I think broken is the normal for them.  I have two images that have been pending review since 2022. I gave up on uploading to them years ago, but I'm sitting at $39 in downloads and if it ever gets to $50, I'll take the money.

There's a possibility that it would reveal something about marketing strategy or technique that the creator would prefer not to share with competitors.

Quote from: Josephine on July 23, 2020, 14:53
What is the final goal of the protest?
How realistic are all these energy and time consuming actions?

It took me a couple minutes to disable my port. I save time not uploading there.  I have no interest in harming shutterstock or protesting their policies.  I plan to devote my energy to working with partners that offer me a better return on my time.  I'm also concerned that, with easy price comparison through Google, I am cannabilizing my better-paying sales working with SS.  Last month I made $19 on a sale on 20twenty.  The same image would have netted me $.10 on SS.  Takes a lot of sales to make up that difference in RPD, and the volume wasn't there for me on SS to make it worthwhile to stay.

Quote from: StockFootageWorld on August 07, 2020, 13:01
Hello Group:

Am strongly considering deactivating downloads for SS, mainly out of principle re: the ultra low rates which are becoming more frequent.  I wonder if any of you could offer educated guesses regarding the positive impact of deactivating my SS portfolio, specifically in the area of non-dilution of my exiting portfolio on other platforms?

That is: how feasible / likely might it be that my other portfolios (Adobe, P5 etc) which contain many of those same clips might benefit from not being sold as lowballs at SS?

Thanks

I can only speak for myself, but my income went up after I dropped SS a few weeks ago.  It's really to early to say if it's a trend or just a blip. My port isn't one-of-a-kind, but i do have some pictures of 2016 presidentil elections that are niche material.

I just checked my pending queue.  There are two images, completely indexed, pending since November 2018.  I don't bother with 123rf anymore because I always had to follow-up with them to get images processed.

I'm a female photographer.  I don't think I face any extra challenges due to being female.  I'm a one-person shop and do this as a moonlighting job.  Maybe full-time people have a different experience.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on May 25, 2018, 12:52
And he's also just wrong.  If it were an article specifically commenting on the photo, it would have fair use claim, possibly.  Just grabbing a photo to use as filler or to illustrate the commentary is infringement.

Plus the whole image is hardly "a brief excerpt."  Low resolution images may be OK.  This is an interesting article on the subject:  https://copyright.columbia.edu/basics/fair-use.html

I'm on both.  I've never sold anything on EyeEm.  I've made $24 on Twenty20 in 680 days with a port of 255.  So, not a huge money maker    I like having a place to experiment, though.  I also like the contests because they help me see how I compare with the competition and how I can up my game.

Regularly
Shutterstock
Dreamstime
Adobe *through Fotolia
Alamy
20Twenty
Eyeem


Sometimes
123RF
Deposit Photos

I have photos on Bigstock, but don't contribute there any more.  I have a self-hosted site that doesn't get the attention it deserves.  I'm thinking of expanding into doing more portrait/wedding work for private clients, which would cause me to redo the whole site *sigh

It really depends what you upload.  The trick is to figure out what the buyers want.  I've seen people with multiple downloads per file and small portfolios.  Then there's the wanna bees like me, trying to find the right niche.  I did hit a good market when I photographed the presidential candidates in 2016, but I'm looking for something new.

Try to develop icon sets that are unique, but still satisfy customer desires.  Pay attention to what sells, your work and others work.  Don't copy others, but learn from what they do and apply it to your own ideas. 

I really think a bit of time spent in studying the market pays off in sales in the long run. 

You can have a personal contract.  But I would recommend forming an LLC.  It provides some protection for your personal assets if you are careful to separate personal and business funding.  They are pretty easy to set up.  You can do it yourself, or if it is you would prefer to have it handle by an attorney it shouldn't be too expensive.  Disclosure:  This is based on my own research and experience and I am not an attorney.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 08, 2017, 11:19

Quote from: CJH Photography on July 03, 2017, 16:37

Quote from: namussi on June 21, 2017, 12:55
Some money is better than no money. :-(

Not if you're cannabalizing earnings with the same images elsewhere.

The trouble is, if you remove your image to prevent cannibalisation, there is very little chance that your picture elsewhere will pick up the sale you lost on iS. That sale will go to somebody else - probably on iS, but maybe elsewhere.
Even in the unusual case of your image being truly unique, the odds are probably still against it being found amidst a gazillion files on some other site, amid scores of different sites. And how many pictures are so unique as to not easily be substituted by something else?

You make a good point.  But istock was not making money for me and I am happy to forgo the few sales that I did make there. 

Quote from: Brightontl on July 06, 2017, 22:29
That it is not the main problem.
Return from photos are extremely low.
You have to factor how much time you waste uploading: as an example SS takes me less than an hour per month to upload about 200 photos. I get about $100 with them, it is only just worth doing, and only it because it does go up every month.
Bloody istock is so complex that it takes me 5-6 hours per month to upload there, so if it doesn't give me at least $400, forget it

No lie.  I do a LOT of editorial and have managed to figure out the required captions everywhere else, but ISTOCK always finds a reasosn to reject them.   That and them taking the power of contributors to remove images from sale were the tipping point for me and why I quit trying there.

Quote from: namussi on July 04, 2017, 04:47

Quote from: CJH Photography on July 03, 2017, 16:37

Quote from: namussi on June 21, 2017, 12:55
Some money is better than no money. :-(

Not if you're cannabalizing earnings with the same images elsewhere.

But how do you know that you are cannibalising such images?

You can't really know for sure because we don't have access to that data.  Personally, though, I choose not to offer my images at that compensation point. 

