Got the termination e-mail today. Doesn't bother me, very low earner for me and I already stopped uploading long ago. Only concern I have is if they will pay out the remaining balance since it hasn't reached the minimum yet. I did post that question in the forum post they made and linked to in the e-mail.   I'll let you know if they answer that question.

I'm done with them too.  One  of the lowest earning sites of the dozen or so I submit too and the worst acceptance ratio of any of them.  Just isn't worth the effort if they are going to reject 90%.

Never knew that feature. Nice.

Ok, I downloaded Firefox and it does work now. Thanks for the help!

I tried in both IE 8 and Chrome and it doesn't work for me, checked and my flash is up to date and enabled. Everything else I do while browsing other websites and seeing flash works fine except that one page of earnings stats on 123rf.

I sent a report on this to 123rf and there looking into it. They did say they redid their servers all of last month.

Still broken for me, tried both Chrome and IE and I only got in once with IE over the last month.

Not sure how I missed this but this is a great idea, glad to help and I hope this becomes a tradition! Glad they extended it to Monday, I just got my contribution in.

Very nice of Dreamstime, thank you!

Quote from: click_click on September 30, 2011, 19:06
Question to VEER:

The examples mentioned a customer buying x amount of images using the subscription model like:

Customer downloads 5 images per day=$0.99 royalty per downloaded image which results in $4.95 from that customer.

Ideally many customers will get a subscription plan and purchase my images - so is my following example correct?:

Customer A downloads 5 of my images per day=$0.99 royalty per downloaded image which results in $4.95 from customer A.
Customer B downloads 1 of my image per day=$4.95 royalty per downloaded image which results in $4.95 from customer B.
Customer C downloads 9 of my images per day=$0.55 royalty per downloaded image which results in $4.95 from customer C.
Customer D downloads 15 of my images per day=$0.33 royalty per downloaded image which results in $4.95 from customer D.

Which totals 4 x $4.95 = $19.80 for four customers downloading 30 of my images ($0.66 RPD).

I'm sorry if this has been addressed before or if I misread any of the terms. I'd greatly appreciate clarification about that.

Thanks in advance.

Your correct except the images don't have  to be yours. The customer may download 9 a day and only 1 may be yours. You still get the .55 cents for that download.  The average downloads they state of 9 per day is correct but some will download all there quota and others may just download 1. On average we shouuld do well with this sub plan.

Excellent!  You have done a great job with redoing the plan. It now falls in line with the industry averages and I'm sure most of us will accept this. I'm opting back in.

We need to stop the race to the bottom mentality and keep payouts to contributors at a decent  and fair level without all the gimics and twisted payout math that always favors the stock sites and never the contributor. Set a concrete minimum and a fair EL price that's in line with the industry norm then you might have a workable plan that your contributors and buyers will like.

Just adding my two cents worth. I belong to Flickr but only for non commercial puroposes.
Your actually not supposed to use it for comercial sales. Yes you may be contacted by Getty but to get a photo accepted to Getty it can't be up anywhere else for sale. Sales through Getty are pretty rare from what I hear and most don't pay big bucks. Flickr is mostly a social photo site used by amateurs. Most of the comments and views you get will be by amateurs, not actual buyers. If you don't participate in groups or comment on others photos you won't get very many views or comments either. In short Lisa, there really isn't much earning potential there.

If your looking for alternative sites to make money on I recomend Zazzle. It actually has more income potential then microstock does now. It's a little different in that you have to do more designing rather then just the raw stock photo but if you have some design skills you can do very, very well at Zazzle.

Obvious decision if you ask me. Sell them. You can always reshoot similar type shots. Invest the money in a good quality mutual fund or bond fund if your more conservative and in 7 to 10 years based on historic returns  you will double that investment to $90,000. Not likely that your photos would earn you that much over that time frame.

Wow....a new low by any site. This plan for EL licensing is less them most sites sell RF photos for. What the heck are they thinking? If this is true then it also cuts there own throats for there EL pricing. They had been getting $100 for an EL but who would pay that now when they can buy a EL sub plan for $250 and download 30 photos a day for a month. The buyer could get 900 photos licensed for EL use for $250. That's just insane...

Opted out as soon as I read this.

They got me too. The last two days I've had about 100 images downloaded that I would have made about $130 on. I did contact support and heard that they are aware of it and they have implemented and will be implementing new measures today to stop this.  It's most likely the same group that stung Istock.

I do it in Photoshop with a duplicate layer set to multiply and a mask. You actually have a lot more control over exactly where you want the effect. In the photo below everything except the sky was masked and the blend mode was set to multiply to brng out the detail inthe clouds.

Its extremely rare to even get one for $350 so good luck with a price of $20,000.

