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Messages - Pauws99
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76
« on: February 21, 2021, 04:29 »
....
This will also drastically reduce the demand since fewer customers will be able to afford the new prices....
this is as wrong as Sean is wrong in naming the user H2O by the wrong name.
web design companies have no problem with photo prices at all nor do they insist on cheaper ones. they charge it most often from the customer's design anyway. nor does anyone go bankrupt because of the high prices of photos on the internet.
but I see that you are accustomed to this wild west and the real question is whether you should be paid more at all when you think you are worth less.
The real question is why do you think you are an employee when the agency doesn't even own what you produce? Or perhaps why Shutterstock have a duty to pay you what you think you are worth.
Where did i wrote that? That we are employees, nonsense.
The real question is why do you think that things don't ever change? 15 years ago you could use stolen music on your youtube video, try it now. 2 years ago social media haven't accused or banned anyone for writing whatever they think is a fact(even i personality don't agree with censorship for whatever reason). 3 days ago uber drivers had no benefits. Today we have no control of our contents, where it will be sold or given away for free. Internet changed a lot in last few years and that's only start.
EU based contributors doesn't have anything to do with that, because it doesn't work like that, but agencies can of course choose not to sell in EU market.
This is beginning to be repeatable and pointless conversation, putting some word i didn't even wrote, time will tell. Cheers and good luck!!
The thread is about the judgement that some Uber employees being classed as employees. You agree that we are not employees so we would probably need to look at monopoly and unfair competition laws rather than employment. I don't think the laws of supply and demand in a capitalist world are going to change anytime soon. Shutterstock could easily decide what countries they accept contributors from. Music is an interesting parallel. Recorded music per se is now close to worthless so the industry now focusses on value added products such as Vinyl and live music. We have to adopt the same thinking. But you are right in that only time will tell.
77
« on: February 21, 2021, 03:02 »
....
This will also drastically reduce the demand since fewer customers will be able to afford the new prices....
this is as wrong as Sean is wrong in naming the user H2O by the wrong name.
web design companies have no problem with photo prices at all nor do they insist on cheaper ones. they charge it most often from the customer's design anyway. nor does anyone go bankrupt because of the high prices of photos on the internet.
but I see that you are accustomed to this wild west and the real question is whether you should be paid more at all when you think you are worth less.
The real question is why do you think you are an employee when the agency doesn't even own what you produce? Or perhaps why Shutterstock have a duty to pay you what you think you are worth.
78
« on: February 21, 2021, 01:51 »
Make no mistake the Microstock business will be part of this.
I don't think too many of us should wish for this.
Just think: how many microstockers are able to make a minimum monthly wage now?
If through some absurd regulation, all microstock agencies will be obligated to consider their contributors as employees, the natural consequence will be massive "layoffs", since they will only afford to pay very few of us a minimum wage, not to mention other mandatory benefits.
Firing let's say 95% of the contributors will also translate in culling the database by similar amounts, since they will not be allowed to sell the work of non-employees.
The price asked from customers will skyrocket in order to be able to pay a critical mass of contributors their legal minimum wage.
This will also drastically reduce the demand since fewer customers will be able to afford the new prices. The income for all agencies will decline rapidly.
Smaller agencies like DT, DP, 123RF will go bankrupt.
So... think twice before wishing the end of this industry. 
The other possibility is that agencies would simply not accept EU contributors.
79
« on: February 20, 2021, 16:36 »
If you think a contract is outragous don't sign it. No one is compelled to sign up to an agency no agency requires you to submit a minimum number of pictures or direct you on what to produce and mostly they don't restrict your ability to sell elsewhere.
did you sign anything when contract terms were changed? nobody did
contract can be changed only if both sides agrees, at least in EU, anything other than that is illegal.
retroactively changing terms of use is and will always be illegal if both parties dont agree, and option that we can remove all of our images and leave is not real options because in that way everyone can leave, uber drivers, workers, employees. (yes, we dont have same rights and employees, but uber drivers didn't have few days ago either).
