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Messages - Uncle Pete
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1
Pattern and concept in many places is still derivative. It doesnt need to use any part of it.
Thats why "in the style of" is causing so many issues currently.
Pattern and concept can't be copy protected. You're right, in the style of should have been banned and prevented, from the start, that's infringing on a name and artists personal identity. Style might be questionable as you can't protect Art Deco or Abstract, or Modernist. Lets say primitive for an example, anyone can do that. But you can't have AI making Grandma Moses Primitive. Back to the bottom line, the machine learning doesn't use any portion of any specific image, it learns what a banana looks like and the possible colors, and creates a new image. The computer is trained on 10,000 bananas (as an example) is trained on the possible variations, and when someone types in the prompt using the word banana, the machine has a pattern that has been learned. You can't copyright knowledge or facts.
2
« on: Yesterday at 12:18 »
Training a machine with images, and then the machine creates new images, without using any part of the training image, is not a breach of copyright.
That's under the derivative works clauses in many countries. They don't have to use actual content. Information or knowledge obtained is derivative.
They are not derivatives, they are whole new creations. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) or diffusion models are used to learn patterns and concepts. Then the machine makes a new image, that does not use any portion or detail of any training image. Information or knowledge is not a derivative any more than knowing that water freezes at 32F or 0C is. A fact is a fact. Machine learning, is taught, not copying. If the dumber "AI" systems, use bits and pieces of actual images, to make a new product, that's would be a derivative and can't be defended in any way. ps the above message from Richard shows a quote tagged as me, and I didn't write "That's under the derivative works clauses in many countries. They don't have to use actual content. Information or knowledge obtained is derivative."
3
« on: Yesterday at 12:08 »
Look at it this way: winter holiday content uploaded now has a lot less competition.
And the buyers looking now are the really interesting ones, that might also have a bigger enterprise budget or perhaps would buy with an extended license.
6 weeks before the event there is a lot more competition and it is hard to be seen.
Also true possibilities. Another part of the last minutes buyers is, they are smaller and late, because they aren't organized. I'll guess that means, tiny value, not as many. Big budgets plan in advance, not the last minute rush. I'm still on the same page with you that the best way to control uploads and have a presence is a constant flow, as soon as they are completed. Some every week or if there aren't that many, one a week. Stay in front, and if there's an outside chance that someone ever looks at similar or others by this artist, there might be some benefit.
4
« on: April 23, 2025, 12:16 »
Wondering if anybody who is in for this model would like to share the earnings or they are available only by the end of the month?
According to the email it doesnt go live until next month but looks like they lied about that.
Given the revenue share model they mentioned i dont see how they can do anything other than declare it monthly once they know how much it brought in during that period. I can see an IS style 2 month lag while payments are calcuated.
Sounds about right. Revenue sharing, moving to an IS ESP format, we might see a download but won't know what we made, for a month. Just another way to pay us less than they already do.
5
« on: April 23, 2025, 12:11 »
Maybe Adobe should fix contributor interface due to "Quality Reasons" ;=)
6
« on: April 23, 2025, 12:04 »
Question is if AI takes over and artists, creatives, bloggers etc are no longer seeing financial reward, or very little reward why would anyone upload anything of value to the internet. AI companies must have thought this one through, do they really think people are just going to work for free or something.
Sorry to be harsh but they sound like a self entitled bunch, lobbying governments, at least here in Britain, to weaken copyright laws. Our silly governments are swallowing the line.
IF? That has already happened and we are already to the point of no longer seeing financial reward for our work. People are still uploading to SS for dimes and the reset. People are still trying to sell on Getty for 15%. How could the financial reward be less? (I hate to ask that, maybe it could get worse?) "AI" is nothing more than the most open and large scale copyright breach in human history and shoved into a database.
Every single generated AI image is effectively copyright theft as the models were all trained to various extents on media without permission.