You might want to try another method.

Duplicate the background layer. Make a selection of the entire fender. Feather it by 1 or 2 pixels.  Sample a red color, shoot for the area right under the headlight. Now fill that selection with that color. Heres the trick, change your blending mode to either overlay or soft light. It will be much darker but thats ok. The color has filled in a lot of the blue from the sky and the other light colors. 

Duplicate the layer again by draging the layer down to the new layer icon. Now take somewhat large soft tipped brush and sample areas near those car and building  reflections. Lower the brush opacity to maybe 20 to 30% and carefully paint over the cars and anything else you don't want showing. Keep sampling the colors near where your painting.  Leave the clouds in on the top side of the fender to make it look more realistic. This requires some practice. Do it on this seperate layer and you can just delete it and start over if you dont like it.

The photo is still dark so lets make an adjustment layer, pick anything like levels or curves. Don't adjust any settings , just click ok. Now change that layers blending mode to screen and the image will lighten back up for you.

Thats it and heres the result I got after a few minutes. With more time you can do even better.

I think someone got up  on the wrong side of the bed.....

Quote from: leszek on August 21, 2008, 03:09
All this still does not prevent certain sites from rejecting images even if no logos etc. are present in the image. They call it "potential" copyright issue.

Basically - the writing is on the wall for photographers. Soon it will be impossible to photograph any item or object which has been produced or created by any human being by any manufacturing process.

Also, you will not be able to photograph landscapes - there are already a lot of places where you can't take pictures - and this includes national parks, landmarks etc. - even if this is public area. Usually one trust or the other sees the opportunity to cash in, and usually under pretences of "protecting", "preserving" or some such - and usually this is a lot of pure BS.

Basically - anything of value on this Earth has a claim staked out. So, if it has even the slightest "potential" of creating some buck - even from a photograph someone may take - it becomes either "protected", or "culturaly significant", or some other dodgy reason.

While the law does not go as far as the above description - the popular perception certainly shifted the balance in this direction. And the law is usually a representation of perceptions as to what is acceptable and what is not. It does not matter - it will happen sooner or later.

I guess this will also be the time when they will make you to pay for the air you breathe - and don't laugh, the recent activities in the "carbon trading" is a beginning of that - it is just that the general public is too stupid and indifferent to care. Well, the average citizen will care when this happens and I just can't wait to hear all the bleating...

Like or not - the world is slowly becoming one large prison. 

Heres an intersting article written by Dan Heller concerning stock photos and the copyright/trademark issue.

My understanding of this is that in the end the person responsible would be the BUYER, not the site or the content provider. The terms of use under an RF license clearly state how it can and can not be used. Since only the buyer knows how they are going to use the image its there responsibility to know how they can and can not use an image legally and to obtain any releases needed for that use. The sites all state something very similar to that in the agreements buyers have to agree to to by any content.

Heres a few examples:

Quote from the Big StockPhoto site.

"The responsibility of determining whether your use is legal is yours, since it's impossible for BigStockPhoto to know what your planned usage for the photo is."

Quote from Istock's buyer usage agreement. Key for photographers and illustrator here is the term, "content Provider", that would be the copyright holder.

"(b) IN NO EVENT SHALL ISTOCKPHOTO OR ANY OF ITS AFFILIATES OR CONTENT PROVIDERS OR THEIR RESPECTIVE DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, SHAREHOLDERS, PARTNERS OR AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) IN CONNECTION WITH ANY CLAIM, LOSS, DAMAGE, ACTION, SUIT OR OTHER PROCEEDING ARISING UNDER OR OUT OF THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR USE OF, RELIANCE UPON, ACCESS TO, OR EXPLOITATION OF THE CONTENT, OR ANY PART THEREOF, OR ANY RIGHTS GRANTED TO YOU HEREUNDER, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, WHETHER THE ACTION IS BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OR OTHERWISE."

Quote from Dreamstime:
Model and Property Releases/Clearances

The rights Dreamstime grants you do not include a license to any person, place, property, or subject matter depicted in an Image, which may be subject to copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, moral rights, property rights or other rights belonging to third parties. Dreamstime makes no representations or warranties that it owns or licenses any rights nor does Dreamstime grant you any rights including copyright, trademarks, or rights of publicity belonging to any person, place, property, or subject matter depicted in any Image. Furthermore, Dreamstime makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of any information provided with the Images. You are solely responsible for determining whether your use of any Image requires the consent of any third party or the license of any additional rights, and you should not rely solely on the information provided by Dreamstime. If you are unsure whether additional rights are needed for your use, you are responsible for obtaining competent legal counsel.
In addition, a model release document must be uploaded by photographers, members of Dreamstime's community, confirming that the persons included in their Image have signed a written agreement. By uploading this document, the photographers certify that the information contained within is complete and accurate.

