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Messages - Uncle Pete

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1


The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

That's really good question.   Went and checked: Nov '23 was my 3rd best month last year on iStock, but nothing out of proportion.

Accounting certainly appears shady, but I don't think it's deliberate - whole system is set up in such a bad way it is easy for all kinds of mistakes to creep in.  Biggest thorn to me is 15% royalty which is downright disrespectful.

Agreed

Pretty funny or odd, or I ask, how do people reason out the glaring contradiction, when SS pays us more and a higher percentage, with a higher minimum, but they can't stop shouting how bad SS is or what crooks they are? "I'd never upload anything to SS, paying 10 cents is an insult."

I won't dwell on Connect which is, fractions of cents, because no one really knows what or how those images are used. Maybe for mock-ups, or maybe not. Maybe on a website, or chat, or somewhere in Asia for some mystery use, and maybe not. We don't get anything detailed or specific. Oh but we do get hundredths of a cent royalty.

BUT... for iStock when we do get the details. How do we get downloads like this? 4 cents? 3 cents?

Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/5/2024
Uploaded 5/30/2013
Gross royalty $0.04762
License Fee $0.31745
Rate 15%

File Type Editorial Image
Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/6/2024
Uploaded 10/6/2011
Gross royalty $0.03150
License Fee $0.21000
Rate 15%

Please tell me how SS is nothing but despicable crooks, and then someone explain, how iStock isn't worse?  ;D Oh IS is much better, they pay fractions of cents, and then 3 cents or 4 cents. Really? That's better than the terrible, insulting, demoralizing... 10  :o

2
Adobe Stock / Re: Adobe Stock Search Webinar
« on: March 24, 2024, 11:39 »
Yes it's an old thread but just curious if the overall guidelines contained in here are still applicable or have there been any backend changes to AS/Search/Keywording in the meantime that we need to be aware of?

Good question, I hope Mat sees that and has any information on possible changes.

3
I can't answer the first part of your question, but the Schedule C is where you will be able to declare all your expenses and deductions, like cameras, lenses, computer equipment, etc. I can't imagine you will be better off declaring all of the income with none of the deductions.

That's the way my accountant does it, Schedule C. But, make a note, cameras, lenses, computers, Etc. "equipment" is depreciated not deducted. Expenses, fuel, travel, lodging, supplies, are deductions.

4
Shutterstock.com / Re: Anybody getting reviews?
« on: March 22, 2024, 11:05 »
Maybe gone fishing?

Or they are playing with toys in the attic.

The bots and AI review system is demanding a raise, the computers went on a slowdown strike. 

5

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements.

Oh I feel so much better, that maybe, in the future, I might get a fractional, 1/100th of a cent, Connect credit for this error.  ::)

6
Hello all,
I have a simple question regarding uploading AI images to Adobe Stock:
Is it better to upload them as 'illustrations' or as 'photos'?..
Looking forward to your anwers.
Kind regards
devy
Since it seems to be you ignore what photography is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography



I'm surprised that anyone would be confused about what to call AI. AI or anything else, computer generated, can never be a "Photograph". Only a Photograph is a photograph which is recording of light. Everything else is an illustration. (if those are the only two choices)

7
This is all Uncle Pete fault for starting thread too early  ;D

I gave that a plus!  :)

Kelvin said on the forums that there is no need to open a ticket, they are already looking into it.

Well we can hope?

I pretty well came up with two personal answers, that could cover this. 1) Someone bought a whopping big package and downloaded everything they could, until Getty figured out the payment was a fraud? or 2) Accounting Error.

It just seems odd that so many people, even someone like myself who barely does $10 a month on IS, would have so many refunds. Or if it is #1, someone just downloaded most of everything from IS.

Just a note, the two I sold, that are refunded, were the same image, two times.  :o

8
I see what you mean by the iStock forum going berserk.

All the negative sales seem to be listed as:-

Customer: NA (WASHINGTON)
Type: Premium Access Time Limited
Date: 12th November 2023

Mine too, I went back and they are listed in the November ESP download. I checked the PDF versions.