Ultimately Adobes gamble seems dull. NOW people are buying AI from stock. It wont be long until they just make their own from a prompt in whatever editor they're using and have no further need to buy anything so that market vanishes.
Diminishes not vanishes. The judges and juries and courts of the world, will decide if it's a breach of copyright, not artists who have a personal interest in the use and decision. Using public domain images, without permission isn't copyright breach. Training a machine with images, and then the machine creates new images, without using any part of the training image, is not a breach of copyright. If you use a thesaurus, or dictionary, to learn what a word means or how to use it, is that a breach of copyright? Having a machine look at an image and learn is the same thing. No I don't use AI, no I don't like it or what's happened to the photo market, but that won't make me ignore the facts or the laws behind how the images are used, just because I don't like machine learning. Adobe is jumping in, just like all the rest. It's "The next big thing" and here we are. Let me mention Kodak, and how digital is just a novelty, film is always going to be better. Remember Blockbuster, who could have bought Netflix, but they didn't think digital or streaming was a threat. So why would Adobe, just sit and watch as the AI market booms, without taking a part and making a profit?
7
« on: April 23, 2025, 11:48 »
steady drip starting 6-9 months before.
you might get most of the actual downloads in the holiday season, but the decisions are often made several months in advance.
there are some last minute buyers, but anything you expect to have over 100 dl or over 1000 should be uploaded many, many months earlier
if you are new to holiday images, it can also take several seasons before you get regular buyers. there is a lot of competition and on some agencies it took me at least 3 seasons, before holiday images became regular and good sellers.
All of the above are true, especially if someone believes that they have to play the system, to somehow overcome competition. The steady drip is the best answer. Your other points, while good, just prove that we can't predict. Last minute buyers, don't care if we uploaded in July or December. If it's the Winter holidays, or calendars, October is too late. And the last point is also true. Sometimes it takes a couple of years for an image to "suddenly" catch fire. There are just far too many variables, out of our control, to spend time over analyzing and trying to find something that can make a difference, that everyone else or natural uploads aren't already doing. I get Christmas downloads in August. Steady Drip, stay in the game. Holding back images, for the perfect time, is a guarantee that they can't be seen and can't be sold. We would have to guess the date that the buyer for the image, wanted it for a project, and that is totally unpredictable.
8
« on: April 22, 2025, 11:25 »
Guessing Shutterstock jumped the gun...
https://www.shutterstock.com/unlimited now has a 404. Anyone screenshot it before it went?
Sure thing and better than that. I just got this email:
Unlimited downloads. Just $19/month.
Introducing Unlimited downloads! A brand new, budget-friendly subscription built to give you more flexibility, more content, and more reasons to come back.
Whatever the project, our new collection of 50+ million high-quality images, video clips, and music tracks offers the assets you need at a price thats hard to resist.
Get Unlimited https://www.shutterstock.com/discover/unlimited?sfmc_id=14547313&subscriber_key=sstk-109388320&utm_campaign=EcomSSTK_D_GTM_Unlimited_InactiveUsers_V1_202504&utm_id=187045&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sstkemail I don't think it's dead yet? "The plan comes with unlimited downloads, but in order to be able to fairly pay Contributors for your use of their original Content, we limit daily downloads to 100 assets."
9
« on: April 22, 2025, 10:25 »
.
It's strange that getty allowed shutterstock to do this.
Getty has no say. Nothing has been signed. The way it's looking I can see them pulling out as they're offering way over the odds for a company that may not exist in a year or 2.
Waiting to pick off the carcass seems more sensible.
That's ridiculous to say nothing has been signed. These deals are on paper before they are announced. They don't just change their minds. They entered into a definitive merger agreement to combine.
https://newsroom.gettyimages.com/en/getty-images/getty-images-and-shutterstock-to-merge-creating-a-premier-visual-content-company#:~:text=NEW%20YORK%2C%20January%207%2C%202025%20%E2%80%93%20Getty%20Images,equals%20transaction%2C%20creating%20a%20premier%20visual%20content%20company.