In soon regulated internet market we will have options to agree to new terms or choose not to, where our already approved content stay in same conditions as we agreed and we just don't upload any new content for conditions that we didn't agree upon.
If agencies don't want to work under EU law they can leave 450 millions EU market. But they will not do that, count on that.
So do you reckon Stock Sites should be allowed to continue to sell our work if we decide to leave under the conditions at the time forever? Same logic.
you answered your own question. OUR work. but with this you also confirmed what I wrote, as it makes no sense to sell other people's works for life, even if their creators do not agree.
But why do you think they should compelled to sell it using their resources if they don't want to?
80
« on: February 20, 2021, 15:31 »
If you think a contract is outragous don't sign it. No one is compelled to sign up to an agency no agency requires you to submit a minimum number of pictures or direct you on what to produce and mostly they don't restrict your ability to sell elsewhere.
did you sign anything when contract terms were changed? nobody did
contract can be changed only if both sides agrees, at least in EU, anything other than that is illegal.
retroactively changing terms of use is and will always be illegal if both parties dont agree, and option that we can remove all of our images and leave is not real options because in that way everyone can leave, uber drivers, workers, employees. (yes, we dont have same rights and employees, but uber drivers didn't have few days ago either).
In soon regulated internet market we will have options to agree to new terms or choose not to, where our already approved content stay in same conditions as we agreed and we just don't upload any new content for conditions that we didn't agree upon.
If agencies don't want to work under EU law they can leave 450 millions EU market. But they will not do that, count on that.
So do you reckon Stock Sites should be allowed to continue to sell our work if we decide to leave under the conditions at the time forever? Same logic.
81
« on: February 20, 2021, 12:04 »
If you think a contract is outragous don't sign it. No one is compelled to sign up to an agency no agency requires you to submit a minimum number of pictures or direct you on what to produce and mostly they don't restrict your ability to sell elsewhere.
It's all very well saying this, in reality the Agencies are always changing the Contracts, so you start off with a reasonable contract and then over the years after you have put a great deal of time and effort into the portfolios they change the terms you originally signed up for.
This is not being compelled to sign, this is being forced to sign.
and you can leave. I'm not saying I like it but to put up any kind of case is next to impossible. If they required exclusivity or had any requirements to produce material possibly. The Uber drivers are considered employees for the time they are logged into the app how would that work?
82
« on: February 20, 2021, 11:31 »
If you think a contract is outragous don't sign it. No one is compelled to sign up to an agency no agency requires you to submit a minimum number of pictures or direct you on what to produce and mostly they don't restrict your ability to sell elsewhere.
83
« on: February 10, 2021, 15:09 »
I'm not sure why it would attract contributors to a major site. I would guess any serious players who don't have an exclusive deal are already signed up with adobe and shutterstock. A new site might attract people though many of us remember the previous ill fated attempt at a Blockchain site..... https://www.wemark.com/.
84
« on: February 10, 2021, 10:54 »
Adobe will be dominating this market in no time. Shutterstock and Istock are being left behind much faster that everybody thought. The Shutterstock move is just a quick money grab so the founder and a few more people in the management can make as much money as possible before leaving the sinking ship. Mr Oringer is slowly selling his stock in the company every week. I wonder if he still has more than 50%.
Istock did the same when they raised prices like crazy with Hellman&Friedman in this case making a quick money grab on the back of their customers. They run away and then they had no other option to reduce royalties, introduce subs, ...... Since today they have not recovered from the hit, have a huge debt that at one point might put them out of business in the future.
Less and less top contributors are giving any content to Shutterstock and that only means one thing in the near future. As simple as that.
We would all like to believe it I'm sure but I don't think theres much evidence for that. "Third Quarter 2020 highlights compared to Third Quarter 2019: Key Operating Metrics Subscribers increased 39%, to 255,000. Subscriber revenue increased 12% to $67.6 million. Average revenue per customer, increased 0.3% to $328. Paid downloads decreased 6% to 43.4 million. Revenue per download increased by $0.39 to $3.79. Image collection expanded 18% to approximately 350 million images. Footage collection expanded 25% to approximately 20 million clips."
