for free is a statement that images in general are worth nothing.
My two cents...

I was in the bridge and I pulled the plug.
I am tired of being cheated day by day!
"Subscriptions can allow more downloads, and higher total earnings..." - blah blah blah.
Sounds like a greedy thief to me - this is not the behavior of a reliable business partner.

Istock - cancelled
Getty - cancelled
Bigstock - cancelled
who's next - Shutter???

Quote from: Mantis on March 23, 2012, 22:51

Quote from: Ivelin Radkov on March 23, 2012, 08:10
http://www.microstockgroup.com/pixmac/dreamstime-and-pixmac-investigation/

For me personally, I would never upload to Pixmac purely because of what they were exposed doing...keeping contributor commissions.  When Zager says "mistakes happen" is when I call the BS card.  It took agencies to find repeatability in their error and I am sure there wasn't a rush to judgement by DT to sever their relationship upon the first discovery of a "mistake".  DT ultimately pulled the plug because they concluded that Pixmac wasn't on the up and up and subsequently severed their relationship with Pixmac.  So, for me personally, forget it.

+1
They are dubious - IMHO

For all of you who are with Imagesource.
Imagesource just started to upload photos to Photocase.

Photocase is a photo-sharing site too.
Other Photocase-User can DL images for free...

Just to want you know...

Quote from: stockastic on March 27, 2012, 02:54
If I spend all week on this, and get one accepted, and it sells, do I get, like,  35 cents?  

No, you'll often get nothing.
Photocase is a photo-sharing-site too. Other PC-photographers can DL your images and use them even in their commercial work (6DL-Credits / accepted photo).
DL for free are quite often at photocase.
For me PC is a agency for Designers who are interested in sharing their own images with other Designers.