Nothing has been finalised, nothing has been side, regulators havent even begun to start. There'll also be get out clauses for unforseen changes to the business conditions.
They've agreed to a deal in principle. Thats it. Plenty fall through after this stage.
I think investors aren't too confident in Getty as the partner. SSTK is up to $16.50 now, but right after the dividend was paid for SSTK, the stock took a dive. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/getty-images-shutterstock-receive-second-211500894.htmlGetty Images and Shutterstock intend to continue working cooperatively with the DOJ and other non-US regulators to obtain regulatory clearance for the proposed merger as expeditiously as possible. The proposed transaction remains subject to Shutterstock stockholder approval as well as other customary closing conditions.
Both parties continue to expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2025.I didn't expect this to happen as fast as some other people predicted. We might be looking at October or later, before the deal becomes official and then it will take time for changes to the structure of the business.
10
« on: April 21, 2025, 13:50 »
easter holidays in many countries. schools and businesses closed.
If he doesn't have any easter content that would be a plausible reason.
But I believe that Adobe also had some major ranking algorithm shifts.
Oh good, maybe my images will be favored now. If one shift causes people to go down, the same shift will cause others to go up. It's impossible to have "everyone" going down. Otherwise seasonal changes are the best answer. Whether that means holidays, seasonal demands that change, or new competition. Much better than the old blame the algorithm. That's getting stale for an easy answer to falling sales. Maybe they adjusted the fake pay quotas for everyone? Ask some people here and they will say, it's all rigged. Then there are the others who say, it's just luck. 
11
« on: April 21, 2025, 13:38 »
There's something else going on. The General says 1 member and 200 guests viewing the board. This one says, 1 member and 3 guests. Someone or something is monitoring and taking up the speed, slowing down the whole forum. " https://www.microstockgroup.com/forum/#c1 might have a temporary problem or it could have moved. Error code: 522 The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments." Maybe there's a way for Leaf to block the bots? Unless it's some kind of attack?
12
« on: April 13, 2025, 12:39 »
One for similar, which is very possible, one for guidelines. Here's the guideline offender. A wide panorama image. Maybe the size or the format?  
13
« on: April 11, 2025, 11:58 »
Mostly about going exclusive and Customer Content briefs. But it did pop up on Firefox as something I may be interested in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-kesETgdC0 Do you want to earn money quicker selling stock imagery?Getty Images Creative 5.59K subscribers 256 views Premiered 95 minutes ago Getty Images - Quick Tips 33: Earn quicker by selling stock imagery this way 
14
« on: April 10, 2025, 13:14 »
Its a full circle for me. I started out with most on Alamy/macrostock and RM. Then migrated to the RF/Microstock model.
Now im seriously considering doing the same and retreating back to that. Although to be fair, AS is still growing well for me currently.
And I would also like to go back to Macrostock or Midstock. But does it sell?
On Alamy, my historical average for 910 downloads is $7.52 net (about 20% are RM exclusive) vs SS's 39,000 downloads at an average of 60cents.
40x less volumes for 12x the price but then Alamy sells mainly editorial and no real point sending them generic commercial micro shots.
At the end of the day, for me, it's more about taking back control of our assets and retaining some dignity.
Speaking for myself, I don't know what dignity there is to retain after I sold out to Microstock. A little late to take back anything, after it's out in the wild. New images, yes, that's possible. You're right about Alamy, and people will argue, the volume isn't there. But last year, and Alamy is down, I made more on Alamy than P5, DT, IS and all of the minor sites I distributed to on Wirestock, all added together!. Selling out for pennies is just as desperate for any last money and this terrible plan from SSTK. I suppose it's difficult to say goodbye to DT and P5. I spent time uploading, now that's just residual. Mostly, I'm waiting for the "Next Big Thing"  Which is the merger of IS and SS, to see what happens. Im also thinking of just contributing to Adobe and Alamy. Seems most agencies now pays pennies anyway.
