Quote

Re-reading this... "50k" AI images... Even though I know what I'm doing, that... is a fair amount, to do accurately. (Did you do 'ai footage' as well, or was it just the images?)

What kind of quality control did you do, or did you just churn out as much as you could as fast as possible? Assuming you (probably like many with that volume) didn't have good quality control - so you either have an excessive number of IP issues (i.e. "statue of liberty"), or - significant keywording issues (i.e. you have say a picture of an orange with totally unrelated keywords like "race car, building", etc, etc...

That, I suspect is probably what triggered it...

In response to your question � yes, in addition to approximately 50,000 AI-generated images, my portfolio also included around 1,500 AI-generated videos. It was a significant and meticulous effort � both in terms of generation and proper attribution. Of course, I understand that not everything can be perfect, but based on my own assessment, about 95% of all uploaded AI assets were correctly and conscientiously prepared.

As for similars � yes, they may have occurred. When working with such a high volume of content, it�s challenging to create something entirely unique every single time. Still, I did my best to maintain variety. After all, that�s what the moderation team is for � to filter out excess and approve only what meets the standards. Adobe and contributors like myself are in this together � we both care about quality and consistent revenue. I fully understand that moderation takes resources, but it should be a two-way process. And if there are any issues, we contributors are ready to adjust, improve, and grow.

Regarding IP concerns � given the scale of my portfolio, the risk should be minimal. If there were any violations, they were likely rare and unintentional. I always did my best to avoid problematic or risky content.

Additionally, I don�t understand why � if the issue is suspected to be with AI content � the entire account was deactivated. Why not just temporarily disable the AI-generated assets pending review, instead of removing access to an entire portfolio of 50,000+ video footages that were created with years of effort and dedication? That kind of action feels extremely disproportionate, especially for someone who has been contributing for over 10 years.

What concerns me the most, however, is the complete lack of communication. It feels like a sign of disrespect toward the contributors � the very people who generate the content that powers this platform. We�re in the same boat. When problems arise, the logical path is to discuss them, find solutions, and improve the system � not to simply deactivate accounts without explanation or ignore official support requests submitted through the proper channels (which were even assigned case numbers). Waiting over three months for a response is simply not acceptable.

Is there anyone from the Adobe team actually reading this forum?

Well, in this case... I suspect that might be it then. 5% is just waaay too high. While yes, I totally agree deactivating the entire port is very harsh (and I think there should be better communication) - from their side, they don't know if 5%, 15% 25%, etc of your assets are misleading/inaccurate/wrong/etc, etc... And if they notice a certain pattern if you skipping certain quality control aspects, I can understand it. Better to deactivate things now and figure things out later - than spend months with a contributor "getting around" to trying to fix their portfolio, etc.

Even though I would love to outsource certain aspects of the "AI" generation process (because it is VERY timeconsuming, boring, and just in general not a 'fun' aspect of the image/video creation process), or - skip certain aspects of it, when preparing "ai" assets, I

a) I personally review EVERY single "generated" title, "generated" keywords, etc when/if using "ai" generated meta data, in detail
b) I personally review EVERY single asset, whether an image or video (including watching the ENTIRE generated videos, no matter how many I have)

BECAUSE I personally do that - for EVERY single asset, what I have found is...

a) Even midjourney (for images), or various video generation services - they do generate nude images/videos.
b) They will generate "IP" protected assets (i.e., statue of liberty, some famous painting, an identical/recognizable actor/actress/etc/etc).
c) The keyword generation tools generate gibberish, significant irrevelant or inaccurate data, or "keyword stuff"
d) The "keyword generation" tools will "skip" things/assign them incorrectly. (I.e., say you have a picture of a basketball, then a car. It will "mix up" results and assign the "car" keywords to the basketball, and the "basketball" keywords to the "car").
e) They "do" include "signatures" in the images/videos. (Because the "ai" is based off of MASSIVE theft, when they "train" the "ai" - they basiclaly steal, and then resell stolen assets).

So - if you were churning out as much as you could - without personally reviewing IN DETAIL, EVERY single asset... you most likely inadvertently have stuff like "Disney's Snow white & the Seven Dwarves" types of assets (both using trademarked terms in the title, the keywords, etc - as well as having actual generated assets like that), or any of the issues I mentioned above.

You know what you did wrong. You took shortcuts, you were hoping to get away with... But - you got caught, and now you are upset.

While I don't personally agree with deactivating an "entire" port for contributors that DO review EVERY single asset to make sure it follows 'their rules' in 'their playground', and I do believe there should be better communication... For contributors that take shortcuts and have a blatant/obvious and excessive pattern of various infringements, I can totally understand it. Obviously you've exceeded some internal threshold of what they deem to be "taking shortcuts" - and that is what most likely tripped it.

