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Messages - Stockhome Syndrome

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1
It was that way for a bit, but it seems to have returned.

3
Pond5 / Re: My Pond5 Download Trend
« on: May 09, 2025, 15:17 »
All of my agencies are trending down, except Adobe that is slightly on an upward path.

4
General Stock Discussion / Re: Motionarray
« on: May 01, 2025, 06:35 »
Today I saw that the income for April has decreased significantly. Although yesterday it would have been twice as much. Check your statistics.

Same.  But I've also had months where my payment was higher than what was reported, so maybe this will work itself out by payday, or maybe they caught their mistake and are taking it out of this month.

They did say last year that they're re-working their commission structure and that it would take a few months to shake out, so things still might be in flux. 

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.  That's been my philosophy in this business as of late.

5
Shutterstock.com / Re: New Unlimited Download Model
« on: April 25, 2025, 19:25 »
Are you part of the unlimited download model on SS? What are your thoughts on this?

I am not.  I think subscription programs are in all our futures.

6
Shutterstock.com / Re: New Unlimited Download Model
« on: April 25, 2025, 08:50 »
As I understand, with this unlimited plan, the customer can use the downloaded files only once, after having previously registered such use, and within the time of their subscription.

This would only benefit the contributor if the subsequent downloads of the same element by the same buyer counts toward the contributor's monthly bottom line, or if only the FIRST download counts, and any "re-downloads" by the same buyer is simply provided as a convenience perk.

I wonder how this works on Storyblocks or any other "unlimited" subscription program.

7
iStockPhoto.com / Re: March stats in
« on: April 16, 2025, 17:21 »
Pretty good for me.  I needed at least $814 in order to get my March above a milestone threshold overall and it bested that amount by several hundred dollars. 

8
General Stock Discussion / Where Are the Customers?
« on: April 09, 2025, 06:48 »
Everyone here is complaining about the low sales, and I'm in the same boat.  My sales are dismal so far this year when compared to previous years.  In fact, so far this month, I only have three sales on Pond5.

It's easy to put the blame on the agencies, but is that really the case?  If Pond5 or Shutterstock dropped the ball and lost customers, where did the buyers go?  If that were the case, other agencies would have picked up the slack.  But looking at my stats, I don't think that's the case.

While my Adobe seems to be going strong, it's improved performance doesn't make up the loss from other agencies.  And I don't see a dramatic trend upward at other agencies where I post clips.

Could it just be that overall, customer habits have changed?   Are they buying less, or just buying from somewhere where I'm not represented?

BlackBox is arguably the largest contributor at many mainstream agencies.  I'd like to know what their trend is.  That might put things in a better perspective.

9
So my original question was, is this allowed, or not?

That's a grey area.  The Youtube video example you referenced is a specific case, where two artists agree to collaborate.  I think people thought you meant downloading a clip, then reusing it yourself.  THAT is not permitted.

The collaboration path is interesting, but I still think that would open your account and the account of the other artist getting banned for similar clips in different portfolios.  I "collaborate" with myself all the time--reusing older clips for newer concepts--but these "similars" are within my own portfolio.  I've been doing that for years and it does enable me to expand my portfolio without shooting new material.

But as far as collaboration with others, perhaps behind the veil of Blackbox you can get away with it, but I still wouldn't do it myself.

10
My video trend has had some ups and downs, but have been steadily heading down on Shutterstock for the past year.  Especially the past three months.

11
General Stock Discussion / Re: Motionarray
« on: March 12, 2025, 19:00 »
You see the number of downloads of your videos for 13 days in March, in your opinion is this the usual number of downloads for this period for you or less than before?

1.111 downloads as of 12 March.  3.347 downloads in February.  Mine seems on-track.

12
General Stock Discussion / Re: Motionarray
« on: March 12, 2025, 17:58 »
My PDF statements and the amounts on my insight dashboard aren't matching up this year.  Seems like they're fiddling with stuff, but didn't they say it would take a few months to work out the new system?


13
But how will agencies detect that the photo or videos were de-noised and sharpened in Topaz Ai? If you enhance videos in Topaz Ai and then edit in Vegas Pro to Prores or another codec then there will be no Topaz Ai information. Topaz Ai does not take away the image copyright. It is not an image generator from scratch with prompt.

