How do 34 different ports (full of stolen images) have the same goddamn image of an elephant?

Professional negligence by SS.

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/similar/2279987071

I'll be called a conspiracy theorist, but I'll say this anyway: I don't believe this is professional negligence. It's, like I said, by design, most likely. Those images are what's known as SEO spam; SS might be allowing it because having so many images of that one elephant helps gain visibility in Google and Bing Images.

Another thing: the copycats could very well be SS itself hiring people to rip contributors off. Other platforms have been caught red-handed doing this type of thing. For example, Amazon invited designers to sell their original products on the platform. The next thing they knew, their products were ripped off and being resold for cheap by Amazon. As it turned out, Amazon was using in-house staff to rip these designs off and produce its own line of products.

Ditto, Etsy. Etsy invited all of these original designers to sell, then turned around and invited third party Chinese sellers to make rips of their products.

So, those "34 ports" could be managed by SS itself. Who knows?

I think that all creatives--be it artists, photogs and even writers--should try to restart a movement back to print and other analog forms of selling. Digital selling has become disastrous. There's no transparency at all as to how and why your work gets ripped off on a platform, and it seems as if there are no longer any protections.

There's been a lot of justifiable anger over the rampant plagiarism that keeps happening at SS, along at other microstock sites.

Just know that the plagiarism isn't happening in spite of every agency's best efforts to prevent it, but openly tolerated by Big Tech, including YouTube. The plagiarism is a form of insurance in case of a popular contributor closes their account. If they, for instance, happened to do very well in a niche topic or image and they leave, the derivative content takes their place.

It's amazing to me that creatives don't realize this. Until laws are passed heavily legislating platforms like SS and Big Tech in general, there will never be such a thing as not being ripped off. The entire ecosystem is designed for it.

I thought those negative 1 star reviews came from angry contributors after they announced royalty structure change.  If those are really from buyers, Shutterstock has a problem with their business practice.

No, they're mostly from customers, because the BBB and Trust Pilot are for consumers. I was curious how microstock was doing because it seems as if Big Tech during the pandemic started losing its collective mind and implementing all of these brazen anti-consumer business practices. I knew what was happening everywhere else, but I didn't expect to see this happening in microstock.

Quote from: rcnyc on August 16, 2023, 20:31

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on August 16, 2023, 17:40

"FLEX 10 Annual Subscription, Monthly. By signing up for a free trial of an annual subscription plan, you agree that Shutterstock will automatically charge the monthly subscription fee �29 to your payment method every month for 12 months until your subscription has expired, unless you cancel before the end of your free trial.By purchasing you agree to the Shutterstock License Agreement, or a separate written agreement in effect with Shutterstock."

The scam is in the wording. It's deliberately ambiguous. The bolded part makes it sound as if someone will be charged monthly, not the full annual price up front.

OK thanks I understand now. I also got the idea that it would be billed monthly and not a one off annual payment.

So if I understood correctly in this case it is a matter of purchasing a subscription service valid for 12 months and not a 1 month subscription service with automatic revalidation for 12 months although they present the idea that it is the second through so-called "dirty" marketing.

On the US site, it confuses customers into thinking that a subscription works the way it does when you sign a long-term contract with an ISP.

In other words, when you sign up for a two year contract with a cable or phone company, you may be locked into a two year contract, but you will still get billed monthly, like $80 a month. You will not be forced to pay the entire amount of the two year contract up front. You will never, in other words, suddenly be forced to pay all $1920 at once.

SS is doing exactly that. It's telling people they'll get charged monthly, then hitting them with an annual bill as soon as the free trial expires.

"FLEX 10 Annual Subscription, Monthly. By signing up for a free trial of an annual subscription plan, you agree that Shutterstock will automatically charge the monthly subscription fee �29 to your payment method every month for 12 months until your subscription has expired, unless you cancel before the end of your free trial.By purchasing you agree to the Shutterstock License Agreement, or a separate written agreement in effect with Shutterstock."

The scam is in the wording. It's deliberately ambiguous. The bolded part makes it sound as if someone will be charged monthly, not the full annual price up front.

I know that old habits die hard and that people are relying on SS for income. But just know that over the past year or so, SS has been literally scamming customers.

Scam #1: Customers are misled into thinking that if they sign up for a one month trial, they'll be billed monthly afterward. Instead, they are billed for the entire year. When they try to cancel, they're hit with a massive cancellation fee.

Scam #2: Customers are misled into thinking that cancellation is hassle free. Instead, customers continue to get billed the annual fee.