BECAUSE you "don't" know if it is "95%", "85%", "75%", etc - that is the issue right there. Obviously you didn't personally review every asset, and you took shortcuts to speed things up. (And if you are only guessing that "95%" was good, then 5% of 50,000 - means that you have 2500 image assets that are 'risque', inaccurate, IP violations, etc - and 5% of 1500 means that 75 videos that are risque, inaccurate, IP violations, etc.

Those are pretty high 'violation' numbers.

While yes, the moderation team is there to make sure assets meet certain standards (in itself a different topic, because sometimes I think certain members only feel like approving a certain %, so randomly approve/don't approve certain assets)... it's not really their job to make sure you didn't simply spam the crap out of things and skip certain QC elements. (Especially when you are not the only one playing the spam-all-you can game, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of east indian and arabic spammers trying to spam the crap out of things - so they don't really have time to figure out in detail 'who' is 'following their rules', and who isn't - so it's just much easier to deactivate ports that have consistent, blatant infringements. And again, "5%" of 50,000 is a VERY high number.

While of course extremely upsetting (I totally understand that) - while you are waiting - I would start going through your assets and looking for things like that, maybe start fixing things. Chances are you'll find its a pretty high number.

Thank you all for your replies and insights.

@stoker2014 - Thank you for providing the link to the official Adobe representative profile. I checked it out: unfortunately, they don't seem to accept direct messages, and all the links in their profile lead back to the same 'Contact Us' form on the official website, which, in my experience, has not yielded any results. Nevertheless, I appreciate you pointing them out.

@Rage - I'm truly sorry to hear you're in the same situation. It's incredibly frustrating.

Quote from: SuperPhoto on June 19, 2025, 20:11

What do you think the reason might be why you had account issues? I suppose you probably have a feeling/idea of what happened?

@SuperPhoto - To answer your question about the possible reason: the deactivation notice mentioned a violation of Generative AI guidelines. Shortly before that, I had simultaneously uploaded a large batch of AI images for review that had accumulated over several months of work. It's possible the system flagged this as spam, which led to the deactivation. I am more than willing to address and rectify any issues, but it's impossible without any feedback. An interesting fact is that even after the deactivation, I continued to receive emails for about a month with notifications of accepted or rejected work, which adds to the confusion.

Another question I would like to ask for @Adobe Stock Contributor Relations: By assigning case numbers to my inquiries, Adobe officially acknowledges receiving them. In most business practices and legal frameworks, a company has a duty to respond to official user inquiries, especially regarding serious matters like account deactivation. A complete silence for over three months seems to fall short of this obligation. This feels less like a delay and more like a deliberate decision to ignore, which I believe is not a normal practice, especially towards a 10-year partner.

I've seen in this forum thread that people previously had success reaching out to Mat Hayward, but he seems to be inactive now. I also emailed him, but there was no response. Are there any other contacts or staff members one can reach out to for help? Or is the only option really to just sit and wait for months?

Any advice or shared experience would be very valuable.

Re-reading this... "50k" AI images... Even though I know what I'm doing, that... is a fair amount, to do accurately. (Did you do 'ai footage' as well, or was it just the images?)

What kind of quality control did you do, or did you just churn out as much as you could as fast as possible? Assuming you (probably like many with that volume) didn't have good quality control - so you either have an excessive number of IP issues (i.e. "statue of liberty"), or - significant keywording issues (i.e. you have say a picture of an orange with totally unrelated keywords like "race car, building", etc, etc...

That, I suspect is probably what triggered it...

What do you think the reason might be why you had account issues? I suppose you probably have a feeling/idea of what happened?

Quote from: cobalt on June 16, 2025, 06:35

I am already using an old photoshop elements version to process camera images for istock and others.

 

You can also disconnect from the internet and put on a tinfoil hat!

Might be wise for most people.

It will be interesting, and curious why the theatrics, since basically both midjourney & disney, etc are funded/owned by the same main company/"investors" (i.e., the likes of blackrock/vanguard/state street/etc).

ALL "ai" (including chatGPT) is based off of massive massive theft. They are theft based services.

Seems like it more designed to make it harder for the 'little guy' to compete in the "ai" world, and fearful of potentially 'infringing' on someone's rights.
The big companies really don't care - because they are part of the same club.

the way SS pays changed about 6 months ago if I remember correctly,however it was communicated via email.

in short,now once you reach the minimum monthly payment of $25 the balance is reset on the 3rd of the month,no longer on the 1st.