If an Image is designated as model-released, it means that the person(s) included in the Image has/have signed a release permitting reproduction of the Image, subject to the restrictions contained in this Agreement, including, without limitation, sensitive subject uses. If Dreamstime erroneously advises you that an Image is model-released when it is not, Dreamstime's liability shall be limited to the amount you paid Dreamstime for the use of the Image. If an Image depicts a person and is used in a manner that implies the use or endorsement of a product or service by that model, you must indicate that the person depicted is a model and used only for illustrative purposes. Under no circumstances, you cannot use an image with a person or more, in a context suggesting he/she or they are endorsing a subject that can be seen as sensitive. Any license granted by Dreamstime is conditioned upon your obtaining all necessary third-party rights, releases and permissions. You agree to provide Dreamstime with proof of such releases and permissions upon request."
"

Very little has been said yet about the "Partner Licensing". Here's the only information provided on the StockXpert site about it.

"We would like to partner with sites & distributions channels in addition to StockXpert in order to reach more customers. You would earn 50% of the net receivables that we receive based on your portion of images used."

I have lots of questions about this. What sort of EULA will be followed with these partners? Will it be the same EULA as StockXpert or Photos.com or something entirely different for each "Partner".  Will we know ahead of time who these partners are? My understanding is that right now there are no partners at all.  Just for example....they may offer a sub plan just like Photos.com only we may only see .15 cents and they may offer XXL sizes in the sub plan.

How can anyone decide to opt into that without more information.

Quote
Hi All -

No significant updates, I don't have a firm ETA yet. 
Work continues. As I've mentioned in other posts, when starting this project we soon realized that in order to accept FTP we would need to completely rebuild our upload workflow. As sometimes happens - what started as a simple upload remodeling job has turned into a major-down-to-the-foundation overhaul. 

While I've got your ear:  what are your opinions on upload limits or upload tiers, or other such systems designed to throttle uploading and prevent review delays.

Our current system is in most respects self-limiting. With the new upload system this will no longer be the case, and we've had some discussion about the need for upload limits. I'm curious - what do you think?  How would you tackle the need to balance allowing contributors to upload large batches, with the potential problems that could result for an unchecked system?

- Brian (SV)

Brian, when you guys do finally make FTP live make sure you e-mail that news to contributers. I do not use your current bulky system. I have over 1000 photos waiting to be uploaded to Snapvillage when the FTP is live. I also do not check in regularly so without an e-mail notice I would be unaware that the FTP was live.

On your request for suggestions on an upload limit. Fifty per day would be fair. As mentioned , keep track of the approval rating of each submitter. If it drops below 60% then lower the daily limit to 20. If it is higher then 90% then raise the upload limit to 100 or even unlimited.  Thats how some other sites handle that.

Thanks for the update and please do e-mail when you do activate that FTP.

Quote from: michealo on July 24, 2008, 13:20
To my knowledge doesn't SV offer unlimited uploading - burn and send them a dvd?

Why all the fuss about the lack of FTP?

The resaon I want FTP is because it is how every other major microstock site, accept Istock,  works. Its in my workflow, its very convienient, and its much faster. Burning a DVD would be extra work and expense thats not necessary. If Snapvillage is ever going to be a legitimate contender in the microstock world then FTP is mandatory.

Just wondering if there is any date set yet when the FTP uploading will be available. I have been waiting for FTP before I submit.

 Out of curiosity I went and looked at the rest of the contestants. There is page after page of them....some pretty nice ones and some not so nice ones.... and some pretty sleazy looking ones. Turns out you can vote for more then one model. Reason I decided not to vote for Stacey is I don't like the photo with the 944 logo right over her face. Couldn't you have given her a photo with more copyspace at the top? The vast majority of them have the 944 logo plastered over there face so all those are bad photos to me .  Her being deaf plays no part into that decision for me. How hard of a worker she is or how good she is to work with also plays no role in it to me. If its a true model contest and not just a popularity contest then the decision on who to vote for should be based on how good the model and the photo looks.

If its just a popularity contest then its really just that and has no real meaning.

Take a look at Kyle Lardner,  shes on the first page along with Stacey. Beautiful model with a fantastic photo that shows her face without the 944 across it. She got my vote.

It is not a problem to remove a single image at BigStock if you sell the rights to it anywhere. I remember Dawn or Tim saying they would do that for contributers. The policy was originally put in place to discourage people from uploading and removing photos without giving them time to sell. They pay reviewers for each photo so they want you to allow the photo some time to sell before you remove it from the site. They are flexible when it comes to something like this.