One nice thing about being a mediocre photographer is that you don't have to worry about your photos being stolen and ending up in a portfolio like that 

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 14, 2021, 11:15

Quote from: Bart on February 14, 2021, 11:02

Banned 🙋‍♂️. No reason given, violation of TOS but that can be anything. Cancel Culture at its best, they probably didn�t like my public dissatisfaction and posts about their thievery so I got the boot 🥾 #shutterstockcontributor #shutterstockboycott #sstk #shutterstock #boycottshutterstock shutterstocknow

they have every right to legally make such changes,

I wouldn't be so sure about that and why stick up for such an unethical company? if it is legal it should say in the T&Cs that they have the right to cut pay rates but it doesn't. I don't why you say that they do have the legal right. If I'd known they'd pull a stunt like that, I wouldn't have joined SS 6 months earlier. There are even new contributors who left disgusted after they got their 1st lowest sub-rate DL sale. I was banned (forum only but don't care) because for 3 months straight all I got was the lowest sub rate for DLs and so I complained about it on the forum saying greedy called them names etc. but anyone would after the pitiful earnings I got. SS doesn't even allow people to say how much they earn on other sites which is definitely against freedom of speech. I'd understand if we were employees but we're not. If someone is trained like I was in the 80s (art/design and photography, companies should pay decent rates. But thanks to the rich tech geeks & their websites they (and the buyers) have reduced the value of design & photography and nothing was ever done to control them.

Ummm, the T&Cs absolutely say that SS can set and change royalties. How on Earth do you think that they shouldn't be?

You are NOT a Shutterstock employee. You are using their service to sell licenses to use your images. You are a customer (edit: you are basically a customer of their service). They pay you a royalty and as long as you are ok with that royalty you will continue to use their service (or not like some of us).
Get off your high horse, you aren't special. If you want to be a rich tech geek, start your own microstock company.

500px is a great place to follow some extremely talented photographers and see their work (and share your own).

I've never seen it as a place to sell microstock images. Frankly, the overall quality used to be a lot better before they went with the "sell your images" angle.

Quote from: Copidosoma on March 11, 2021, 11:25

Continuing to sell your images on stock sites will reduce the value of the NFT to virtually zero.

Except it wouldn't.  As I understand it, it doesn't matter how many "copies" are out there, the "original" still holds its value.

Of course, it all sounds like nonsense to me, but that's what I glean from what I've read.

The "original" holds its value but if you are trying to sell an exclusive item for $XXXX.XX nobody is likely to pay that if they can download it for $0.XX

Having a small number of copies around would be fine. Sort of like limited edition art prints or something. But trying to sell things in a similar fashion to microstock (generic images with many similar available ones being sold at extremely low prices) is not really a model that would fit with NFTs as far as I know.

I'm interested.

$6.5 million USD and you can have all rights to my footage.

Message me if you are interested.

 

I'll save you the trouble of the whole auction thing and just buy it from you for $1

Go to a bank and try to get exactly the "official" currency exchange rate. You won't.
You are paying a fee for the conversion. It is nearly unavoidable.

For those who missed it and are wondering how these could possibly have slipped past the reviewers...

There is a thing called "background blur" which is footage or stills that are intentionally blurred (while still retaining some of the information about what is actually going on in the scene). They are actually very common in ads (used for backgrounds) and if you keep your eye out for them you will see them all over the place. They were pretty hot on SS for a few weeks about two years ago.

If you can't tell the difference between this and "my full frame DSLR creates super thin DOF where 10% of the image is in near focus but the reviewers keep rejecting it Whaaaa" then you need to take a step back and think about it a bit I think.

Having said all that, this is another great example of fraudsters and thieves making money off the backs of legit contributors. Hopefully Shutterstock does something that shows they take this seriously, I've given up waiting for them to do so. This portfolio may get removed but the original creators of the material will not see a penny of what was stolen from them.

So glad I pulled my images/video from SS. Although the whole industry is not in a great place these days.

I just got a single $23.75 Subscription download. My image sales have been turned off since July 1st.

I don't even know how a sub (not an EL) can be sold so that I get a $23.75 commission.
I don't know how I'll get that money out of my account unless I turn image sales back on.

What a gong show.

Quote from: panicAttack on July 20, 2020, 09:26

Quote from: cathyslife on July 20, 2020, 06:21

They are a business. They do what makes the most money for them. Most businesses do. Maybe you aren�t cut out for microstock. Maybe you are better suited for journalism.

we are also businesses. Microstock is also business, it's not like only agencies are businesses here.

True, however not every contributor is a business. Some are hobbyists doing it for the attention and exposure.
Then you have the contributors who are a "business" on paper but don't treat it as such and continuously undercut themselves by uploading to bottom-tier agencies.

And you also have businesses whose overhead is a small fraction of what others pay. Work will be outsourced to areas where cost of living is low and so are labor rates (and expectations of such). If you are living in a major "western" city and expect this to be any more than a hobby, you're either exceptionally talented, hard working or you are in for disappointment.

Taking a dirt nap.
 

You are approaching this backwards, as have previous people who have attempted such things.

Your priority should be on buyers. Find markets that will provide large volumes of sales. Build a site and the contributors will come in a massive tsunami.
Having a nice site and a million contributors with no buyers will be pointless (and has been done before).

Get your market access set up and then we'll talk.

contributors don't like what they see, but after years of building their portfolio and enjoying good revenue, they find it hard to quit suddenly. So they stick it out with SS, disgruntled and disappointed, clinging to the false hope it'll get better. Hopefully, after some time most of them will see they're better off without SS.

You can substitute IS for SS not so long ago and it would be the same issue. Same old story.