Quote from: ShadySue on June 25, 2015, 13:04
As this is specifically a microstock group, maybe you could tell us how to prevent our content, legitimately purchased and online, from being indexed by Google for subsequent free lifting by the world and his wife, which as I showed not long ago, Google openly advocates.

there are many ways, all server-side, these are the most common to avoid "hot linking" :

1 - block the googlebots using the robots.txt
2 - block them using ".htaccess"
3 - forbid bots from scraping any .jpg file

i'm totally anti-google but in this case sorry but Google owes you nothing and getty's complaints are pointless ... google images is a free service and they have their own terms of use, if you don't like you're free to block google from indexing your images and find a better deal with their competitors or pay google for pushing your pics on top of every search.

the issue at stake is google's dominance in search, but that's another story.
google has taken over the search market and played its cards well, now it's too late to be shocked at their dominance .. let me remind you when google came up 15 yrs ago their only competitors were cr-ap like Altavista, Yahoo, and Ask.com !

now google has spread like a virus into every possible niche, from e-commerce to maps and images and operating system (android, and much more) ... too late to cry they're dominant and that youtube's content is 90% pirate and illegal.

google is the world's leader in piracy, and this includes their core business, the search engine as they're using "snippets" of text giving nothing back to the legitimate owners, let alone asking permission for that, for a while they also paired the text with screenshots, which was illegal and they've been forced to stop .. but if no one stops them they will keep acting as if they "own" the entire web ... and they know very well their business would be unprofitable if they had to play by the rules, which goes the same way for FB and many others.

content producers are the ones paying the price for this modern "free economy" but it can't go on forever and companies like google and FB must be shut down.

Quote from: tickstock on June 24, 2015, 03:10
It's not just agency reps.  I think the greater loss is the big contributors, they had a ton to offer but were run out of here.  Sean is the only one I can think of that is still around.

cost/benefits analysis.

after a while all the most common topics are discussed to death and it gets boring.

at the moment there's nothing on par with LR, Capture Pro, DxO, anything else is a total waste of time.

NX2 is OK for a quick edit but it doesn't make sense for batch editing and for stock in general, that's not was it's designed for, AcdSee Pro 8 is a better alternative even if it's slow and buggy.

Quote from: PixelBytes on June 23, 2015, 20:30
Serban was not simply the agency rep.  He owns Dreamstime.  It was not his job to come here and answer questions.  He did it as a courtesy, and it was appreciated by many but just not the loudest ones.  When you own your own company you don't have to make contributor relations your job.  You can hire it out or leave it altogether.  I don't see that it is unprofessional for a CEO to decide they don't want to put themself out there to be attacked.

in my experience CEOs are disastrous at answering to complaints in public forums/blogs/socials .. these guys are used to give orders and to manage teams, it's not in their nature to deal peacefully with sneaky attacks from anonymous users and/or trolls.

Quote from: cflorinc on June 23, 2015, 15:15
Hey Pierre, I am not thinking of submitting pro pictures with an app. Is a crazy workflow, with some exceptions, right.
I am thinking of full mobile workflow: shoot mobile, edit mobile, submit mobile. Yes, you might complain about the smartphone camera, no manual controls, poor quality and so on. But this is changing nowadays! Yuri Arcurs like pictures are now going down in demand while the market for candid, genuine, daily life pictures is rising. Is time for spontaneous shots, for shots integrated in our life. This is how marketers get to the heart of consumers. And here, smartphones will play a big role. It might be early for an app like Pixendr but the future might be more mobile that you may think. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am not.
And speaking about how difficult this might be, have a look at Pixendr. Is an incredibly fast workflow, actually is the fastest compared to other apps. Have a look here and see how Pixendr can actually save your time. For free. http://www.pixendr.com/index.php/our-blog

Pixendr looks very good !

I think you're on the right track !

bwahahahaha !!!!

stock photos are so fake and cheesy they've become a joke and it's going mainstream now !

