I prefer using depositphotos.com they have more designer-friendly roylaties.

Haha. They cut royalties this year by 25%. What used to be 36c per download is now 27c...

Depends on the quality of your vectors, but DT is a low earner for me.

I'd avoid clipdealer, clipcanvas, dreamstime, 123RF and depositphotos... I get sales once in a blue moon. Or not at all.

What's the situation with footage on 123RF now? I remember an email last year saying they wouldn't accept any new content and existing content would be "repurposed"...?
Is it now an invitation-only thing?

Probably one understanding is that our lack of unity and lack of strong resistance to Shutterstock has led to all agencies going the same route.

What now? How do we now learn from this and push back. Alamy has barely any significant earnings. Can they be dropped enmasse

The agencies would have followed anyway, there's no way we could have prevented the race to the bottom.

Quote from: Noedelhap on May 18, 2021, 10:50

The option below in my account is already unchecked, so that means I'm already opted out of this exciting deal right?

"Occasionally we have fantastic deals and partnerships with Alamy approved third parties, opt-in to take advantage (Don�t worry, we�ll never sell or share your details.)"

No, that's only concerning your email preferences. Alamy's ditribution scheme option is here https://www.alamy.com/distribution-terms.aspx, in the "Additional revenue options" of your Alamy dashboard.

Thanks.

Alamy sells like crap so I think this will be the end for me then. I haven't received the exciting news yet, but I'm considering closing my account.

If they don't want to show us respect, screw them.

 It is important for you to know that this minimum guarantee offer is not being made to all contributors. It is being offered to you as a specially selected contributor who has significant video earnings, so we need to remind you that this letter, all of the details about the new subscription and the minimum guarantee offer is subject to the confidentiality sections in your Getty Images Artist Supply Agreement.

Might wanna watch out

But in all seriousness, Getty already was a lowballing agency with absurdly low video prices, now they're eroding video credit sales even further. It's all happening sooner than I thought, but it's the inevitable downfall of video sales in the microstock industry. No minimum royalties either (AFAIK), so it won't be long before video penny sales are the new norm.

Funny post.

Cryptos are nothing and their value is nothing. Are not money, are not coins, are not USD or Euros, are not silver or gold, are not a house or a parcel, are not a part of a company. It's stupid to think they are something like real money. If doge goes to the Moon ALL of the bitcoiners will sell BTC and buy DOGE and then they will sink BTC.

The point is that you just own 1 and 0 that, in most of cases, are useless. The blockchain technology means nothing for the 99.99% of Earth population. And yes, most of cryptos are Ponzi scheme with no doubt. I own some, but I'm not a part of a cult. It's better to know well where you are with your money.

We have seen this before, with other market revolution based on mortages and money coming from bets.

But you can be sure about one thing: Cryptos will never be close to replace real money or close to be used like real money. Can't happen. And all the futuristic companies adopting BTC will step back in the first crash.

Regards.

I'm sorry, but what you're saying doesn't make sense.
First of all, all kinds of money, even USD and EUR, can be considered worrtless by itself. It's represented by pieces of paper and coins of (cheap) metals. Most (fiat) money exists on bank accounts, as virtual 0s and 1s. Collectively, we agreed that these accounts hold value and that value can be exchanged.

The same thing goes for crypto coins/tokens. Its value is derived from supply and demand. What someone considers valuable, someone else may not. Fiat may currently be more universally accepted, but it won't be long before crypto becomes equally accepted, because of the decentralization aspect. Maybe not bitcoin (it's almost antique by now) but certainly another one which is more suited for mass adoption. Blockchain is abracadabra for most people, but like economics you don't have to understand every little thing in order to use it as money.
And then there are some crypto projects/ coins which have actual use cases within a certain ecosystem, beyond pure speculation. I don't know what makes you so sure it's never going to replace anything, but I wouldn't write off crypto just yet.

Quote from: Zero Talent on March 03, 2021, 18:25

Quote from: blvdone on March 03, 2021, 17:29

The amount of attacks I got from other contributors for posting it on Shutterstock was insane.  Those people are turning other cheek to Shutterstock.  Something I wouldn't do.  After what Jon did to us last year reducing our pays instantly, honestly assessing his photos as "suck" was nothing.  He's not an active contributor not dedicated to the art of creating stock photos/videos to pay some bills anym ore.  Do any of those people think he's crying because I called his photos "suck"?  Come on man.

You gave them so many other reasons to do it, but they chose the funniest: berating Oringer, the contributor! Lol!
I can definitely imagine some smiles in the admin community. 
The joke is on you, I'm afraid. 

I agree with you. That J. Oringer used to be a nice guy when he was a forum admin. I think money changes many people for the worst. These big American corporations should be held to account by someone because the US federal government just lets 'em get away with stuff even when it's wrong. they're corrupt to the core. It would never be allowed in my country or the EU.

I'm not advocating for SS but this is not true. It's not solely an American corporations thing. Lots of European corporations are greedy and opportunistic. And who can blame them? They have power and bring in millions or billions of dollars. The bottom line is what counts, nothing else.
Even a contribution to charity (society or the environment) is done solely to enhance their public image (and make more profit), not because they're so pure and humanitarian. And as long as employees (or we contributors) facilitate Shutterstock's actions, they can do whatever they want. Goverments can't and won't do anything to stop them from making money, because it's a free market economy.

Quote from: Noedelhap on April 29, 2021, 08:56

The revenue share model will be the new normal in microstock. Another agency jumping on the subscription bandwagon and untransparent revenue models.

At least there is an opt-out for the contributors. But I think it won't be long before this program is going to be implemented agency-wide for all contributors (with no opt-out, except delete your portfolio).

I am in the revenue share with Envanto, Elements, and that particular revenue share model is healthy. The difference is they are VERY picky about what gets selected, unlike DP who is using "unsold" or "low sell" images. 

How is it healthy exactly? It's just a way to devalue content. In Envato's case, the high-quality images will be selected, which seems to me is detrimental for credit sales and higher commissions that quality content deserves.
And because it's all thrown into some revenue pool (of unknown size) which makes it all very untransparent.

As a mental health option (not kidding), I suggest to the long haulers (and anyone else) to consider places like Wirestock. They may take a cut,

Another middleman taking a cut? No thanks. I don't do a whole lot of agency checking anymore, anyway, so I don't see the use for Wirestock doing 'the work' for me.
It's yet another business model trying to take a piece of the already small pie. But that's just me.

What I really don't understand is why so many of you appear to think any company or corporate entity is your friend.

Adobe is a publicly traded company and shareholders are their priority, not you the contributor.

Adobe like any other agency is completely self serving. Adobe is not doing this for your benefit they are doing it for "corporate profit" and only "corporate profit".

Of course no agency is our friend, and I have no illusion we contributors are respected in any way.

But I always thought Adobe's main revenue comes from their apps, not their stock, so I hoped they wouldn't yet walk over to the dark side of "unlimited downloads"...They are (were) one of the few agencies who offered decent RPD. Well, not anymore they ain't.
The world of microstock is completely effed up and already becoming unsustainable. I've already moved on to greener pastures and stopped producing microstock content (instead doing commissioned work).

@ Mat: "No minimum guarantee applies." So we can expect 0.02 royalties then? We probably don't ever get to see how many items were downloaded for the lump sum we'll receive, right?

What the heck, did they change the minimum payout to $60? I'd swear it was $30 earlier?