It was clear from the charts of dropping portfolio numbers that video contributors were not joining the boycott, because at first their income seemed unaffected. Now I guess Shutterstock has introduced new video pricing, and videographers have the opportunity to feel what everyone else is feeling.

Perhaps now everyone will understand why we all need to stand together. Because you think you�re the exception, but you�re not. And when you decide to stay because you�re doing OK, you�re undermining all the sacrifices others are making not only on their own behalves but on your behalf as well.

While the video community response has been more tepid, hopefully the exodus from Shutterstock by video contributors will gain some momentum now. But there definitely was a measurable response already. From my loose monitoring of the numbers, since June 8th Shutterstock's video collection has decreased by about 120,000. Not a lot to celebrate when compared to their totals (about a -0.6% loss), but they would have normally seen an increase over that time, which is difficult to calculate accurately. It's the right direction anyways.

And there is at least a logical option for video creators to consider. Pond5's total videos have gone up by nearly 300,000 in that same time. Over 70,000 increase in the exclusive collection. Pond5: 60% royalty to the artist while still maintaining exposure to Adobe through the partner program? Sign me up. There are no other viable stock video companies out there anyways, so to me it was an incredibly easy decision.

From my view, what to do about photos is the harder part. Shutterstock accounts for the majority of sales and revenue, for a lot of people. We're already on Adobe, and the sales haven't really gone up despite the best efforts of those disabling/deleting/boycotting SS. So kicking and screaming and fighting for the buyers, stockholders, employees, media, management's attention to Shutterstock's heartless, greedy moves with undeniably tasteless timing is all we can do. Cheers to the cause.

Quote from: Atomazul on June 03, 2020, 17:04

Very frequent selling image on several agencies, with about 1000 downloads on Shutterstock alone. Top line in relevant search results for "patriotic" and "patriotism" among 800,000 results. Not any more. Not on Shutterstock.

Are you on twitter? I see an account for @Atomazul - is that you. You should tweet about that (and where it can be found now)

Good idea. Not much of twitterer, as that abandoned profile implies. Waiting for a response from them about getting it back. Might be effective to post a barrage of high quality, eye-catching images with something like #notonshutterstock or #shutterstockdoesnthavethis tags. Constantly try to remind potential customers of what they're missing if they're with or considering Shutterstock, while promoting any companies that offer it's contributors fairer deals.

Meanwhile, I'm spending time that should be used to create, on deleting and moving content around and trying to figure out a strategy moving forward. I've been inspired by those with much higher quality and/or quantity than myself disabling their portfolios and bringing attention to all this. Thank you for that. And while it doesn't look like Shutterstock is interested in walking anything back, I'd like to think that they and their competitors will at least see all this backlash as an inconvenience they'd rather avoid and put more thought and consideration into future decisions. As glaringly naive as that sounds.

For what it's worth, for the greater good and out of self respect, I'm beginning to remove my content from Shutterstock, starting with my best seller. This image has been the #1 photo result for "Martin Luther King" for a long time. Not any more, not on Shutterstock anyways. There's some obvious irony in the subject matter, although there's no intent on my part to equate the current debacle at Shutterstock to the BLM protests and efforts.

I just got the "reminder" email about tomorrow's town hall.  (I can't watch live, it's in the middle of a work day.)

I didn't save the other one when it was originally scheduled for the 27th, but I seem to recall it was going to feature three P5 representatives.  Now, today's email says only two will be on camera.  The CEO, Jason Teichman--who I think was on the original email as a participant/host--isn't listed on this new email.

I tried to search for the original invitation to see if I was right, but I had emptied my trash and it's long gone.

Anyone else save their original email?  Am I wrong?

Half right. There was never a third person, but originally "Scott Koehler, SVP and General Manager, Artists & Content" was listed. In the new email, his name is replaced by "Kunal Mody, Director, Marketplace Growth". The latter of which started in their current position at Pond5 at the beginning of 2019, right before several damaging changes were made.

I recall seeing a state somewhere that something like 90% of sales are HD. Surely a lower 4K price would help to even out this breakdown. 4 times the resolution doesn't have to be twice the price imo

Whether you are right or wrong, whether that's true or not, as others have stated, you have 100% control over your own pricing (for the time being). So 4K can be double, triple, 20% higher, 20% lower, the same, half the price, etc. of HD. Not exactly sure what your concern is or what you are asking to be changed. Price to your heart's content.  Personally, as someone that had to pay more out of their own pocket for better cameras, faster and higher capacity memory cards, external HD's, upgraded computers that can smoothly handle 4k, longer render times, huge uploads that take more bandwidth and time...I believe 4k is definitely worth the heftier price tag.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 28, 2019, 04:21

Quote from: OM on August 28, 2019, 03:27

I find it weird that 'good discoverability/poor discoverability' of an image seems to be determined by number of keywords above 40.

