Question for contributors in the US.
When filing taxes to IRS is this a legal way -> form 1040 -> Schedule 1 (line 6 royalties) + Schedule E (income line 4 royalties)?
All my 1099MISC forms do say Royalties box 4.
I want to simplify things, and it seems like if I file Schedule C (profit and loss), it will require me to pay self-employment tax, and I can't think of any deductions that would lower my net income.

here is my 5 cents
year to date downloads SS - 150, P5 exclusive - 15, difference in revenue only $150 in favor of SS
I think it depends on what you shoot. If you can produce some unique content, go P5 exclusive 

Anyone knows what type of license a customer should take to use a stock footage clip in Broadcast TV commercials. One of my clips was sold with a standard license at iStock, however, I saw it being used in my local news ad. The ad is shown multiple times a day for several months on one of the main TV channels in the US.

ok, these low amount downloads seem to be pay-per-view clips used on their new platform https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/projector-shutterstock-integration

Kate from Shutterstock answered a few hours ago that "Customers who purchased these licenses can only use the clips on that platform. They can't save or download them, or re-use them" https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/100567-043-cents-video-yes-you-are-reading-it-right/page/3/

I say it does.

If we would just use SS to sell our work we would be able to determine the prices of our work and yet the prices are determined by SS so they are clearly in charge here setting standards and defining rules.

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The way I see it, no lawyer will take a case against SS, because there is no money to be made. There needs to be some kind of federal legislation protecting the content creators. We are the artists, we produce a product and SS is simply giving us a platform to sell our product. SS doesn't own the product, so why do they have 100 % control over the price of the product? I've been working in ecommerce business for the past 15 years, and I can't imagine if the platforms like eBay or Amazon attempt setting prices of my product without asking me. When I started selling my works on SS, IS and other agencies I was very surprised to see that the market is so nontransparent... how can we even be sure that the sales they are reporting to us are legit, there is no way to see who the buyer is and maybe there are sales that SS is simply not telling us about?
Internet is a highly regulated environment these days, all websites require consumers now to opt in or out their privacy polices and many of them ask you to agree with all sorts of terms and conditions, so why are we not allowed to opt out of 0,10 prices? This is beyond my understanding. Correct me if I am wrong but there needs to be a law protecting the artist from the abuse by the corporation (who is essentially a monopolist in the market) in terms of not allowing the artist to opt out of sales that the artist feels unfair to him/her.

Found one of my clips on this Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkhq8AcpDOSofeAvemHi0Tg
He/She also gives instructions how to download any video from any website for free.
I would think that all clips are from various microstock sites, some of them clearly showing Shutterstock watermark.
I don't understand the motive of why would somebody put in so much work to offer stock videos for free download. Is he/she hoping to earn $0.10 though Youtube ads?
I submitted copyright complain to Youtube.

Thank you, Jo Ann for your answer. Interesting is that most of my Premium Access video downloads bring me pennies... Go figure!

Knowing now how this works, would you submit to another brief?

Not all briefs have 12 months selection period, most of them are about a month or so. From now on I will only submit if I already have some content that would fit the brief, or if the brief requires little to no effort to produce. I just submitted some images, which were exported as stills from a video footage. Will see how it goes.

http://stories.gettyimages.com/custom-content/

So chances of your work being chosen are slim, and then you can't sell what you shot elsewhere.

I was under impression that whatever is not chosen by the client can then be submitted to other agencies. Isn't that so?

Question from a newbie.

I've been an iStock exclusive videographer since December 2016 and I am really confused with their licensing/royalty rates. I've had some clips sold for as low as $2.6 including 4K video sold for $2.9. Is it the same situation with other agencies? I am curios how does one buy a 4K video for $3?
 
On the other hand I've had my HD clips sold for $575 producing a very nice payout.