"WASHINGTON 100.00% Getty 12.35 15.00% 1.85"

Where do you find these negative sales listed?


If you aren't useing Deep Meta, look on ESP and download the PDF version, the refunds will be in red near the bottom, listed as GETTY

9
Coming Monday, the 18th. But I thought I'd just jump ahead and start the thread.  ;D

How did you know they were going to be late this month?

Posted as a joke

Fully expect Istock to beat shutterstock this month considering how low SS sales have dropped off lately. Only happened twice before, January and February of 2024.

I guess I jumped the gun on this. First time ever that I've had "negative sales" on istock and it's a substantial amount. I hope it's a glitch but goddamn, it sucks whatever little enthusiasm I had for this "game".

Wow and the joke is on me, as I have negative sales too. Hopefully this is a mistake and they will issue the real "earnings" revised report.


10
In my opinion, the author of this post is bored in life  ;D

Yes, it was a slow day, I was bored and wanted to start a thread about IS reporting earnings and stop reading theories about how fast Adobe reviews, because of some secret system (which of course always favors someone else) or our rank (which is meaningless). I was also bored with all the talk of AI, whether it's good or bad or will ruin stock forever.

You're right.  ;D

I'm also disappointed that IS had all weekend to run stats and report our lovely Connect Sales: License Fee $0.00276 @ Rate 15%
 Gross royalty $0.00041  👈

I finished all my March Madness brackets, read all the details of Draft Kings, NASCAR and PGA Golf. The weather was cold and windy. Yup, I'm bored.


The statement usually comes in by the 20th. Often it's earlier, but the 20th ist the official date.

I do not know where the info is from, I just remember that that's the date I have read on their website at some point. Thought it might have been their forum, but it looks like iStock followed Shutterstock's lead and took down their forum?

ps Dec was the 18th, Jan was the 18th, Feb was the 16th. Just a note for those with faulty memories, NO it's not usually reported on the 20th. From the official site: "Royalty Statements are published on the 20th of each month. You will see what you have sold and what you have earned and can download that data." And here's the forum that they took down.  ;)  https://contributors.gettyimages.com/forum/

Now please IS, I'll be back soon, show me the money?

11
Shutterstock.com / Re: Yay my photo is used as a book cover
« on: March 18, 2024, 14:30 »
Congratulations on getting $1.88. I once got paid 10 cents for an image that ended up on a classical music CD cover. Furthermore, it was an image that was classified as editorial, because it had IP content. Understandably, I was very unhappy about this and contacted SS complaining that an editorial image had been used for commercial purposes. They politely told me to sling my hook.

The legal decision whether an image is Editorial or can be used as commercial is up to the buyer.

A STANDARD IMAGE LICENSE grants you the right to use Images:

Printed in physical form as part of product packaging and labeling, letterhead and business cards, point of sale advertising, CD and DVD cover art, or in the advertising and copy of tangible media, including magazines, newspapers, and books provided no Image is reproduced more than 500,000 times in the aggregate

https://www.shutterstock.com/license

Alright, stupid question, but nevertheless, here I go.: what is considered as reproduction of an image. Less than 500.000 prints seems plausible. But what about views on webshops like Amazon? Every time someone sees your image (web page gets loaded) it's a reproduction? Every time a webshop adds the book it's a reproduction? More or less the same question for newspapers or magazines. Everytime someone reads the online article it's a "reproduction"?

Views are not printed impressions. But no surprise how the limitations have gone out the window and instead of 50,000 like the early years, it's 500,000 which is nearly impossible to reach in normal commercial use.

I still say, nice sale Lowls at least for bragging rights and someone appreciating your work, and if it was me, I wouldn't buy the book, but I'd try to find it on sale at a bookstore and take a photo of that. I have many book covers, and I don't own any of them, plus I've never seen one on sale anyplace except Amazon. Somewhere I sold a double wide, center image, double truck, for a magazine, and since it's just listed as sold, and where, I wonder who bought that one?

