My only contention is, that more people, would tend to make for more stability.

Agreed.

How about a random contest of some sort for people who took the survey? I'll start by offering a double SS sub of 20 cents? 

Hahaha! Love it.

This post has me curious about a couple of things. First of all, Daniel, were these refunded sales from the same buyer(s)? Second, how much does Dreamstime pay for video compared with other agencies?

It's working for me.

I know a lot of customers/clients have been asking for the feature for quite a while. So great its been finally offered. No doubt that other MS sites are going to try and add this feature. Not sure why they never thought of doing this before.

I'm not sure what you mean. Offering PNGs to customers is not a new idea; Dreamstime has allowed them for years as one of the additional file formats that can be uploaded. Haven't other agencies as well?

Quote from: cypher on August 01, 2022, 16:23

I reached out to Dreamstime asking about this, and I received a reply stating that there has been no change in the unsold image policy. Contributors still have the same three choices: donate to free section, delete, or keep online in portfolio.

Do they mean the policy hasn't changed but the way you make the choice has? You had the option of donating to free, but you could set your own default.

I did not ask that specifically; I was just told that "nothing has changed for the free section", and that we can still select what happens to the images. The reply also stated that if a change were to happen, that they would make an announcement.

If this is something that you are wondering about, it might be good to contact support and to ask. The situation does not directly affect me at the moment since I went through a several year period of not uploading to microstock anywhere, so I do not have any media that are currently approaching the 4 year of no sales mark. My older items have already passed that threshold, and the newer uploads have a few years to go before they hit it.

But they all do - only the microstock agencies don't. Why not? Because we put up with it. From my point of view, it's as simple as that.

So, which agencies are currently paying the least per download? How many images and how many contributors do those agencies currently have?

A new milestone was reached today -- 190 million images.

Also, rereading the prize info, it looks like the photographer/illustrator who uploads the image gets an iPad Air, and the buyer prize is 100 credits (not an iPad Air).

Just curious -- when (if ever) do you choose to vote in the poll provided on this site? Do you do it immediately at the end of the month; do you wait a certain amount of time in case of changes to your account; do you only vote when you earn above a certain amount? I've been watching the poll results recently, and I see several agencies really close to the threshold for having their ratings visibly shown but not quite getting there.

If you don't vote in the poll, why not? I personally don't because I'm such a small player in the field (I have less than 100 photos listed anywhere), I don't think my voice should weigh as much as the people who have significant stats.

Anyway, just curious.

I'm often amazed how many of the iPad Air prizes that Dreamstime gives away to designers go completely unclaimed. It looks like the threshold for winning isn't very hard -- looking at prior winners, it looks like the image only needs to be downloaded a handful of times before a winner is selected.

https://www.dreamstime.com/contest

There are three options available with old non-selling images:  1.  Give away for free, 2.  Let DT re-keyword (for a fee) and 3.  Delete the image.  All anyone needs to do is go into their profile and set the default to delete.  Then whenever you get this e-mail you can simply ignore it unless you deliberately want to give it away or have DT do some keywording work.

I believe that the re-keywording option was removed some time last year.  People who used to have that as their default action may want to make sure that images are now either be deleted or donated as desired.

I saw the following comment by Achilles in the midst of a thread on the DT forums:

We have actually eased the similarity criteria recently for images that have sales potential. It means we will accept more similars from a series of good images (i.e. nice authentic-looking models, in good light having fun in a contemporary setup/props, a niche-but-popular subject, etc.) than from the everyday shots (think common still lives).
Given that level 0 is applied after 6 months and that the images enter the database as level 1 files there is a faster price diversification for similar images. It doesn't mean we accept anything or that we don't expect photographers to do their own selection. Folks who simply dump their cards in the FTP folder are kindly asked to make a prior selection.
I know it's not the case for most of you and again, we keep in mind the quality of the submissions at review time. If your images are very good, salable, AR is high, you have better chances to have them accepted. If they are not, it's not the end of the world. See if you can improve something or move on.

Having said these, you are encouraged to ask for a second review using the form available in the Refused files section. A senior editor is reviewing those, someone different than initial reviewer. This comes as an additional support to the resubmit feature, who goes to the same editor. Both these assume the possibility that your refusal was unjust. Please take advantage of these opportunities and if the image is still refused, trust us and move on to the next images.

We are aware refusals are frustrating. You worked for those images, you spent time uploading and we spent time reviewing. We would much rather accept everything, but we have selection criteria we need to abide in order to keep our customers happy. The number of submissions is about 40% higher than last year. We could increase the size of our database dramatically but we prefer to remain focused on quality rather than quantity.

Thanks for your understanding.

Here's a link to the thread.

A third one has been added.  Is it better to post these as new posts or just modify the OP?  What's the accepted standard here at MSG?  For now, here's the link:

#3 - Valentine Frames

The story made it to Slashdot.  Here's the direct link:

http://search.slashdot.org/story/13/02/05/2254256/google-redesigns-image-search-raises-copyright-and-hosting-concerns

There are some interesting comments being made from lots of different viewpoints.