85
« on: February 07, 2021, 01:37 »
Just got my payout....well done to them. I was expecting it to drag out.  . Enough for a meal McDonalds rather than Michelin starred sadly.
86
« on: February 06, 2021, 16:56 »
I sold 101 photos on SS in January 2021.
So, I moved to tier 2 on 1st February.
43% of my income in January was from on-demand sales.
I'm still think I can make more on SS in 2021 than in 2020.
I hope you are correct and I'm also hoping the same for myself. But after "HOPE" the new payment schedule doesn't look really optimistic. February is going to pass January for me, probably by the 15th at the rate things are going.
That's not saying a whole lot, because Jan. 2021 was down 33% from 2020.
I was down 67%  .
87
« on: February 05, 2021, 14:45 »
The gravy-train is over and the ship is long gone!
The train crashed and the ship sank.
All this is true, and it was Oringer and Pavlovsky who crashed the train and ran off with all the cash, shutterstock is like a the old Wild West.
It's a sick up.
They were hardly first in line were they? Every microstock agency has been doing the same over the last 5 years. You seem to reserve your ire for Shutterstock but what has happened is consistent with every other industry since capitalism began.
88
« on: February 05, 2021, 14:40 »
The gravy-train is over and the ship is long gone!
The train crashed and the ship sank.
And the sharks are circling sniffing the gravy
89
« on: February 04, 2021, 09:30 »
The reality is ShutterStock is run as a facist organisation, it doesnt remotely come anywhere near capitalism.
Those who continue to upload are just being exploited by a bunch of Nazis.
Shutterstock is a product of unfettered free market capitalism. It has nothing whatever to do with Fascism as far as I can see. To draw parallels with concentration camps is a bit ridiculous really.
I am drawing a parallel with how Jon Oringer and Stan Pavlovsky think, there thinking is straight out of the Facist playbook.
For example?
I am not saying that Oringer and Pavlovsky are doing this because they are Jewish, (who cares what they are) I am simply saying they are Fascist, sure they run Shutterstock like many large companies (who are also run by Fascists).
The whole fee structure is 'Work will set you Free', which is a Facist motto.
The fee structure is based on the capitalist system of supply and demand. Nothing to do with fascism. You don't work for Shutterstock and no one is forcing you to contribute. One of the primary definitions of Fascism is nationalism which they are the complete opposite of. They are simply exploitative bosses.
I don't believe the fee structure is supply and demand, it is based on those who control the fees ripping off the suppliers, by hiding behind a fee structure that they won't divulge.
The definition of Fascism is;- a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy.
This can be directly applied to Shutterstock as a business, the only trait that is missing is 'ultranationalism' otherwise all the characteristics are the same.
They are Business Fascists, it is a way of thinking.
No one is forcing you to have any kind of relationship with Shutterstock whatsover. Whilst SS may be the largest player they don't have power to dictate anything...and certainly not the way society or economies function.
90
« on: February 04, 2021, 07:07 »
The reality is ShutterStock is run as a facist organisation, it doesnt remotely come anywhere near capitalism.
Those who continue to upload are just being exploited by a bunch of Nazis.
Shutterstock is a product of unfettered free market capitalism. It has nothing whatever to do with Fascism as far as I can see. To draw parallels with concentration camps is a bit ridiculous really.
I am drawing a parallel with how Jon Oringer and Stan Pavlovsky think, there thinking is straight out of the Facist playbook.
For example?
I am not saying that Oringer and Pavlovsky are doing this because they are Jewish, (who cares what they are) I am simply saying they are Fascist, sure they run Shutterstock like many large companies (who are also run by Fascists).
The whole fee structure is 'Work will set you Free', which is a Facist motto.