Quote from: leaf on June 23, 2015, 10:56
Not everyone is capable of responding to the negative posts in a polite way that isn't an attack back.

it's all a matter of having a healthy "I don't give a F k" attitude ...

in general, people attacking back tend to be insecure, lack of self esteem, and full of other personal issues.
they don't realize if they played their cards well nobody would start calling names or personal attacks in the first place !

it's full of hot blooded people out there, just learn how to deal with them, all you need is practice and empathy.

of course customers are rightfully angry when they buy a product or service that turns out to be a ripoff, but all you need is the right attitude and you can manage any possible unpleasant situation, after a few months in sales or customer care you will hear it all 24x7 and won't even think too much about it, it will come natural ..

if that matter, i see similar unprofessionalism also in stock agencies' newsletters and blog posts, must of that stuff is clearly not written by professionals and left to the good will of a random employee .. it usually backfires because it gives the impression their company can't even hire someone good enough to communicate properly and effectively, this is even more sad if we talk about companies like getty or corbis who are worth billions .. same sh-it even in many other multinationals ..

unfortunately very very few companies care about these little things that make a big difference, they've no idea how many customers they lost because of that, iStock being a textbook case in the art of shooting themselves in the as-s.

Quote from: Pixart on June 23, 2015, 06:29
I can remember the day Serban had enough and said he would never come participate here again.  Can't remember why exactly, but that he was attacked and I was a little disgusted with our behaviour.

That's very unprofessional, and if their job includes posting on forums and socials they better learn how to deal with their own user base or find another career.

I had to listen to the most ridicolous BS and trash and even a few insults when i was working in retail, face to face, i've never lost my frame and neither my colleagues or we would have been fired on the spot ...

I don't know why for so many it's so hard to deal with people online and with their complaints, i guess some of them are just plain jerks and they're even more jerks in real life ?

Quote from: PixelBytes on June 23, 2015, 05:00
I hope so, but wonder if they would have the common sense to do it.

hmm .. i don't remember having ever read a CEO interview where they admit being wrong about their marketing strategy, one way or another they always blame someone else or even their own customers ...

nobody is actually selling what buyers really want, it's always a compromise between price and quality, greed is also a major factor ..

Adobe is an engineering company, as expected they're now reinventing the wheel ... but hey give 'em some time to fix all the bugs ...

Plurals : yeah and what about languages where apart the plurals you also use declinations etc ? all these search engines are just a big mess.

using Categories is a total nonsense in 2015.

we should write a detailed article where we rant against the use of Categories and why they must go and then forward the links to all the top agencies .. they won't care but maybe someone will take note ... most of these agencies are usually run by businessmen who have no clue about our workflow.

Quote from: panicAttack on June 22, 2015, 21:20
Are there any specialized RM agencies for those kind of shoots?

Blend Images, for instance, they're with Getty.

But .. if you seriously feel that those photos are top notch quality you could try selling them as Fine Art to art galleries or art exhibitions, or to fashion magazines that could be interested in that specific style/niche.

if the material is big enough you could also make a Fine Art book out of it.

Quote from: splitimage on June 22, 2015, 21:23
Interesting twist the story here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3134646/Taylor-Swift-accused-making-photographers-lucrative-rights-images-just-hours-criticised-Apple-not-paying-artists-fairly.html

Photographer claims Taylor Swift demands all rights to photographs taken at her gigs!

it's a legal gray area.
basically a typical case of "rights grab" but in my opinion it's unenforceable, who's to stop someone selling those pics on Getty or REX, who's going to double check, to sue, to counter sue ?

copyright is not transferable, and the whole contract is probably worth nothing and has never been tried in court, so ...

and indeed, if the guy is paid only for a one-off shooting the price would be 2-3x times more at least.

Quote from: Shelma1 on June 22, 2015, 19:56
I'm surprised nobody is outraged to see that Apple is paying more than 70% royalties while iStock is paying us as little as 15%.

it's the living proof that selling music is cheaper and more profitable than selling stock images.

the after tax net profit of agencies like SS is around 20-25% at best, in the very best scenario they could pay us 40%, maybe even 50%, but never ever 70%, that was unsustainable even in the 90s which is supposed to be the "golden era" of stock ...