You can read complaints here: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.shutterstock.com

I know that user review sites don't tend to be reliable, but customers were angry enough to file complaints with the BBB: https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/new-york/profile/digital-media/shutterstock-inc-0121-81420/customer-reviews

I wanted to post pictures of what I was talking about in my OP, but couldn't figure out a way to do it because I had deleted my entire port. But then browsing a website, I saw my images in its ads feed, so was able to get some screenshots showing the originals and copycat versions:





Keep in mind that I have no issues with "inspired" images. The issue here is that Shutterstock blocked me from adding more versions of my images to the database...while allowing dozens of contributors to create versions that were more similar to my original designs than the ones SS rejected.

Don�t be ridiculous.  And research what a pyramid scheme is.

I don't have to research anything. That's the difference between a millennial and everyone else, I guess. The older generation speaks from experience. The newer one looks everything up on Wikipedia and Reddit, develops the smug satisfaction of thinking they've got a handle on the subject and then tells everyone else to "Look it up/do your own homework/etc."

Sorry for picking out this one sentence, but I have a problem with this point of argumentation. Just because you have earned a lot of money with Shutterstock, does not mean other contributors are in a position to deactivate their accounts. I feel like the whole undertone of this post is that the contributors who do not deactivate their accounts are "betraying" the ones who do. I am pretty sure that around 95% of all contributors, including myself, really wish they could deactivate their accounts and would do so if they were in a position that allowed them to do so. But many people depend on the income for their living.

You make a fair point. But here's a question I would put to you.

What would you do if, in a year's time, SS decided to slash your revenue to such an extent that it would be the same as not making any income at all? Or SS decides to something extreme like say, "Sorry, you can only have 100 images in your port," or, "We'll be deleting the 100 lowest performing photos in your port to save on server space?" or "Sorry, but we are now pulling eligibility for political reasons [seems transphobic, racist, etc.]." I know it seems unlikely that SS would do something like this. But trust me--as much experience as I've had with these Silicon Valley companies, I assure you that SS would have no problems doing that to you in the future. Hell, right now as I type this, they're probably considering this very thing right now.

I know it seems like scaremongering and such, but I've seen this thing happen with so many companies. For example, on YouTube, contributors who were part of The Partner Program had tons of their videos demonetized for no real reason. One of these contributors was PizzaFlix, a huge channel that provided rare, public domain movies. It relied on this income for years and YouTube decided last year that it would be demonetized. YouTube didn't even give it a reason. It just did it.

On Flickr, people had thousands of their photos deleted because the company decided that it didn't want to host all of those images anymore. Imagine that, waking up one morning having poured years into building up a gallery there, only to be told one day, "Sorry, but we're gonna delete 5,000 of your images soon."

See, I get what you're saying. If you depend on SS for income, it's easier said than done to delete your portfolio. But looking at The Big Picture, it doesn't make sense to argue that you can't deactivate/delete your port because you're reliant on income when at any given time--today, tomorrow, a year from now, two years from now--SS can just decide to eliminate half your port or decide that you're "no longer eligible."

That's what these companies do. That's how they operate. They use your financial situation (or emotional dependency) on their platforms to reel you in, then use your dependency as leverage to use you until they decide to throw you away like yesterday's newspaper. This is the position you're putting yourself in right now by not deleting your portfolio. You're not "depending on this income" so much as having your dependency on this income used against you, so that in a year's time the company can go, "See ya! We don't need you anymore."

With that being said, since you do really depend on SS for income, people have to take this into consideration when calling for everyone to deactivate their ports. And what I would suggest for you is to start looking at other ways to monetize your images without SS (Patreon, personal website, blog, etc.) so that in the future, if worst comes to worst, you'll at least have these other sites to fall back on. But don't even consider staking your entire financial future in SS. It's a huge mistake.

Makes sense!
I always wondered why they gave copycats and spammers a free pass!

On top of that, SS also allowed hacks free reign in the forums to "derp" about how there was a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism and how "there's nothing new under the sun."

I can't help but wonder if some of those people weren't trolls working on the inside to encourage this type of behavior. For example, years ago I remember how there would be so many incidents involving a photographer who complained about a contributor replicating shots. This person would post his/her port and the offender, and when you looked at both, it wasn't even a question that she/he was plagiarized. (How many people could independently come up with a picture of, say, a wire fox terrier wearing an Elvis Presley jumpsuit and pompadour wig backed by a crushed blue velvet curtain??? )

It would be so obvious, yet many posters would dismiss the complainer with stuff like, "Oh, just because you have a white dog in your photo doesn't mean any photo with a white dog is a copy." Or maybe they'd call the copycat photo "inspiration" because the copybot changed the curtain from blue to aquamarine and put the terrier in a James Brown jumpsuit.

Again, I can't help wonder if some of these posters were insiders, because the dismissals weren't reasonable arguments; they were arguments designed to gaslight. It's one thing to argue that two photos of a rainbow overlooking a field of red tulips were probably similar by accident. It's another thing if the photos were shot using the exact same composition and famous local windmill int he lower left hand corner.