The fee structure is based on the capitalist system of supply and demand. Nothing to do with fascism. You don't work for Shutterstock and no one is forcing you to contribute. One of the primary definitions of Fascism is nationalism which they are the complete opposite of. They are simply exploitative bosses.
91
« on: February 03, 2021, 13:32 »
The reality is ShutterStock is run as a facist organisation, it doesnt remotely come anywhere near capitalism.
Those who continue to upload are just being exploited by a bunch of Nazis.
Shutterstock is a product of unfettered free market capitalism. It has nothing whatever to do with Fascism as far as I can see. To draw parallels with concentration camps is a bit ridiculous really.
I am drawing a parallel with how Jon Oringer and Stan Pavlovsky think, there thinking is straight out of the Facist playbook.
For example?
92
« on: February 02, 2021, 14:55 »
The reality is ShutterStock is run as a facist organisation, it doesnt remotely come anywhere near capitalism.
Those who continue to upload are just being exploited by a bunch of Nazis.
Shutterstock is a product of unfettered free market capitalism. It has nothing whatever to do with Fascism as far as I can see. To draw parallels with concentration camps is a bit ridiculous really.
93
« on: February 02, 2021, 14:45 »
Yes of course they remain the same!^^ but all revenues are geared towards the eastern blocks, Thailand etc, etc. the actual search algorithm is aimed towards that. SS have been nursing these markets for many years now!
Contributors are not a market they are suppliers. Do you have any evidence that the search engine is geared that way or any reason why it is of any commercial advantage to SS that contribitors come from certain countries?
94
« on: January 16, 2021, 04:05 »
Hi everyone
The only agency that not only haven't cut commission but even raised them is Dreamstime and what's interesting to me, and this is my personal experience, it's the only agency that I keep selling more and much better more higher single photo sales then before. I more often see 2.20, 3.65, 1.92 and 1.72 sales then last 2-3 years.
Thank you Dreamstime, you proved it can be done without taking advantage on your contributors!
I really hope you won't be bought by some greedy giant agency.
We contributors will never forget it!
I've always liked them but for me the bottom line is they don't generate enough sales. They seem to be holding up quite well at present though. I've not calculated it but I suspect their RPD for me is the highest now. (except Alamy where I sell rarely).
95
« on: January 14, 2021, 01:38 »
Trump impeached for the second time.
There's a record he can boast about!
Yes! And the House and Senate both voted to impeach. Get that idiot outta here, hes destroyed the country.
As I understand it it now goes for Trial at the Senate. It seems the impeachment has had the effect of shutting the clown up for a while....not sure if it will achieve much more than that.
96
« on: January 13, 2021, 16:53 »
anyway I heard it was a mixture of Rep protesters and Antifa/BLM!...on a British channel!
(eyeroll)
Just to be clear, not on any British media I've seen!
Nor me
97
« on: January 11, 2021, 04:13 »
On the right of this site is a pretty comprehensive list of stock companies. Thats a starting point. I'd use google and then start enquiring directly to the companies. Think about your skill set and matching to possible other avenues also identify gaps that you could address in your down time.
Good luck
98
« on: January 02, 2021, 02:36 »
I had a 33.6% drop in shittystock sales however Alamy and Adobe were both up on previous years.
Alamy up by 10% and Adobe by 30%
Of the small agencies only Dreamstime showed any increase after a good few months before dropping back to their usual moribund state. The rest were crappy
Over all though none of the positive results outweighed the loss from shitterstock.
Commisioned work collapsed too no big surprise though 
I guess those of us in Microstock have done a lot better than those in event photography, commisoned work and other face to faces activities like training/workshops. My sales have fallen I suspect as much due to lack of motivation to try and beat the odds and the virus effects.
99
« on: January 01, 2021, 06:25 »
Happens every month....in December I sold virtually nothing as opposed the the normal slightly better next to nothing!
100
« on: December 29, 2020, 07:37 »
I contacted support and I had to resync my fotolio account.........apparently an "internal error".
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