12
Canva / Re: Notice of violation emails
« on: March 18, 2024, 14:22 »
oh wow, Canva just send me another "violation" mail.  They deleted a photo of a young woman in 1920s flapper dress, smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder.  Fully dressed.  Model released and property released.
??????

Well at least they are impartial and hate everything equally.  ::) Warning, this image contains someone smoking a cigarette. Oops, never mind, we'll just remove it. Flappers are somehow also offensive for being free spirits and drinking?

13
From iStock? About $0, but I don't have an account there, so that could be it ;)

Ah yes and I have friends who say the same about Shutterstock.  8)  👍  We're all our own boss and free to do as we think.

No statement for me yet.

Yes, I was surprised as it's Monday the 18th and about the right time for processing.

14
iStockPhoto.com / February 2024 statements - how did you do?
« on: March 17, 2024, 12:43 »
Coming Monday, the 18th. But I thought I'd just jump ahead and start the thread.  ;D

15
Shutterstock.com / Re: Yay my photo is used as a book cover
« on: March 17, 2024, 12:40 »
A STANDARD IMAGE LICENSE grants you the right to use Images:

Printed in physical form as part of product packaging and labeling, letterhead and business cards, point of sale advertising, CD and DVD cover art, or in the advertising and copy of tangible media, including magazines, newspapers, and books provided no Image is reproduced more than 500,000 times in the aggregate

https://www.shutterstock.com/license

Brutal and I wondered why the heck no one is buying extended licenses for like 80 bucks anymore like in 2012 -2014.
10 cent for half a million prints.

My ELs in the last year have been for $10 to $16. Nothing like they used to be and not as many. 2017 or 2018 they went to a percentage, I saw the last Standard $28 EL, which is what they were before that. But the $28 was the EL license, I never saw anything more. OD or Single I saw some higher numbers. Now those have dropped to about the same as subs.

16
Shutterstock.com / Re: Yay my photo is used as a book cover
« on: March 15, 2024, 13:21 »
Congratulations on the book cover. If it was really SS for $1.88 you have my sincere sympathy. Since it's a cover, and some places list credits for photos or the cover, there shouldn't be any doubt, if you can find those credits.

17

But I have completely written off iStock for myself. I only reach the payout limit here every 1-2 years.
It's a shame because of all the upload work, but it doesn't really upset me. It works better for others, so it's down to my port.


That's an amusing point. With the same images for myself, on IS and DT, I cash out once a year, pretty regularly on IS. I'm just making it to $75 on DT, I went back to them, in March of 2018. Five Years, $75!  :-X  💩 And DT takes the editorial!

Different images, different results, there's something.

18
Quote
Please note that we cannot lower the payment threshold as we have the largest number of contributors in stock photography, hence such adjustment would increase the logistics and slow down payments, making the process slower and more expensive for all contributors.

What a lame excuse from DT. A $100 treshold is insanely high for a low-tier agency and they should suck up the cost. If they can't afford that or make it work logistically, I wonder how they're managing their business.

If they lowered the threshold to $50 they would have about 10,000 requests for the money and then those people would close their accounts. This has nothing to do with processing speed, after that, because no matter what the threshold, it would even out. But the overwhelming number of people between $50 and $100 would certainly bring a heavy number of requests.

The people who run DT are smart and they know that too many contributors would cash out and leave. This is just a way to slow that process and hang on to as many photos as possible.

Some people do cash out a few times a year, my compliments to them for having the right images for DT, to make it work.

19

Shutterstock is sinking,Istock cannot be trusted,I know you are thinking of reactivating your port in Istock,but I warn you that you cannot trust Istock,they deleted 4000 of my contents in one click,years of work,nights without sleeping,and then suddenly from one day to another they sent me an email,in which they had already made their decision regarding an issue,which in reality did not exist,and they didn't even ask me if I had anything to say about it and I lost years of work,and a good part of my earnings from one day to another.