"your earnings calculated" email now arrives a few hours before receiving the payment,before it arrived a few days before,at least 24/48 hours before,now instead the email arrives a couple of hours before more or less.

the times have been a bit longer,in any case the payment always arrives before the 15th of the month.

then for me nothing has changed,total monthly earnings always appears at the top right near the "upload" button.

Thing is, I never received an e-mail, nor a payment.

Yet, the amount has been deducted... Have you already gotten a payment?

How much do you get from 1 video download and from 1 image download ? Thousands of downloads that you report seem very positive.

Based on my numbers (& estimating a little bit, because I'd have to do some extra math assuming their calculations are right, and I don't feel like doing that right now) - I'd guess between $0.15 and $0.25

Finally a better month following three consecutive poor months with $1300 on the microstocks and bit over $500 on YouTube for $1800 USD total for May 2025.

You made $500 on youtube, in adsense in a month? How many clips? That would be like... 71k views only?

Quote from: SuperPhoto on May 31, 2025, 08:53

A lot of the so-called "wildfires" are actually paid arsonists (some govt, others hired via things like craigslist) trying to promote the 'climate change' narrative, among other things. Also to try and "move" certain populations into the city (because people are being 'coralled' like cattle into cities - easier to "manage").

This is such an immense stupidity;  it is quite hard to believe someone would have such a low IQ to actually believe this.  Please go away

You know, it's getting irritating with your inane name calling zeljkok. I'm sorry to hear that your life is that depressing and sad that name calling is the only way you can have a discussion, because your mind is that far gone that nothing else is in there.

Sadly, people like you - make it possible for evil people to do evil. You fit the profile of someone who suffocated themselves daily for two years - didn't see the irony that... if you let someone shove a six inch stick up your nose - to "see if you were sick" - then yes, you were definitely sick - and didn't need a 'test' to tell you that. You didn't see the irony - of sticking a needle in your arm with a poisonous substance, was actually injecting poison into you, and not 'curing' you of anything, but actually causing the "disease" that you believed you were trying to avoid.

But, I'm sad for you - obviously you weren't strong enough to withstand being abused. A lot of people weren't - to my surprise. I hope you heal. Good luck.

Quote from: SuperPhoto on May 29, 2025, 07:21

Quote from: MotionDesign on May 29, 2025, 01:00

Quote from: SuperPhoto on May 28, 2025, 18:05

I'm kind of sad right now. My weekly earnings should be higher (actually much higher than yours right now) - but... sadly the last few months have been very low. Quite concerning, don't know why. But good job. Now I need to figure out how to get my earnings not only back where they should be, but improving significantly.

Thanks, since I started to create and upload almost only videos, my earnings have increased. For the images I take a couple of frames of my videos and upload them as is.

Yes, it's odd. I do videos as well in addition to images but my sales have gone down, which makes no sense. How many videos to you have?

I have about 2100 videos (motion graphics) and 6000 images.

My sales are gone down from 15/20 videos every month to almost 0 on Pond5, from may 2024, I don't know why, seems that my portfolio is hidden somewhere...

Yes, my Pond5 sales about 2 years ago dropped by about 90%. Then with the new "good news" from them about stealing another 25%, dropped (in addition to their "good news") about another 50%.

For adobe, its concerning - this last week has been about 1/5th of what my sales normally would be. Quite concerning.

Decent mid-week
I don�t care about position, my focus is on earnings, maybe I�m wrong, but it works for me

I'm kind of sad right now. My weekly earnings should be higher (actually much higher than yours right now) - but... sadly the last few months have been very low. Quite concerning, don't know why. But good job. Now I need to figure out how to get my earnings not only back where they should be, but improving significantly.

I have noticed that many accounts on shutterstock with stolen content from apps like Kinemaster....
And based on the portfolio names and account creation date, and same content in all account...Most of these accounts created by one person/same family members...

The worst part is that Shutterstock promoting these portfolios by keeping their content in first pages when you search "Green Screen".

Here is the list of portfolios...

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Laju+King/video
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Muhammad-Yousaf/video

...

It's also possible that it actually is 'different' guys - because sometimes one guy will brag about how much $$$ he is getting, and then 'share' a complete set of links and others do the same. (Sometimes on youtube, sometimes on facebook, sometimes other areas).

You could be right that it is just one guy - but it could also possibly be multiple individuals spamming stolen accounts.

And for cobalt/F8/zeljok that like to get morally outraged - look @ the names of the accounts. What nationality does it look like? Hmm. Thinking cap time.

As for WHY shutterstock doesn't do anything... My guess is because they don't care - and they get more $$$.
They only care if it affects their $$$.