Quote from: VB inc on May 01, 2013, 21:59

I am pleasantly surprised at the amount of downloads i get on shutterstock. With around 150 vectors i have in my portfolio, this being my 3rd month on SS i made out to over $300 in dls with over 700 total dls this month, i cant complain. Made over $500 in total lifetime earnings last week since starting to upload my portfolio in end of january which bumped me up from .25 to .33 which helps greatly. I feel blessed it only took me less than 3 months to get the raise. the jump from $1.88 to $2.44 royalty on "on demand images" helps greatly.

Nice!!! This is the ratio I would like to have! I think vectors sell better than photo's? I found another comment were someone also sold onlu vector and had a great sales ratio! I'm also doing vectors now since my camera is in for repair so I'm hoping it will boost my sales. If I create the right vector images.

Thanks! I just have to mention i have  over 15 years creating vectors so i have a bit of experience in that area. Anything you put hard work into will eventually pay off and this side income from SS definitely helps alleviate some of the bad taste in my mouth from istock.

I have made the poll results available to all. I was hoping there would be more participants.

that explains why i had 1/3 less downloads than regular downloads as all my files are new files. 

I will most likely make the poll viewable even if you haven't voted if we get enough votes later on. It would be interesting to get an idea roughly how many vector artists are contributing at SS that are here at MSG.

Quote from: ShadySue on April 26, 2013, 09:52

Quote from: tickstock on April 26, 2013, 09:47

The thing I find funny is that last month everyone was keeping a count of how many files were getting deleted and saying this is proof Istock is going down and now this month they are doing counts of all the files being uploaded and saying this is proof Istock is going down, the same people are doing this.

It's possible the two are not unconnected.

Maybe or maybe not.  D-day maybe took down 50,000 images, in 3 days they've made up for that.  The point though was that contributors here are saying less files on Istock is proof they are failing and more files on Istock is proof they are failing.

I think ur confusing "istock going down" and istock generating less money for its contributors. Plenty of actions by the owners of the agency lead to less money in my pocket. Is it still speculation at this point that there are less buyers currently than previous years.

thanks luis!

It seems kind of small sum of $28 to the contributor to let the buyer to resell your graphic/photo... Is there a way for you to opt out of this?

"You are allowed to use an image as a single, hand-painted reproduction (as opposed to printed), but you would not be allowed to resell it under the terms of the Standard License. However, with the Enhanced License, you are permitted to resell such reproductions. Again, the difference is Personal Usage (Standard) versus Commercial (Enhanced).

If you wish to incorporate an image in merchandise for resale or distribution, including without limitation, clothing, artwork, magnets, posters, mugs and mouse-pads, you will absolutely need an Enhanced License."

Great job! I love ur logo.

This image tells me...
Geeks
Geeks having fun at work

I think it's a good image since they are trying to attract geeks by showing that their workplace isn't so corporate.

I think fotolia is making my decision easier not to upload my vectors there.

To be clear, we only require a scan or picture of your reference images for vectors/illustrations. We do not require step-by-step images. We also no longer require you to submit the reference image with a filled out property release - a scan or picture of the reference image along with your submission is acceptable.

Is this true? A month ago, a batch of my vectors all got rejected (around 20) because i uploaded just the sketches and my reference photos i used without a property release. It got rejected saying it needed a property release. I attached it to the property release and got rejected again for not having a witness sign it. Being that i drew these illustrations when i was istock exclusive 3 years ago, i had to fake sign witness just to get these things approved. All a cumbersome confusing and illogical process if you ask me so i really hope that you dont need property release when submitting your references from now on.

It's that extra kick to the face from Getty to its contributors because it seems to be only slow on the contributors side.
I guess its due to all the extra code stuffed into its programming? I dont really code but i can see some of it being something like this.

- Don't show contributor "A" portfolio from 8am-12pm mondays and wed when searched...
- Lets just say buyer bought this item for $5 when it was really bought for $7 code every 10th sale...
- every 25 sales, one is refunded for twice the amount
- contributor "B" made some posts on our forum that made us look dumb. so his search placement goes down by 50 image slots
- contributor "B" keeps making sense on the forums and is pointing out our greed. extra 10% off 50% of all his downloads dont report

I can keep going on but at least i had some fun 

Quote from: click_click on April 09, 2013, 19:22

SS decided to show their faces on this forum and I take this as privilege for us contributors.

SS is a big company and this practice is not too common.

I think when the time is right you might very well get an invitation from them. So time will tell how this all pans out.
As long as Jon has the "pants" on, I'm fairly confident that we (SS contributors) won't get screwed.

Without SS I wouldn't be where I am today, for me, it counts for something.

I truly appreciate all of the above as well - Shutterstock has been and is a great agency for me, and I admired (and still do) their openness and inclusiveness. That's why this "closed" and "by invitation only" Offset deal sounds alarming to me - it's like SS has people now with traditional stock industry experience who still don't understand how come micro can sell for so low - "these images must be crap, so we need to introduce something better with better quality and "regular" pricing".

"Closed"  and "invitation" isnt microstock. offset isnt microstock. Why cant a successful microstock company create another option for some contributors to get higher returns for their content? I believe they fully understand why micro can sell for so low because their cheaper pricing brought all the buyers to their site.

I like to believe that by starting offset, its SS way of admitting its guilt for playing a major role (imo) in the current cheap prices for great content. It was bound to happen anyway if SS didn't do it. There is a flaw to this crowd sourced model which itself is another topic all together but sorry to digress. Contributors with decent portfolios must have gotten a lot of downloads early on amongst a sea full of mediocre images. As word spreads out that you get decent returns on images, more and more contributors joins which just increases the overall quality of SS portfolio. Better quality brings more buyers which leads to more downloads. Of course Getty helped SS to where it is today just by seeing where the breaking point of their greed was.

Even tho it is by invitation and closed now, i believe they will let a lot of contributors in due time. They owe at least that much to the contributors. Offset is their "vetta" because they know the content that they have been getting is of superior quality and worth more than subscription prices.

I would like to think that the buyer that pays $50 for my image appreciates it more than the 75 others that can buy it for a lot less. I feel that value gets lost in these subscription mentality of the buyers.