An other question about Alamy:
You can make your photo's RF or RM.
What is the difference? What is selling better?
First I thought RM is for modelreleased or editorials, but I see a lot of material on Alamy that has no release that is RM.
What can I do best?

I'm about 4 years active in microstock now and trying to expend. Was on Alamy since last year with only 4 photo's, but this week I started uploading more. There are not a lot of sales, but when you got a sale it's really worth it.
Are there more sites like Alamy?

The sites I'm allready on are SS, DT, BS, FT, iS and Alamy now.
What are good sites with good profit?
I'm not interested in going exclusive, but I'm open for all options that will gain my income in photography.

I was asking about Getty but someone PM-ed me that you have to be an exclusive on Istock to get accepted. But are there more agencies like that, who don't have that restriction?

I have a question about Getty: how can I become a contributor there?
I was checking the site out, but only find a way to registrate as buyer.

Quote from: dnavarrojr on November 05, 2009, 00:33
SS basically knows they can do what ever they want and while everyone will whine about it, very few will actually leave or stop uploading there.  The Micros are in total control of the industry now, and contributors are just lap dogs following their master's will.

Spot on!

Quote from: Artemis on November 04, 2009, 19:18
Communication doesn't seem to be SS's strongest side. It appears in all silence OD's are banned from the english version (many foreign buyers also use the site in english btw) of the site as "a test". From what i read the buyers weren't notified about this either and when they call SS support they are sent to BigStock with a database a fraction of SS' database. I'd start shopping around on other sites if i were them.

On SS OD's are 30% of my income there; on BigStock my files are sold $0,50 to $1,50 so if all OD traffic is sent there and the buyers nicely do what SS instructs them i still would lose out on a lot of income since a download there is not near as profitable as an (large) OD.

I find this truly upsetting. I also wonder how it is only a few people seem to care about this; many others seem to think nothing is wrong because "i just had an OD"...

It's concerning so many people don't get the point. Ofcourse OD's keep coming till everything that is sold till last month is downloaded or expired. I have $31 from OD's so far  for the first 4 days of this month, but I'm worried about next month and the next.

In an other thread on this shutterstock section someone wrote that he got $2 or $3 for OD's on BS while I wrote the prices you mentioned above (because I read those prices on the SS forums) Who of you is correct? Or does higher prices come with bigger portfolio's there?

Quote from: KB on November 04, 2009, 18:09
I haven't had any images de-activated yet, but I fully expect it will happen soon enough.

What I don't understand is why they don't simply allow a title change and swap it to editorial use? Why delete already approved and selling images from the collection? Many of them, surely, would be useful for editorial purposes.

I agree!

Quote from: KB on November 04, 2009, 18:19

Quote from: dzain on November 04, 2009, 10:49
What a big crap! Even if they copy our portfolio's to BS, when SS drops the OD-program and managed to send buyers to BS for OD's we'll lose big time, because OD's at SS are worth 2,85 and on BS only a louzy 1,50.

Did BigStock change their commission structure recently?

According to the info I keep, BigStock's commission for a 4-5MP image is $2. For 11MP and bigger, the commission is $3.

I read that on the SS forums, so I assumed those prices I mentioned were correct, but I can be wrong.

Quote from: fotografer on November 04, 2009, 15:08
In defence of Dzain she even said on the SS forums that she was going to come over to this site to let off steam as she didn't want to post it on Shutterstock's own forums.

thanx, you're correct, better to vent here then on the SS forums 

who are you on SS?

Quote from: cclapper on November 04, 2009, 12:17

QuoteQuestion from SS forum: "For those of us who are not on BigStock - would it make sense to start uploading our images there, or will you eventually copy them there?"
No immediate plans - so best to upload to both. We'll make sure to make it worth your while Smiley
Jon

I've seen a few posts about how SS is going to automatically send contributors ports over to BigStock, like you just mentioned in the post above, dzain. This quote was posted in another thread about SS on September 23rd, so it doesn't look like they are going to do that. It looks like if you want your images on BigStock, you will need to upload them there yourself. Unless something has changed since September.

I don't want to upload there myself, because I don't want SS to profit from my work for a lower price at BS without doing some afford themselves. And the less we upload to BS, the less interesting that site will be for OD-buyers. I prefer them going to FT or DT when SS drops the OD's, but the best outcome will be that this test fails so that SS keeps the OD-program up and running.

Quote from: FD-amateur on November 04, 2009, 12:05

Quote from: dzain on November 04, 2009, 10:37I don't like the way SS treats it's contributors by not communicating about the possible loss of the OD-program.

They did.

Quote from: dzain on November 04, 2009, 10:37I don't like the image garantee crap and the way they throw away our work like garbage, because of that.

Just curious. Are you going to call SS "crap"/"garbage" in every thread under the cover of anonymity?
If you "hate", "don't like" SS, then don't upload there.

I'm not anonimous, this it the name I use on all stocksites and allthough SS gives me best income from all the stocksites, they still can have some manners and communicate big changes that will effect their contributors income before they pull something of like what they are doing right now.

They didn't tell us they want to throw away the OD option and allthough because of the rumours on the forums one admin answered that they were trying new things, they should have told us that in a newsletter before.
And after days of speculating and worriing from lots of people on the forums, they are keeping very quiet instead of insuring us that we won't lose money on their venture with BS.
The same with the removals of photo's. A lot of them could be editorials but instead of switching them to editorial they just throw them away. And also no warning about removing photo's before they started with that.

They definately have to work on their manners.

Quote from: epantha on September 23, 2009, 14:28
Question from SS forum: "For those of us who are not on BigStock - would it make sense to start uploading our images there, or will you eventually copy them there?"

No immediate plans - so best to upload to both. We'll make sure to make it worth your while

Jon

What a big crap! Even if they copy our portfolio's to BS, when SS drops the OD-program and managed to send buyers to BS for OD's we'll lose big time, because OD's at SS are worth 2,85 and on BS only a louzy 1,50.

I don't like the way SS treats it's contributors by not communicating about the possible loss of the OD-program.

I don't like the image garantee crap and the way they throw away our work like garbage, because of that.

Quote from: GeoPappas on November 04, 2009, 10:11
Is it possible that the images that have been removed had keywords that were considered trademarks or copyrights?

For example, if you search on the keyword "BMW", there are 5 results.  If you search on "Volvo", there are 77 results.  Etc.

No, I never use brandnames as keywords and they removed some vintage brandless scooter and 3 vintage fire engine trucks without logo/brand which took me several hours to isolate.

Why doesn't that company have the decency to make those photo's editorials instead of just throwing them away as garbage?

And why are they so inpolite not informing us properly about this action in a newsletter or on the forums?

They have the nurve to brag about that stupid 'image garantee' without realising (or without giving a crap) about what that means to their contributors!

I'm angry!!!!

I'm soooooo angry at SS because of the way they treat us so I registered here on this forum, because I don't want to risk another warning for venting on the SS forums.

They don't even have the decency to inform us properly about what they are doing. When there will not be offered OD-program anymore the OD-downloads will dry up after a few weeks/months (whenever the OD's that are sold till now expire)

My OD's are 20% of my income on SS, so it would be a big loss for me when they disapear.

I only have a small portfolio on BS and I don't want to upload there myself because of the little sales compare to other sites. Even when SS transfer all of our ports to BS, we will lose because on SS we get 2,85 for one OD compare to 1,50 at BS, so that will not be fair at all!

Hope buyers simple don't go to BS, but choose DT of FT when they can't find what they are looking for at SS.