Top 10 Bad Leadership Behaviors That Destroy Organisations:

1. Being �All About Me.�
2. Falling Asleep at the Switch.
3. Relying on the Wrong People.
4. Going Off the Rails.
5. Ignoring Feedback.
6. Not Being Able to Think Long-Term.
7. Not Being Able to Communicate.
8. Passing the Buck.
9. Not Following Through.
10. Having No Substance.

If SS and all of these Silicon Valley companies are basically elaborate MLMs/pyramid/gambling schemes (which is what I believe they are), then none of this applies to them. They can make all the bad decisions they want, ignore feedback, etc. and they'll still stay afloat.

They can even lose tons of money and keep afloat. Look at Uber, Amazon, etc. None of them have ever turned a profit; they exploit their workers; they lie, cheat and steal and they are doing better than ever in spite of it all.

The point I'm trying to make is that none of these "companies" are businesses. They're just "outfits," no different from outfits being run by local underground rings. So, they're not going to be affected by the types of decisions that would cause a legitimate business to go under.

i mean that if you suggest dropping all agencies because they will end up as Shutterstock you will have to explain why people should drop current and future earnings from Adobe, Pond, Alamy etc until they end up paying 0.10 as Shutter. It is one thing to quit Shutterstock and another telling people to leave microstock in total.

I didn't say to leave anything. I said stop uploading new images and if that's not an option, just upload average shots to these agencies.

How is that translating into "lost sales?" I stopped uploading to SS almost 10 years ago and never stopped earning sales.

So, it's been a week since SS dropped its bombshell announcement. The most frustrating thing to me about this entire affair isn't the announcement but the stubborn refusal on so many people to wake up and realize that all of these crowdsourcing sites and platforms offering people "opportunities" are part of an elaborate scam.

How do I know this is all a scam? I was part of many similar "crowdsourcing/affiliate marketing/make money at home" ventures going back to 2000 (yes, that far back). And what I noticed over the years is that what seems to be an isolated "bad decision" at one site's part is always part of a larger industry-wide trend/pattern playing across multiple platforms in the exact same way.

For example, starting in 2019, other sites have also "pulled an SS." After spending years encouraging people to work their fingers to the bone, sites like Amazon, YouTube, etc. also started slashing rates for their oldest, most dedicated contributors and affiliates. 

Is it coincidence? No. It's all part of a long, elaborate con by ALL of these sites. It works something like this:

1. Create a tech platform enticing people to join, convincing them that they're going to "be their own bosses" and make more money than if they had gone through old school/traditional channels (stock agencies, ad agencies, publishing houses, etc.).

2. Pay them just enough money to make joining worthwhile, but not what they are really worth. Convince them that they'll eventually earn what they're worth if they "chase the carrot" (as in work even harder than ever in the way of "volume.")[/li][/list]

3. Design the platform's algorithm or pay structure in such a way where payout works like a pyramid scheme, where only a few contributors/affiliates/gig workers really make money to become financially independent. Trot these high earners out to further encourage the vast majority of contributors to chase the carrot, as in, "If you work even harder for us, you'll be making $1M a year, too!" Sit back and watch as the vast majority of contributors, affiliates, etc. wind up building 98% of the business while being paid pennies.

4. Go public and get valuated at $10B or more on Wall Street.

5. Start acquiring other businesses to boost valuation and profit.

6. Flush with cash, start cutting the lowest members of the pyramid scheme--the very people who built your business--off. Except instead of having the guts to say, "We just used you all to help build our business and don't need you anymore," do the passive-aggressive thing of slashing commission and rates to discourage them into quitting.

What is the point of me posting this?

1. If you're going to delete or disable your portfolio, do it for the right reasons. Definitely do it out of self respect, because you value your time, etc. But don't do it thinking that you're "sticking" it to SS and will tank the company. SS and all of these other companies purposely slashed its rates to make you leave and have all their ducks in a row financially. Even if SS tanked, everyone there made more money than God, so would be laughing to the bank, anyway.

2. Don't even think of "jumping ship" to Adobe or any other site. The reason why I say that is that all of these gig/crowdsourcing companies are the same. They're just at different stages of "the con." Meaning, they may look good to you because they haven't slashed rates. But they haven't slashed rates because they're haven't reached that stage of the con...yet. In two years, three years, maybe five, they will do the same thing. Trust me on this.

If you really want to make a difference, if you really want to make a change, here's what you can do:


1. As so many people have brilliantly done, start targeting buyers with negative PR about SS. Let them know that they're supporting an exploitative industry.

2. Stop uploading anywhere for the time being + encourage everyone else to do the same. If quitting cold turkey is too much to bear, then just upload your average shots to microstock agencies. But stop uploading your very best work to any of them. Your absolute best work should only be uploaded to your personal blog or website with a watermark.