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Topics - Sedge

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1
Canva / July Payment
« on: August 17, 2018, 16:06 »
I haven't received my Canva payment for July's sales; they usually pay between the 9th and the 14th.  Was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this?  Thanks...

2
Yesterday I discovered an Etsy shop selling two of my photographs illegally.  The shop owner apparently had purchased two of my image files from one of the stock agencies that I sell through, and is currently reselling the digital files on Etsy.  This is clearly illegal, and understandably Im quite furious!

Heres the link to the shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WorldPhotographies?ref=l2-shopheader-name

A lot of the work looks very familiar to me as stock imagery, and I wouldnt be surprised if all of this guys listed items are being sold illegally.  Ive contacted Etsy and hopefully theyll shut this a-hole down.  In the meantime, Id strongly suggest that everyone check out this shop to see if your work is being sold there illegally as well.


3
I often look at Fotolia's best selling images of the day/week to see sales trends, and came upon these two images: https://us.fotolia.com/p/206441223

Both were listed as "best sellers of the day" yesterday, and now they're included in the "best sellers of the week" list.  They seem to be the only two images in this photographer's portfolio, so he/she is off to a good start.

I am totally baffled by these images; I don't understand them as stock photographs.  I'd like to hear your comments on why they seem to have such a high sales appeal.  The only theme I can come up with would be something along the lines of "urban decay," but again I would think that wouldn't have significant commercial value on a microstock site.

Please know that I am NOT being critical of the photographer; I am NOT stating that these are bad images or that the author is a bad photographer.  Quite the opposite actually; I have to congratulate anyone whose only two photos have made it to the "best sellers of the day/week" lists.

I'm looking forward to hearing your comments and insights; hopefully I'll learn something new.

5
iStockPhoto.com / Check your Redeemed Credits
« on: March 23, 2015, 15:13 »
The redeemed credits bug was once again up to no good last Friday and over the weekend.  My royalty rate dropped by 1% and my redeemed credit total dropped by over 1000.  They seemed to have fixed it already, and they've pledged to adjust our royalty earnings accordingly.  Here's the forum link:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=366093&page=1

6
I recently performed a Google image search for my name and found one of my microstock images being sold as a POD canvas wrap on these four websites: Wayfair.com, AllModern.com, Gilt.com, and Wallmart.com.  Needless to say I was a bit shocked at this discovery!  I eventually determined with certainty that the distribution source was a company called Epic Art, located in Baltimore, Maryland.  Strangely, when viewing their website, I was unable to find my image.  My next step was to review all my microstock agency sales for any extended licenses for that image that would allow for the reproduction and resale of canvas wraps.  The image only had one extended license sale, and after contacting the agency that sold it, they determined that the sale was NOT to Epic Art.

So now I'm looking at a possible copyright infringement and/or liability case.  I suspect that Epic Art may have simply purchased a regular subscription or credit license for the image, which I believe for all agencies does NOT allow for the reproduction and resale of an image as a POD canvas wrap, but please correct me if I am mistaken.  Wouldn't a company be required to have some type of  extended license to resell and distribute a microstock image as a canvas wrap?

I guess my next step would be to contact Epic Art to determine if they purchased a license for my image, and if so exactly what type of license.  One interesting aspect is that my name is listed on each site as the artist, so I suspect they did indeed buy a license, but probably not the correct one.  So now the next step: Should I contact them directly, or would it be wise to have a lawyer contact them?  If this were simply some blogger ripping me off, I'd just ask for an image takedown, but as this involves the selling of prints through some pretty big name outlets, there could be some significant money involved.  Then again, perhaps my image has sold poorly, although one of the sites in question had it listed as "Sold Out" (although that seems a bit meaningless for POD distribution). 

So what do you think?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Perhaps someone on MSG has had a similar experience.  It's worth mentioning that I'd never considered this image to have any sales value as a stand-alone art piece.  I'd always thought of it as just a simple abstract background.  It'll be very interesting to see how this case is resolved!

Thanking everyone in advance!

