Thanks for all of those who have contributed. We now have some excellent images to use on the front page and a small gallery of work that shows off the creative talents of the community.

We are progressing swiftly on the core website build.

Now, this is a fun game. We just sold this file on Pond5 and received $76-80. It's no longer available on Shutterstock. Don't be your cheap competitor.
https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/75180206-african-stock-video-rural-young-children-washing-hands

But anyway, what is the idea, will it just be a collection of images to represent the talented artists who joined the coalition? What is the coalition planning to do then? Displaying them somewhere will not do anything on its own.

Okay, I see your point. What you are waiting for is the community to build its own stock agency and pull everyone onboard as exclusive, right?

Firstly, that's not what we are building in terms of this thread. Right now we are building an online home for stock contributors. That's what my team and I have volunteered to do, anyway. So you are quite right, we are not, at this point anyway, building an agency. We are building the site for an organisation that represents us as a first stage.

Is this the start of a fully contributor-owned agency where 80% or more of commissions are kept by contributors? I have no idea. It's certainly a possibility.

But I know where it starts.

It starts with us as a community pulling together right now as a group to send a message loud and clear not just to Shutterstock, but to every agency in the industry. That message is this:

As of this month, the global contributors are no longer yours to abuse with tinpot pricing and peanut royalties. For too long we have been pushed around like herd cattle milked daily for you to take all the cream.

We are not going to continue doing business like this. We are organising. We are working towards a unified front that represents our interests as contributors. And we will win, too, because really at $0.10 a download, what exactly do any of us stand to lose?

Sorry, I should have added that I'm limiting it to 1500px as the maximum we need so those who want to participate know they are basically only committing to web resolution images and nothing larger. Of course, supplying larger images if you want is not a problem.

All of our videos now also turned off at Shutterstock. Awaiting some answers from Pond5 but we will probably go exclusive for video there shortly.

As many of you will already be aware, moves are afoot to create an organisation to effectively represent us and to safeguard the value of our creative assets. In less than 24-hours, a domain has been purchased and a team are already working the creation of a website at www.stockcoalition.org.

A call has already gone out for stock photo contributions for the site on the Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/261369748434285

That said, not everyone monitors their Facebook, so here are the details of the request:

Good news - we have that website build underway. However, we are calling on our community of talented artists to contribute one picture each that best represents your work and your country. The goal will be to have between three and five images for a front-page slider and then a gallery of smaller images that are representative of the broad global talent we have as a community.

Those who want to assist, please supply images no larger than 1500px on the long side. We will reference the photographer, but will not have watermarks - so treat it as if it were an agency purchase and supply images accordingly.

To contribute, please email your images directly to [email protected]. Please also include your First Name, Last Name, optional nickname or stock handle and your website or agency portfolio that you wish to promote online.

SS share price down 3% today. I'd be nervous af if I had shares with these fools. I'm pretty sure it's going to tank fast as they start to realise that without contributors they don't have a business.

Genius.

Thanks, I knew it was someone.

It really is a great way of doing things. There's so much variety in terms of image quality, rarity and so on. Ensures a decent turnover or images as buyers likely to consider newer images with lower price points vs proven best sellers with higher prices.

So many different directions and models agencies could explore rather than just trying to strangle us to increase profits.

Yes, exactly the point. There are so many ways of packaging the content for buyers - especially if there is some level of exclusivity. Almost all of the value is sitting in the space between how much buyers are currently paying vs how much they would be willing to pay if they knew they could not get it somewhere else for peanuts.

What I know for sure is that there is very little margin sitting is the contributor's commission. Utter buffoons.

I doubt it. Our sales are up at P5 and they are about to get a good few video exclusives. They have a plan to sell stock videos, which is more than one can say for SS.

They get all butthurt about failing at premium stock . . . when they never enabled their competent supplier base to push that strategy forwards! Spent how much money on trying to get "premium" contributors to work with them . . . who were never stock production specialists!

The more I look at it, the more I think that their blind spot is that they know nothing about the production of shooting quality stock images and videos. It's a bit like the owner of a farmer's market who thinks he knows a lot about farming because he sells cabbages every day. Selling cabbages is not the same as growing the * things.

Like just about everyone else, I've been thinking long and hard over the weekend about what to do about this situation. I think to a large degree, Shutterstock has made it for us.

They simply don't have a plan for the stock assets under their control.

Instead of making a plan like a McDonalds "supersize" or "upsize" strategy, or taking the top 20% of assets in their database and calling for them to go exclusive and producing value through increased pricing that way, they are trying to squeeze suppliers where there is nothing left to squeeze.

Shutterstock's move shouts one thing loud and clear - they do not have a plan for marketing our stock assets effectively. Their smart "plan" is to keep cutting price and royalties to contributors.

As a result, they are pretty much admitting that their business model is unsustainable. IMO, there is no longer any future at Shutterstock. Not for suppliers, not for buyers and not for investors.

Pond5 does have a plan. For videos, they want us to go exclusive at their agency with the following benefits:

- 60% commissions
- They will sub-license through Adobe and Vimeo Stock anyway
- We can choose the pricing
- We will probably go just under $100 for HD and $199 for 4k
- We can continue marketing our work through our own personal online platform

I've had a tough call with our team this morning. We are going to take the short term pain for a longer strategy that creates sustainable value by going exclusive at Pond5 for video.

If anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears. If not, I suggest that anyone with a stock video portfolio does something similar. We cannot continue to generate value for our work at cheap agencies.

I don't personally see the point in arguing with Shutterstock or begging them to change their minds or backtrack on their recent actions. That's not going to change the fact that they simply don't have a sustainable plan. For us, the only option is to walk away and work with partners who do.

That's our plan for video going forwards, but I'm really not too sure about the images yet. What is clear though is that we will be deactivating our portfolio of images at Shutterstock this week too. As to where they go from here largely depends on the result of our application at Stocksy.

Fundamentally, Shutterstock owns nothing. They are just a marketplace that brings buyers and sellers together.

How long does it take for shareholders to realise that without any images or videos these fools have nothing to sell? I don't care how clever they think they are to cut the pie ever smaller for contributors, they have just destroyed one of the fundamentals to their business model.

Surely "investors" will notice that too? And the sh!t storms only getting started.