What if the training use is a one time payment or maybe we get nothing at all, for the training. But mostly who says we would be paid for every use of every image that was used to train the AI. Why?

And that's assuming that we get any image selected to be part of the dataset. 360 million images, no one will need to license all of them.

It's one use, from a giant, low cost, subscription, to train the AI. What if they paid us the dime standard, which is supposed to be the minimum. That's it. One dime, one use.

"But mostly who says we would be paid for every use of every image that was used to train the AI. Why?"

Shutterstock says that, citing: "Contributors whose content was used to train either model will be compensated for the role their IP played in the development of the original models, as well as through royalty payments tied to future generative licensing activity." or "Earnings from datasets and downloads of AI-generated content produced with integrated technology on our platform are pooled in a collective fund and will be distributed every 6 months." Why? It is obvious. All the other stock agencies are forbidding AI-generated images because they cannot say the training images were properly sourced and properly compensate them. SS can do that as it know the source and authors of the images. It provides them itself.

There are two different situations here. One is training the AI for other projects. This will be probably one time payment. The second one is AI generation based on our images. And this is "generative licensing activity" which should lead to royalty payments. I understand that we are going to be paid for every generaion of AI image where the AI was trained by our image.

"360 million images, no one will need to license all of them."

The quality of AI is extremely dependent on the size of training dataset. Extremely. It is not only about the quality of the algorithm but also about the quality (size) of dataset. How would you make better AI. You will put more data to that (in our case, more images). Of course, not all of them have to be chosen, but this is how the AI works. More data = usually better AI. 

For me, the sales are not so bad (usually relatively lot of sales but at the minimum price - this December is an exception with more high-priced sales, approx. 30 % of SS earnings). But the problem with reviews is real.

There is also one question. What to do with images and videos from the same location? Is it possible to send a video from one location to BlackBox and to send photographs from the same location to others agencies manually (because BlackBox does not support images)? In such a case, there can be video on the BlackBox's account (for example on Shutterstock) and exactly the same composition on the photograph (different media) from contributor's account. That would be weird. Is it againt some rules? How to solve that?

The same here. It seems that they review images randomly in my case. Videos have not been reviewed since February, it is very similar with editorials. Normal images have not been reviews sice August as well. The only thing that is sometimes reviewed, are vectors. Although, it is weird here as well. Sometimes, they are accepted even before I finish the submission process (images seem to be processed in the step 3 or 4 in the workflow but when the website redirect itself to the step 5, they are already accepted). If this situation does not happen, they are never going to be reviewed.

Quote from: BalkanskiMacak on April 24, 2018, 08:43

Terrible month on 123RF as well, plus the fact that the review of editorial pictures has stopped almost 3 months ago... I'm starting to wonder if there's still somebody behind the website, or if rats are deserting the ship...

I didn't realise my editorials are sitting in pending ;-). Don't suppose its lost me many $$. Gone from a reasonable middle tier earner to also ran for me. Though thats pretty true of all "middle tier" really.

Videos are even worse, they have not been reviewed for almost half of the year now.

I can upload there but the files are not reviewed. I have video clips since April 2016 there and still have not been reviewed (stuck in "Pending" stage).

And who are you, exactly, person who hides behind anonymity yet feels free to dis other people's work?

I really have not say that your work is not good! Have I? I only asked, if you really think that your image is so beautiful, universal and suitable for so much different advertising topics that 10000 advertisers would use this each image in 10000 different advertising campaigns. Do you really think that Google has so many advertisers in one suitable topic that each of them would use exactly this one your image? If there is such demand for this image, would not you think that you would already sell this image several thousand times? If I count my 11 picked images, they were sold 6 times (8�0, 1�1, 1�2 and 1�3). Do you really think that now, as a miracle, will they be used 110000 times instead of 6? Each one of them 10000 times? 10000 times, if they had only 0.5 sales on average until now? Do be so naive.

Maybe it is not great deal, we do not know. On the other hand, almost everybody, who is opted-in, says, that mostly non-selling images were picked. So, maybe my image will be used 5 times or more and it will be not good for me, maybe they will never use it and I will get $2 for nothing (and the image would not be deleted after 4 years of no-sale). Maybe it will continue as EL (after year) and more money will come. I really do not know the numbers and how many times will be used these image on average, but I am certainly sure that it will not be 10000 times per image on average.

To each his own, I suppose. I don't mind the SS/Facebook deal, where the images are also tiny but we're paid for each use. I have a problem with gigantic Google paying me $2 and then making my image available 10,000 times. Clearly, it's possible to make deals where artists are compensated for each use, because SS did that. I also see that SS and Getty are selling our work--the same work--for hundreds of dollars for each use while DT sells it for two bucks for thousands of uses. SS is looking in the right direction, IMO. Their prices are going up and they're aiming for larger sales. I've decided I'd rather look in that direction too.

Do you really think that your images are so super-brilliant that they will be used 10000 times during this one year (or less)? For your information, 11 of my 813 images were selected in this deal and 8 of them were never sold in DT (and 4 of them were also never sold in any other agency). As it was already said, there is probability that many of these selected images will be never used (and replaced) and some may by used many times and in the average, it could be not so bad deal. Who knows.

The same here for a long time. I have AR 60-85% on other agencies, but less than 5% at FT. They reject EVERYTHING.