Quote from: ruxpriencdiam on June 22, 2015, 18:34
Debut album released in 2006 Forbes says she is worth 200 million this year alone so how much has she made over 9 years?

well, possibly just enough to buy a big villa and a new car ...

200 millions are the gross earnings going to her record company (sony ? universal ? i don't know), her net cut after tax is maybe 5% of that if she's lucky ... see the sad fate of Whitney Houston and many others like her ..

Quote from: ruxpriencdiam on June 22, 2015, 17:35
But that single artist alone is worth Billions not to mention marketing and advertising.

What single Micro shooter is worth billions to any micro company?

Yuri aside.

Not to forget to mention that the music industry is completely different then Micro is by miles.

The music industry will back their artists with everything they have, what micro site is willing to do that for one contributor?

i still prefer to make 0.30$ per download on SS than 0.30$ on iTunes or Beatport, i can easily make a saleable image with little effort, but it can take days or work to make a song.

moreover, my photos will sell for a few years at least while the shelf life of a song is 2-3 months and if we talk about EDM it's 20-30 days !

micro sites will never promote a single artist, but the so called "boutique agencies" will, up to you to get the foot in the door, of course at this point they're the exception to the rule but it doesn't mean it's impossible to make a brand out of your images.

my opinion, the real problem we're facing nowadays is that people will be glad to waste 100$ on a dinner or to get drunk on friday night but they'll be literally shocked if someone asks them money for a photo or a painting or a song.

books are also the last thing they plan to buy, and what about commercial software or artsy merchandising, good luck with that.

for whatever reason, after decades of free piracy for all it's becoming now socially accepted and expected to pay nothing for anything digital apart their ISP and their 3G/4G connection.

now, should be blame and shame the users or shoud we accept that times have changed radically since the 90s ?
my feeling is the supply is NOT meeting the demand and of course it can't compete with piracy on any level.

if we look at countries where there's no enforced copyright laws and piracy is fully legal, the musicians make money only with gigs and private parties, especially with weddings, while the photographers too are big on weddings and fashion and assignment, nobody would make a dime with stock apart for wire news photographers and nobody would get rich selling CDs or t-shirts.

is this the future ? i think yes, this is what's in store for all of us basically, but stock will survive especially for news and travel but you need a huge portfolio to stay afloat ... while we discuss if 0.30$ per download is a fair price i see old ladies from eastern europe earning 8-10 euro per hour for cleaning toilets, just to give you a different perspective ... the equivalent of 20-30 downloads in just 1 hour, no matter if you're super fast at shooting saleable images, it still pays like sh-it ... what about specialized mechanical workers, 25 euro/hr ... what about lawyers, doctors, engineers, or even middle managers earning 100K/year ?

making and selling images will never make you rich, it's a lifestyle and has it's pros and cons, but all this discussion about money doesn't make any sense, even Yuri admitted he felt like selling cheap burgers considering how much he spent on production and that's true for him and true for us ... we should just keep microstock as a side hobby and focus on fine-art or other fields where our work is appreciated and paid accordingly.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 22, 2015, 15:36
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/08/youtube-now-tells-you-how-copyrighted-music-will-affect-your-video-before-you-upload-it/

not anymore, i guess  ... here take a look for instance ... HD-quality dvd-rips of Rambo 1/2/3/4 full lenght :

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rambo+full+movie

or use the query "full movie" for many other films, there's pretty much anything, also mainstream stuff up to 2003 like the Matrix saga.