Quote from: Sammy the Cat on June 29, 2017, 22:30

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on June 29, 2017, 16:44

Quote from: Sammy the Cat on June 29, 2017, 14:23

Quote from: namussi on June 21, 2017, 12:55
Some money is better than no money. :-(

What! You are kidding right?! 

You're saying that no money is better than some money? You are kidding right?! 

You just love to snipe don't you

So you would be happy to get  $ 0.00077??

Stop being a dick

If you do that 100 times, it comes to almost $.08.  What is minimum payment at iStock?  If you never make payout, this is still no money.  I deleted most of my files and they closed my account-I think I left one just as a placeholder in case things ever improved.

Quote from: namussi on June 21, 2017, 12:55
Some money is better than no money. :-(

Not if you're cannabalizing earnings with the same images elsewhere.

Quote from: f9photos on May 24, 2017, 21:47
Do EyeEm require exclusivity?

I suppose they have to if they sell through Getty

No, they don't.   They just started a video platform there, too.  I have uploaded a bit there. I've never had a sale, but I don't take it too seriously either.  I've had better luck at 20twenty.  Or twenty20.  I never came remember which way it goes :-)

Quote from: Brightontl on June 01, 2017, 17:57

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 01, 2017, 17:45
Your initial post sounds like you're not really interested in doing this, so I'd say just don't worry about uploading anywhere.  It is a business and you do have to work at it a bit to see any result.

As I said I until a few months ago I was doing footage only.
I work a lot on it and I am quite happy with the results.
I have decided to try selling also still images, as I don't have to re shoot them, I can take them from timelapses that I already do anyway.
But I don't have much time for it, so it must be worthwhile. So far I have been uploading photos to 4 agencies and the results are relatively satisfactory.
But I have to spread the effort  on several agencies, so I would like to try istock.
As I said I cannot invest too much time on it, so if the uploading is relatively simple (and sales are decent) I am happy to do it. If it is overly complicated I would give a skip

IMO, it's not worth it.   I do primarily editorial images and just gave up on them.  I was not seeing sales and the editorial guidelines for captions were not consistent.   I upload several places and have no trouble complying with guidelines elsewhere.  The final straw for me was when they made it more difficult to remove work from their site.   

Quote from: Vlad on April 25, 2017, 19:49
Are you uploading to iStock? That is you are feeding the beast that takes us 85%!!! Stop feeding the beast!

LOL I pop in once in a while to see if it would be worthwhile to upload to istock again.  Looks like I'll keep waiting.  I need to see some real positive changes for contributors to work with them again.

Quote from: thirdbornentertainment on April 13, 2017, 21:11
Some good, some bad. The bulk buy option sounds like the kind of garbage fotolia offers with regards to how much we will make.

Email from shutterstock:

"While high resolution footage is increasingly popular with our customers, they often choose entry-level clips because of the lower price. To encourage bulk high resolution downloads, we've narrowed the pricing gap across all our video packs. By raising the price for entry-level clips and lowering the prices for higher resolution packs, we've made this higher-quality content an easier choice for our customers. These pricing changes will vary globally.

We're introducing a new high-volume footage package.

Recently there's been a demand for a large number of downloads from a specific set of customers from large companies. To suit their needs we will soon introduce a high-volume footage package. This package gives your work an opportunity to reach a broader audience that could result in even more downloads.

We will only be offering this package to large business customers who are guaranteeing bulk purchases of footage. It won't be shown on our public website. With this package, clients will be given the opportunity to download a large volume of footage clips at a negotiated price per clip. As with our other footage products, your earnings under this high-volume footage package will be a percentage of the purchase price of each download, with payouts between $3 and $6 per clip."

If you could target for that market; the volume might make it worthwhile.   Sure is a low pay-out, though

Quote from: Deni Williams on April 12, 2017, 14:58
How much you earn for each sale in DT?
Just to know.

It's going to vary. My average RPD for 2016 was $1.98.

Quote from: niktol on April 09, 2017, 18:08

Quote from: Sammy the Cat on April 09, 2017, 07:08
Lets face it the site is being run by how can I say without seeming rude

idiots 

That's not how this should be worded in corporate speak. I'll attempt to rephrase.

It is run by people whose interests are not well aligned with the interests of contributors.

I don't have much against SS, let's just say lately it's performance was less than stellar.  But I have no problem, other stocks are picking up, so it all evens out for me.  Maybe it's just me, or maybe the interests of those who run SS no longer align with the interests of buyers either. Needless to say, I have only sympathy for front line workers.

Alignment with buyers is what I would like to see all the sites I contribute concentrate on.  Other than that, just give me transparent sales tracking and non-buggy uploads and I'm good.   Pretty demanding, huh?

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on April 11, 2017, 08:10
My earnings per upload seem to be about the same as BAZ and CHJ.  My portfolio is not "High Commercial Value", it's basically food and travel with hardly any people shots.
The return is currently about 1c per month per upload. As I've got thousands of files online it is still enough to pay the occasional bill, whether it is worth the effort to upload more is something people need to work out for themselves. I'll still send stuff sometimes if I have nothing else to do but I don't expect an exciting return from extra effort any longer.

I keep experimenting with ways to increase revenue, but really with the investment I have in equipment now, I need to step out and do more direct marketing.  Just upgraded to some solid video heads and tripods, so I am looking around locally to see how to make them pay off.

Quote from: photog-teo on April 10, 2017, 19:49
Over 6000 images Q1 2017: 12 $   

2017 its totally a very bad year for me ? for DR ? i don't know !

FT on the other hand looks better and better for me at least

I have 765 online with earnings of $27.12 fwiw.  Unfortunately, most of my sales are niche photos in an area that I can't readily scale up at this point.

Quote from: panicAttack on March 02, 2017, 14:35
maybe mirrorless full format or aps-c cameras such as sony, fuji etc...

Sounds right, they have accepted shots taken with my 7D