16.68 percent tumble.  Not particularly happy about Jon's comments.

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/0d7eec2b-589e-3f97-8af9-e92897bc677f/why-shutterstock-inc.-stock.html

Just got the following message from Lee.  35% of $10.00 looks like a winner.  And the possibility of EL's later.


"Hi Russell,
Since Canva launched we�ve only had one type of license available: our unique One Time Use license, which permits users to use an image in a single design.

Our users tell us that they love it. But since day one, they�ve also been asking for a more typical license as well, where they can pay a bit more up front and not have to pay each time they use it.

And now we�re about to launch it.

It�s a standard Royalty Free license, but we�re calling it Multi-Use. It�s priced at $10 and your same 35% royalty rate applies.

Just like the One Time Use license, customers can only use it in their Canva designs, and can�t download the original file.
It has gone live for a small group of users today and assuming there are no issues, we�ll roll it out to all users over the rest of this week. You may start to see some $3.50 royalties appear in your earnings pages from today.

We expect this license will create a substantial boost to your royalty earnings. A little later in the year we�ll also launch our Extended Licenses which we expect will do the same.

If you have any questions about this or anything else, please feel free to reply directly to this newsletter.

As always, thanks for being a Canva contributor!
Cheers,
Lee"

I don't know about any usage limits (number of times it can be used by the buyer) but it looks like a step in the right direction.

This article illustrates the complexity of copyright laws both in Europe and elsewhere.  Easy to see why some agencies are skittish.  Still, it seems to me that the onus should be on the end user, not the intermediate photographer.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/legal-battle-brewing-over-post-131922151.html

Just received an e-mail from Lee that Canva is finally working out a way to accept and sell vectors. Still a few issues to work out, but progress is being made.  The entire e-mail is too long to include here, so here's an excerpt of a relevant portion.

"We�re still going to be holding back sets and vectors with either crop marks or sample text. We�ll create techniques to make them work in Canva next, but for now, all other vectors will go straight into the Canva library and appear for sale.

When to expect �your� vectors to go in.

We have well over a million vectors to ingest. We�re going to start off slowly and increase speed as we bring on and train more reviewers. And we�ll submit vectors in the order of signup date so those who�ve been waiting the longest - over three years in some cases - get in first.

We don�t have much data to go on yet, but our raw estimates put the time to review all the vectors we currently have between 4 and 7 months. We�ll keep you updated on progress, but if you didn�t sign up in 2013, expect your portfolio to be closer to 7 months than 4.

Bringing your portfolio up to date.

We know a lot of you haven�t been topping up your Canva portfolio with the new files you�ve been creating since you first uploaded to us. You�re welcome to upload those now as all the files in your account will go through together when it gets to your turn."

Is there any way to upload editorial content to 123 via FTP where it goes directly into the editorial folder?  I can see an editorial folder on their server when I link in on FTP (Filezilla), and I can click on the folder and it seems to open it up.  However, when uploading everything still goes only to the commercial file.

I was checking my port this morning and noticed all the keywords associated with each image were missing.  Title and description were there, but no keywords.  Sales are continuing, but without keywords I don't know how anyone can search.  Anyone else seeing this?

Now that I've got a few sales on FT (just joined last week) I'm trying to understand some of the differences I'm seeing.  For example, while I have XXL subscription sales at 0.25 credits, I also have a much smaller size M subscription sale at 0.80 credits.  Is there someplace on FT that breaks down these various sale amounts or is this the difference between FT and Adobe sales?  And I assume the conversion from credits to dollars is one-to-one (50 credits equal 50 dollars) ... correct?

I've finally gotten around to begin setting up my own web site.  It's not quite done yet, but complete enough to get comments.  It's function is not just for selling images, but various services as well.  While it uses a WP template, it does not utilize Symbiostock or woo-commerce.  The only comment I've received back to date is that there may be too many similars too close together in some of the categories.  I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you may have.   http://russellshively.photography

I've been unable to log in to SS this morning as the CAPTCHA screen is not coming up.  The I.D. and password screen appears, but the area where CAPTCHA usually shows is blank.  If I just fill in the I.D. and password I get the message that the security code is incorrect.  But since there is no place to enter the security code (or see it for that matter) I'm pretty much dead in the water.

Anyone else seeing this or run across this before?

Looks like the National Trust is getting serious.  They've required SS to take down all images showing NT properties and nothing new can be added, including editorial.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=141415

Just received an e-mail from iStock indicating that on January 23, 2014 my redeemed RC rate was accidentally set to pre 2014 levels.  They have now reset it and have added all monies I should have received to my account.

Apparently things can go both ways.  Note I did not receive any claw-back notice and no funds have been removed from my account.

Anyone else seeing this?

I just received an e-mail, purportedly from Adobe, indicating their system was hacked and that they had changed my password and I should click on the link in the e-mail to go in and change it again.  My understanding this happened sometime back so I am suspicious of receiving an e-mail now, sometime after the fact.  I also avoid clicking on any link in an unsolicited e-mail so I went to the Adobe site to see what information I could find there.  At least I tried to.  Adobe.com redirects me to the Adobe Cloud site which was totally worthless trying to find out any information about this issue.

Has anyone received these e-mails recently or know how to get to a real Adobe site and not Adobe Cloud?  The only past interaction I've had with Adobe has been to register my copy of PS CS6 and I want no part of Cloud.  I think I had to set up a log in to do that, but honestly don't remember.

A relatively large number of contributors on SS have noted their sales have been down for the better part of this year.  Many theories have been advanced for this, such as search engine bugs, a massive influx of new contributors (mostly from IS) and several other ideas.  Here's another one that I gleaned from a financial publication.

In the July 22 issue of Barron's, page M5, there an interesting article regarding Shutterstock's performance on the stock market.  I'll not go over the entire article; however, I will quote the section I found of interest.  "However, sales and marketing expenses fell in the first quarter of 2013, even though they've been rising sharply, an average of 60% in the past three years.  The company noted that advertising will increase for the remainder of 2013 and beyond."

It appears this may have been done as an accounting strategy in order to allow the appearance of income growth during this period.  Barron's goes on to say "If sales and marketing had grown at their customary pace or even half the annual average, little or no first-quarter growth would have occurred."  This would have put a damper on the rapid rise of Shutterstock's (SSTK) growth in the market.

I think most would agree that if you don't have a strong sales and marketing strategy, and the financing to execute it, in today's competitive environment your overall sales are going to suffer.  They did say that they were going to increase advertising for the balance of 2013 and beyond.  This may be at least part of the reason contributors (myself included) have noticed the beginnings of an uptick in sales over the past couple of weeks.  Hopefully that will continue.  It will be interesting to see just what the sales and marketing numbers were for the second quarter when SS issues their next report in August.