I think that's a good plan to be considering. They don't care if we leave, we don't get paid for the effort. What's the loss?
15
« on: April 10, 2025, 12:58 »
Yesterday I had some accepted, some rejected "for quality reasons". All non-editorial. I resubmit, and this morning all accepted.
Different reviewer most likely. This cat and mouse game is becoming quite ridiculous and has nothing to do with consistency or quality
Just like the delays, some of the reviews are just what you say. Ridiculous game. I want to add that I wrote this before and people keep telling me, "Oh no it doesn't say that." Yes, Adobe does and they have before.  And for some other creative theories, how's that caption things working for people who claim, that leaving out specifics and places, makes things go faster. Now we have, smaller batches are faster. Note: I only upload small batches, always have, and I have had images fall into a black hole of review. When that theory is debunked there will be another new theory, of how to beat the flaws in the system. But you are right. "This cat and mouse game is becoming quite ridiculous and has nothing to do with consistency or quality"
16
« on: April 09, 2025, 12:37 »
One part of the answer, free sites. But also, some places that had subscriptions for years and years, downloaded their full quota, and have a stockpile of images, so large, that they don't need to buy anything, except maybe new ideas and news. I was asking myself the same question.
It's easy to put the blame on the agencies, but is that really the case? If Pond5 or Shutterstock dropped the ball and lost customers, where did the buyers go? If that were the case, other agencies would have picked up the slack.
All of them are down and Adobe is just holding on.
17
« on: April 08, 2025, 15:45 »
Either way its a complete random crapshoot now.
That's the real answer. Whether it's random, AI, based on similar to others or something else, which we are not informed of the facts or the truth, "its a complete random crapshoot" where analysis, reason or logic, don't help anything.
18
« on: April 07, 2025, 10:20 »
much worse is a bug that rejects groups images saying they need adjusting
but when submitted one by one just get a msg that incorrect keywords ignored but without showing the offenders & images are always accepted
in the last non-buggy version, a msg would appear BEFORE submitting and SHOW the flagged keywords, so one fix allowed the entire group to be submitted successful
I've seen this one too. It is related to plurals. Basically if you have "ruin" and "ruins" in keywords, it will do that without saying what is wrong. Just remove plural (i.e. "ruins") and all is ok.
Problem is that they constantly keep modifying script behind this; by now it is likely a monster and bugs easily creep in.
And people can add, "ING" endings that cause the same problem. Sometimes it will say, they have been removed, sometimes I have to edit, one by one, and some the word was removed, but the submit still failed. I hope they fix that soon.
19
« on: April 07, 2025, 10:12 »
t. For all I know, it could be, too many images like that, and the similar is like the "Quality Issues" which is just a generic rejection.
If that's the case, then the rejection reason should reflect this. For me the rejection reason literally says "we found that your image resembles other images you have already uploaded."
You are correct, but we have been told, that similar may mean, similar to other images, already accepted. Like some other issues and questions, a clear and straight answer would be nice. We don't get that.
20
« on: April 06, 2025, 13:59 »
The "similar" thing they've brought in appears massively flawed. A lot of people are finding images flagged with no similar ones in the collection and no real theme or hint.
Suspicion is they've introduced some flawed AI thats making these random decisions based on incorrect data or training.
Good answer. I have only had minimal rejections for similar, but I know others that have had more. One of my rejections was nothing like anything I ever did or uploaded. Adobe people have said, it's not just our images, it can be for being similar to other images, for the same subject. For all I know, it could be, too many images like that, and the similar is like the "Quality Issues" which is just a generic rejection.
21
« on: April 06, 2025, 13:51 »
now 6800
I seem to move up in increments of 20, like every week or 10 days
For me, it's exactly the opposite. I drop 10 positions every three to four weeks.
So you can see that your diligence is rewarded and my laziness is punished.