What was the issue that didn't really exist?

Mine wasn't quite as bad and I still have the account. You don't say if they closed your account or removed images?

My loss was 3,657 images that were Editorial when Getty took over and decided the iStock images were competition for the Getty photographers. So off with our heads.  :-\ Some of those images, still show on DM in my top 25 for income and it has been years now. Similar for audio, which I had a few that did some business, until Getty decided to end that and hire a private supplier.

I'll answer the OP question, even if that's a long gone issue and it seems reviews are much better now. TWO.  8)

20
I stopped uploading about a year ago because their "ai" sucked at "analyzing" photos, and would spend hours uploading only to have it automatically reject a bunch of stuff. Then, of course - there was also the dishonest tactic (among others) of selling people's data first, THEN saying "oh now you can opt out!". They also didn't honor if you said no, you didn't want the money - you wanted your data (their response was 'oops SORREeee!') so obviously totally 100% dishonest tactic.

Outside of the stopped uploading, you're batting 1000 on the situation.

But the question was what do I do, now that SS earnings in a month or two are about the same as I used to make in a week.

1. I already did the work, I have new images now and then. Keeping them on my computer only hurts me, SS couldn't care less. I'd only hurt myself by not uploading or by closing my account.

21
Dreamstime.com / Re: $100 payout minimum sucks!!!
« on: March 10, 2024, 13:10 »
Interesting to read that many are currently similarly stuck at 80 to 90 USD.

Dreamstime states as of March 2024 there are more than 1.2 million contributing photographers.

Assuming there are probably 200 thousand contributors in the same situation like us, this would equal almost 20 million USD in unpaid revenues.

With the current high interest rates on the market this is a good sum to invest.
Sounds like a kind of business model.

Only if it is legal to invest the money. If it's illegal or they make bad investments, we're even more screwed. Investments aren't always profitable. I don't agree that it's a good business model and I don't think it's legal either.

22

You are absolutely right, I didn't even take seosonal search patterns into account.

These will certainly also influence the image rankings.

I think it's a shame that Adobe doesn't show the daily top 100 or at least top 20 search pattern like google does it in the search bar.
Or top searches of the week, month, etc.
Would be very useful and you would save a lot of time instead of trying out which content is in demand or only guessing if you have the right keywords.

Seasonal patterns created by the agency favoring seasonal topics, not just us or buyers searching.

Alamy measures tells you the data you want about customer searches. I don't know why that wouldn't be helpful for all agencies?  https://www.alamy.com/Customersearch/Customersearchhistory.aspx

That is, if you believe it's actually helpful. My opinion is, most searched words, doesn't equal most sold image subjects. Some of the most searched words from people who study what's most common, are irrelevant and absurd. Most searched words just doesn't equal most sold photo subjects.

Most sold images, doesn't always mean the same will be most sold in the near future. Maybe yes, but not always. Trends are yes, images, by specific subjects, not so much.

Create your best, look for things that aren't common or over produced, if you do shoot something that's "popular" try to make yours better than anything else available or at least worthy of the best of the best. Most searched words isn't the answer to anything useful.

The data from Alamy while interesting, can't really be applied to other agencies because it seems to be primarily editorial (unless, of course, you do editorial). (I.e., looking @ most of the search terms there - it's all specific names of people, artists, sports people, etc).

True but also if you look for most searched words on SS, they aren't most sold keywords. Alamy is good for Sold Keywords, and from my perspective that means, for most of them, there's no future or current need, in something that's already been downloaded.

With all the other tricks and angles, it's always going to come down to best images that a particular customer needs.

https://xpiksapp.com/blog/top-100-queries-shutterstock/

Let me quote and take out the ones that he thinks aren't so good.