It's not, that's just some insane thing someone thought up, but they aren't humble enough to say 'we made a mistake'.

I think maybe "insane" is a little unfair. We've been open and appreciate that the current system doesn't work for everyone but it does for others. Some contributors feel that we ask for too much info and others feel that we don't give enough space to add even more tags!

Essentially, we had an issue before the current system where many contributors were not adding enough information, just adding a handful of tags. We needed a system that would encourage users to add more info, and that's what this system does. We've been very open and said within our help info that the "discoverability bar" is not analysing your data in any way, it's just essentially letting you know if you have more space to add more info. The more relevant information you can add the better, and the key term there is relevant - again, something we've been trying to make clear to contributors. I'm sure we'll tweak the terminology in time, maybe even remove the "discoverability" labelling as we can appreciate this can be confusing. We do test any changes with groups of current contributors before going live though to get feedback, and this system was no exception.

We need a caption and 5 tags to get the image searchable - everything else is optional. Additional info like number of people, release info etc is desirable but not mandatory. We'll extract any embedded info and apply it, so if you have a caption and 5 tags the images will go online without you doing anything else.  Supertagging definitely does help images get higher up in the search engine - so if you have the time to do it and want to give certain images a boost for certain words then you should try and make the time to take advantage. Again though, not mandatory so it's a judgement call for you and your time.

Back to the OP question though - is Alamy worth it? Of course we would say yes, but it works better for some than for others. We'll offer you 50% commission for images exclusive to us and 40% for non-exclusive. Our average licence price is $35, although as others have mentioned, it's not uncommon to get much higher and sometimes lower. If you have a portfolio of images sat on your hard drive or sat on another site, you absolutely should upload them to Alamy to see if we can make you some additional revenue. Once the images are up and online, there is nothing further for you to do other than enjoy the extra money! We pay out well in excess of $1 million every month to contributors so you should put yourself in the mix and get a slice.

Happy to answer any other questions here about Alamy as best I can. As others can attest to, I'm also open to answering any questions you have via PM if you'd rather not ask out in the open.

Cheers

James Allsworth

Contributor Experience Manager

Great to see official conversations happening here. Thank you for your comment, James.

Although I'd agree with "insane" if Alamy believes the system is logical. If you are truly concerned with the importance of relevant keywords, then giving the impression to contributors that their image will suffer from "poor discoverability" if it contains less than 40 keywords is obviously only going to encourage irrelevant keywords. If that qualification was simply lowered to a reasonable amount, the system might be closer aligned to it's intention, and without the temptation to add spam or borderline spam keywords to reach an arbitrary minimum.

Thank you for that, much appreciated. Weird they don't make it super clear since it really isn't that bad of a deal. But it also doesn't sound like they're starving for new contributors either, so maybe that's not unintentional. Will give her a chance and see how she goes.

Any other companies out there offering anything close to 50% for audio? Several posters on the Pond5 forums have mentioned their existence, but didn't drop any names. What I have compiled so far is:

Pond5: 35%
Shutterstock: Buyouts only
Audioblocks: Buyouts only
Audiojungle: 9%-40+% non-exclusive, up to 87.5% exclusive
Dreamstime: 25%-45% non-exclusive, up to 60% exclusive

Pond5 has decided to reposition themselves from the most contributor friendly stock agency, to just another company whose one and only goal is to increase their short-term bottom line no matter how much damage to their integrity and long-term prospects it causes. After over 10 years of building a highly respectable reputation, they have thrown it all away with a series of backstabbing moves.

I've personally been unofficially audio exclusive to Pond5 for many years, since a 50/50 split was about as good a deal as I'd found, and they really were worthy of such loyalty. Of course, times change, Pond5 crapped all over it's suppliers, and now it's time to find alternatives for selling audio. I realize the audio forums here are quiet, but I'm hoping to gather some suggestions for stock audio agencies. Googles searches haven't yielded any solid finds. Audiojungle looks like a joke with it's pricing, and being part of the Envato family isn't exactly a positive.

Thanks in advance.