Well then you need to blame Cobalt for your drop in rank!  Yes, I agree with you. I get paid something, based on my effort. I thought in the past, it was fair to get what I deserved, as it is Microstock. The problem is, I now have thousands more images and get paid much less. That part irks me. I don't care where Adobe slots me, in the position. It's unreliable and we don't know what it means of how it's calculated. One person says it the last week, but it changes on Sunday night, back to zero. Where's the reasoning and logic in that? Can't be. People with the identical rank, have different sales numbers. People with identical sales numbers, have different rank. In other words, mostly, it's just a mysterious number, with no basis in fact. If the weekly is unreliable, I can't assume that the Lifetime, is any better. If someone from Adobe would come out and say, here's what it is and how it's calculated, that would make the number more entertaining, but it doesn't change anything else. The only thing that matters is, how much did Adobe deposit into my Paypal account, last year.  Not RPI, RPD, Views, Rank, Position, likes, or anything else. 
22
« on: April 05, 2025, 10:24 »
now 6800
I seem to move up in increments of 20, like every week or 10 days
Good to see that you are passing people. I re-joined about ten years ago. Seems like it wasn't that long back. But by 2015, the market and activity was already slowing and dropping. My theory is, I'm just starting to pass people who quit ten years ago, but had sales on FT for the good times. If they closed their account, that means, they won't be improving, maybe they aren't counted? But for what's probably many more, people just stopped adding new, stopped participating and they have whatever residual income from the early years. I'll look at the end of the year and see if I crept up any. I suppose, the limited number of new people, who work harder could be passing me, but that's the AI boom, which will eventually level off. More people producing means less individual gains.
23
« on: April 05, 2025, 10:16 »
Track and deduct your work miles. Do it auto-magically with an app. I do lot's of road trips for photography and this is my biggest business expense by far. This year it's 67 cents a mile.
I use paper log pages, which I keep detailed information, start miles, distances, days, gas and lodging. I wonder if I'm missing anything else, for photo trips? What App? Thanks for the idea. I already depreciate photo equipment. have a separate "business" phone, I don't take home office space, that's a buffer, in case I get audited again, I have some insurance. I don't claim the computers, laptops, or printers. More leeway for an audit. The internet is a business expense, I don't know how to detail what's personal or business exclusive.
24
« on: April 05, 2025, 10:01 »
Coming back to cameras ... I bought a new camera and lens just last week. Nothing to do with tariffs and very much a planned purchase. But, if I got in before prices rise, then that's a nice bonus.
I hope the tariffs raise the value of my used gear. I'm downsizing and selling the 300mm Canon f/2.8  Don't miss the facts or let them get in the way of distorted news and views. Sad that some people have so much hate for Trump, that anything he does is terrible, before it happens. Meanwhile they have been drinking the Left Cool-Aid for years and can't get past the lies and propaganda of that side. Let me make my position clear, one more time, they are all a bunch of crooks, don't become a sheep and follow party politics, because you are loyal to one side or the other. Learn to think for yourself and recognize that both sides have good and bad policies and agendas. Since I'm against the socialist states of America, of course I'm more right leaning. Tax and spend, cradle to grave control, government that invades every aspect of our being with nibbling away at freedom and our rights. Do we really need to take out the hydro-electric dams? Should we be forced to drive electric cars. Seems a contradiction. Why do liberals want to ban natural gas stoves, ICE lawnmowers, and charcoal barbecues. To name just a few of the stupid lefty regulations, that have already been started in California. Yes, I'm for women's choice and the right to control ones own body. But men aren't women, just because they have internal mental issues and conflicts. Who would fight for Men in women's sports, if they have any sense of fairness and protection for real born women's rights? But the left hangs their hat on that illogical defense. The alphabet people have every right to be what they want to be and live as they wish, in freedom. But they have no right to demand that I believe in, accept or support their fantasy. I have freedom of choice too.
25
« on: April 03, 2025, 12:09 »
Current lifetime is 6820
Come back and of the year, I'll bet you're moving up.
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