There are not 1 or 2, but whooping 12 great content opportunities only within these first hundred most popular queries! Those are queries that are used by customers most of the times and still have relatively low competition. Out of these 12, there are few outstanding ones:

large question mark, 2.2K existing results
bmi chart, 528 existing results having 11K traffic
whatsapp logo, 4K existing results
pink dino, 3.4K existing results with 9K traffic
twitter logo, 6.5K existing results and 5.9K traffic
radha krishna, 4.6K existing results
female pooping, 1.7K existing results
curly braces, 3.4K existing results


Keep in mind that's based on scraped data. Which one of those do you want to create and upload, because it's a popular search term.  ;D Which one is a "Great Opportunity"?

I can make more shooting my breakfast than those.

23
Dreamstime.com / Re: $100 payout minimum is a flat-out theft.
« on: March 09, 2024, 12:25 »

You signed up with the site when these payment terms were clearly stated - no changes, no subterfuge. Making totally false statements about the agency doesn't help anyone.


Thank you Jo Ann, that's exactly the point.

If one is  struggling to reach the payout limit, it might be the wrong agency for the portfolio.

Both good points, and when I reach $100 in 2027 I'm cashing out.  :) 

DT has always been upfront and fair to us.

I suspect they have so many people at between $50 and $100 that it would be a great burden to change and have all those people, decide to cash out and leave, at the same time. That's all just how Microstock has changed, but DT holds their original contract TOS. Their choice.

As far as past experience, accounting and the laws, money held for commissions, cannot be invested or used, and is a liability, not an asset. The recent changes to the public corporations like Adobe and SS, are better for their bottom line on the annual and quarterly reports. DT reports to no one. But either way, holding our money is not something they would want to do, for financial gains. In the US and DT says they are in the US, it's illegal to use escrow money for any other purpose, you can only hold it for the person that owns the money. So the repeated accusations that somewhere isn't paying us, because they invest or get interest, is flawed.

What we consider fair or not fair, in 2024, I signed up in 2009 and that's what the terms were. DT has changed nothing.

24

You are absolutely right, I didn't even take seosonal search patterns into account.

These will certainly also influence the image rankings.

I think it's a shame that Adobe doesn't show the daily top 100 or at least top 20 search pattern like google does it in the search bar.
Or top searches of the week, month, etc.
Would be very useful and you would save a lot of time instead of trying out which content is in demand or only guessing if you have the right keywords.

Seasonal patterns created by the agency favoring seasonal topics, not just us or buyers searching.

Alamy measures tells you the data you want about customer searches. I don't know why that wouldn't be helpful for all agencies?  https://www.alamy.com/Customersearch/Customersearchhistory.aspx

That is, if you believe it's actually helpful. My opinion is, most searched words, doesn't equal most sold image subjects. Some of the most searched words from people who study what's most common, are irrelevant and absurd. Most searched words just doesn't equal most sold photo subjects.

Most sold images, doesn't always mean the same will be most sold in the near future. Maybe yes, but not always. Trends are yes, images, by specific subjects, not so much.

Create your best, look for things that aren't common or over produced, if you do shoot something that's "popular" try to make yours better than anything else available or at least worthy of the best of the best. Most searched words isn't the answer to anything useful.

25
Adobe Stock clearly state they give a boost in sales to its active contributors, meaning that if you upload 10 images a day for 20 days, you will get a boost over a contributor who uploads 200 images in one go and then stops uploading for the next 19 days.

Really, they say that? Where? What makes active? One a week, ten a week, ten a month...

Basically every chance they have when interacting with us, contributors, on forums or Discords. As to the second question, I always thought it's not about the numbers, but the action itself - as long as you keep submitting, you are considered an "active" contributor, no matter how many files. But since we don't know how their algorithms work, your guess is as good as mine.

So my one upload a week, makes me active and I get ranked better than someone sitting on their easy chair on a beach, sipping a Pina Colada and eating Bon Bons? Well dang me, I'm doing something right for a change.

My 200 isolated tomato photos are each unique and original and with great sales potential.

Oh not my game plan, I upload one a week, so I'm "active".   ;)

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