If you export out of Topaz AI, Topaz will add tags to the file's metadata.  If you edit the video and re-export and your exporter is set to maintain existing tags, the Topaz markings will remain.

Question is, are there ways other than these metadata "tags" for a system to determine what was used to edit the video throughout it's workflow?

14
You can't get pee out of a pool, and you can't get AI out of everyone's workflow.  Agencies will need to figure out a way to embrace AI at some level eventually.

While I understand their issue with submitting 100% AI images or videos, I think you should be able to use AI as a tool to enhance camera-generated imagery.

As more mainstream productions are permitting AI content in projects, stock will need to adjust accordingly -- with appropriate labels so buyers can opt-out of browsing content that may have been "touched" by AI.

15
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS 1099-MISC
« on: February 01, 2025, 15:30 »
Thanks. But Ive tried so many times on so many different browsers and platforms and nothing happens when I click VERIFY. No pop ups and no pop up blockers.  Just nothing. I cant be the only one this is happening to.

For the heck of it, I put a wrong password in the box and hit VERIFY. Oddly that time, I got an error that said invalid password, but nothing happens if I use the proper password.

16
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS 1099-MISC
« on: February 01, 2025, 09:12 »
Nope, worked absolutely fine for me.

What is supposed to happen when you hit VERIFY in the password field?  I click it an nothing changes.

17
Shutterstock.com / SS 1099-MISC
« on: February 01, 2025, 07:26 »
Anyone else having issues getting their 1099-MISC from the link they sent?  I open the PDF, enter the secret word, enter my password, hit VERIFY (nothing happens), then SUBMIT, but I get a "Please verify your password" alert.

I've entered ny proper password, and tried on different browsers as well as my phone with the same problem.


18
iStockPhoto.com / Re: December stats are up
« on: January 19, 2025, 14:32 »
I'm new to using DeepMeta for iStock/Getty.  What are "connect" downloads, and why does iStock seperate them in the TXT reports?

19
What if you improve your video in Topaz Video Ai like denoising, better slow motion, Proteus image quality improvement?

While I understand why adding or modifying elements via AI shouldn't be permitted without identification, I think simply running your own video(s) thru a program like Topaz Video AI for the sole purpose of making the video better quality should be allowed.

These programs are tools.  Should a skilled worker not use a new tool that can produce better products?  A bit crazy if you ask me.

20
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shuterstock about to get eaten by Getty
« on: January 08, 2025, 15:40 »
Well, it cant get worse.  So far $6 this month on SS while Adobe is already at $80.

Yes, same here.  My ShutterStock is earning about $3-$5/day so far this month.  Really bad.

Amazed how things can drop off a cliff so quickly.  Where did the customers go?  I guess Adobe.  Because it sure ain't Pond5.

21
General Stock Discussion / Re: Inflation and microstock?
« on: December 10, 2024, 16:01 »
The future of microstock?

The future is buyers will demand lower and lower prices, and agencies will pay contributors less and less.

That's the future.

22
Adobe Stock / Re: Adobe Stock 2024 Contributor Bonus
« on: September 20, 2024, 12:00 »
Bonus 2023 + Bonus 2024 = Payouts
Number of images / payouts = 0.029 USD
= All images used for training AI for 0.029 USD each.
What is not correct with that?

Think, if we calculate that the images are used not only today, but also in the next 10 years AND unlimited times, then yes, 0.0000001 USD could be correct.  ;D

I got over $5K with about 8K videos.  How was my "bonus" calculated?

23
iStockPhoto.com / Re: August statements up
« on: September 20, 2024, 06:15 »
A bit under $1300 which is my best month of the year, but down from my all time high of about $2K back in December of 2019.

But my trend here is heading slightly upward.

24
Pond5 / Re: So much for the new pricing model
« on: September 09, 2024, 14:00 »
Probably a very limited use or one-time streaming license.  I had 4 of those yesterday, but not worried.  Many sales above $149/HD for custom or premium license.  They aren't that stupid to give out the same license for $5.

Then they need to be more transparent as to what these licenses cover in our sales reports. "Enterprise license" means nothing to us.

25
General - Stock Video / Re: $1,000 sales day on Pond5 yesterday!!!
« on: September 06, 2024, 19:26 »
Nice!  I'm only at $1K for the month so far on all my agencies, and you hit that in one day!

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