Google is the leader in piracy and they make billions out of it as 90% of the sh-it on Youtube is illegal.

by the way, another interesting article on this topic from the Copyright Alliance :
http://copyrightalliance.org/content/piracy_profit-youtubes_dirty_secret

Quote from: click_click on June 22, 2015, 13:03

So I have no clue how all these different versions of famous songs were even possible to be uploaded to Youtube in the first place?

and that's nothing, try searching any movies pre-1990 on youtube, there's so many of them, full version, some even 3 hrs long ! quality is hit or miss but you can watch it for free and nobody is complaining, only the recent movies are removed, it seems that anything at least 20 yrs old is OK and won't be taken down.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on June 22, 2015, 12:37
I think it's good that this problem is finally hitting the general public. Gene Simmons also has some pretty harsh but accurate criticism about free media.

http://loudwire.com/kiss-gene-simmons-i-blame-fans-lack-of-rock-stars/

he's 100% right but nobody will lose sleep over the missed opportunity of the next Elvis or Lady Gaga .. and i certainly won't miss a mediocre band like the KISS ...

if the whole star system ceases to exist it will be only a good thing for music.

there's a lot of good music coming from indie artists today, you just need the time to find out and it's never been easier for unknown artists with talent to publish online and to make themselves known to a small bunch of fans ... no middlemen, no BS.

Quote from: click_click on June 22, 2015, 09:18
Apple may be ruthless but not stupid.

the music industry is in dire straits.

- paid downloads on iTunes etc are declining year on year.
- streaming is booming but is unprofitable.
- selling physical CDs is a thing of the past
- piracy and freeloading are now openly tolerated if we think about Youtube
- most of the mainstream music is stuck in a limbo since 20 yrs
- EDM in the USA is the "new Disco" and will soon crash and burn

matter of fact, i was recently listening to hard to find old tunes and guess what, i found 99% of them on Youtube, often with very good quality and i also found bootlegs and video from the same artists that i've never heard of .. all stuff that is probably not even on sale.

on top of this there are musicophiles forums specialized in obscure artists, providing tons of links and free stuff.

i was also searching for a bunch of Jimi Hendrix song, i ended up finding a lot more than that and just out of curiosity i grabbed a whopping 30GB torrent with his entire discography including cover scans and super rare tracks that you can't find in any online store since they've probably never been published .. suffice to say all the tracks are in FLAC format (lossless) and sound as good as the original CDs, a few have been remastered by hendrix fans.

now, what's next ? a single reason i should pay for anything ... i don't know .. at this point everything is going to change big time but how are the artists supposed to make even a tiny profit, who knows.

Quote from: leaf on June 22, 2015, 11:02
It was a single artist saying - enough is enough and refusing to add her latest work to iTunes

the way the news broke out in the medias looks like a typical PR stunt.

apart for rare cases, single artists can't move a finger without the OK of their music labels and their entourage and of course they've no word on how their music is being marketed.

it's probably a way for her record label to tell Apple to F off "by proxy" and to see what sticks on the wall.

Quote from: click_click on June 22, 2015, 09:18
If Apple cannot pay artist for a trial period then who can?

Nobody.

Apple Music and the other music streaming services have been grounded on a solid business model, even the actual market leader (Pandora) is losing millions and it's ridicolous valuation is so high just because we're in the middle of another economic bubble ... their only realistic plans is for their early investors to sell the hot cakes to the muppets at the right time just as they do with all the other failed startups.

sure, music streaming can be profitable, just as long as the artists don't get paid.

i mean, they're paying zero compared to video streaming : on Youtube you can get at least 1$ per 1000 video views ... on Pandora it's around 1$ (gross !) per 15000 streams ... this goes straight to the publisher, not to you ... your final payout is maybe around 1$ per 60-70000 streams.

after all there's a good reason if radio advertising doesn't pay as well as TV ads.

even if Pandora or Apple Music triple their subscriber fees it just doesn't pay enough to make it a profitable business, this has been debated to death since more than 15 yrs, since the time of the first web radios.

It seems LightStalkers is offline since a long time ... this is yet another sad development, they're all moving to FB and Twitter

As selling stock is a numbers game and today we're talking about agencies having archives made of 50+ millions images, why would they need to please a few stockers on a niche online forum ?

I dont see any positive ROI on that for the top agencies, it only makes sense for the small fries and the newcomers to come here and to get some free exposure for their products.

Market leaders like SS just don't need us anymore, they're well past the initial phase when they were dependant on the good will of the top uploaders .. now contributors are dime a dozen, including the top sellers, we've just no leverage now.