7
Adobe Stock / Extended License won't Accept 100 Credit Price
« on: April 03, 2014, 19:04 »
I rarely upload to FT (or pay much attention to them, for that matter), but I just uploaded a new image and set the Extended License "Credit Price" to 100.  The web form accepted the amount and changed the "Your Revenue (Credit)" column to 25 as expected; I then accepted the "Contract Conditions" and clicked on the Update button.  Just as the page was changing it looked like the "Credit Price" had reverted back to 20!  I couldn't verify this since it's a new upload, and it can't be edited until it's been reviewed, but this got me thinking about my other images.  I started clicking on the Edit link on a variety of images in my portfolio, and found to my horror and amazement that they were ALL set to 20 for an Extended License!  I then attempted to make corrections to all these files: I'd set the EL amount to 100, the page would accept it, I'd click "Update;" everything would seem fine.  But when I'd go back to each image to confirm my changes, I'd see that the EL amount had reset once again to the lowest value.  Needless to say, this is very upsetting!

I reviewed the Fotolia forum prior to writing this post and couldn't find anyone describing a similar situation.  Have Fotolia changed their policy re: Extended License price setting?  You'd think that if I wasn't eligible for the 100 "Credit Price," the web form wouldn't allow me to change the value.  I know I've had Extended License sales in the past for 100 credits for which I received $25.  Now it seems my whole portfolio has been set to 20 Credits for an EL, for which I'd only earn $5.00.

Maybe I'm missing something or doing something wrong, or missed an announcement?  I tried a different browser with the same results.  I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this?  Any input/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

8
Lobo just started a new thread on iStock's PP forum.  Here's the full quote: 

We've established that there were some irregularities with Oct(Sept) and Nov(Oct) Partner Program royalties. We've been investigating these irregularities and hope to have additional information some time next week. What this means is the royalty payments for September and October are being reviewed at this time.  We will have an update on this issue next week.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

 :'(

9
Stocksy / What is Stocksy? - From an Outsider's Viewpoint...
« on: September 21, 2013, 22:51 »

I thought it might be productive to think about what you don't see on Stocksy:

1) Over-saturation of colors:  Actually, quite the opposite.  A lot of the imagery has a somewhat subdued color palette, very subtle in nature; the color doesn't shout at you.  Color is bright and vivid only where appropriate, such as party balloons, vividly painted objects, etc.

2) Very little post-processing:  I'd be willing to bet that most of Stocksy's images have been finished in Lightroom without the need for further editing in Photoshop.

3) Very little (if any) composite work or special effects:  For example, there are some nice star-trail images, but seemingly all done in-camera.  No fake water (Flood Filter) or related CG imagery.

4) Not a lot of conceptual work:  A keyword search for "conceptual" yields 21 results, although perhaps that's being too vague.  Here are some other related searches: "fantasy" 130 results, "surreal" 100 results (a lot of which the keyword doesn't even apply), "magical" 142, "mystery" 227 results, "strength" 233 results, "power" 308 results.  I have no doubt this category will grow as the collection matures.

5) Backgrounds are mostly object oriented and created in-camera:  No scans of old paper, or scans of paper made to look like old paper, no added grain, noise and/or textures, etc.  There's some really nice and cleverly produced images in this collection.

6) There's very little HDR imagery.

7) No illustrations (yet).

I'm sure others will add their opinions regarding the validity of this list.  What I do see on Stocksy, is primarily three styles: 

1) Classically straight photography, aimed at producing a more natural and elegant look by avoiding heavy post-processing and filtration.  Lighting is often soft and subtle.

2) Although the MSG folks on Stocksy may protest, there is a significant proportion of images that have, for lack of a better term, an "Instagram look."  There are a lot of images that exhibit faded colors, split-toning, and/or subtle cross-processing.  This isn't a criticism.  This look is very hot at the moment; there are numerous TV programs here in the US that employ this technique, not to mention countless ads in both print and television.  The best-selling photographers at Etsy use variations of this aesthetic to some degree (http://www.craftcount.com/category.php?cat=3&subcat=29).

3) There are many images, especially a significant portion of the landscapes, that have what I would call a "snapshot" quality.  It'll be interesting to see how this approach sells.  Personally, I feel this is the one weakness of the collection (just my opinion and probably worthless, so don't confuse this criticism with hate, please).

I'm really rooting for Stocksy.  Any agency that can offer an alternative to Getty and the Micros while also offering fair-trade business practices, deserves all the support it can get. 



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