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Messages - Morphart

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26
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: August 17, 2020, 10:22 »
If you check the payment they show that they paid the double march earning, but we only received june ''normal'' earnings. I think they will fix this...

27
I thought Picfair's whole principle was trying to be fair to contributors. That's why you are called Picfair from picture and fair.
I know of no other stock agency that tries to charge contributors money just to use an ftp upload.
It sounds like a really bad way to develop contributor trust.
You will have seen how shutterstock shot themselves in the foot this month ruining their online reputation by doing what they did to contributors.
I have never had to pay just to be in an agency. Surely you can make enough money out of commissions without trying to charge me fees too?

Poor you... what are you complaining about actually? Crying that Picfair is giving you 100% commission, they take 0% since COVID, and you call that unfair? Normally they take 20% and 80% for the free plan, and you compare them to Shutterstock?

I never had sales with them (and I actually only had 1800 images there), but since 21st of december 2020, I made 5 sales. Since they give great comission and I do see sales with such a low number of images, I am giving them a try and subscribed for 1 year. Will let you know of the results, but I don't see Picfair as an agency. More like a personnal website and they promote your images on their site as a plus.

We'll see how it goes, I will upload my full portfolio and see if I get better results, I don't hope for much but I like giving a fair agency a chance.

28
General Stock Discussion / Re: RPD in SS and AS
« on: August 03, 2020, 12:18 »
RPD - last 3 months in my portfolio (90% illustration, very large portfolio). SS July had a lot of SOD (more than 100 during the weeke-end) at the end of the month which made the RPD jump up, I was not expecting any miracle from SS.

           SS      AS
May     0.77    0.88
Jun      0.66    0.87
Jul       0.86    0.99

29
Shutterstock.com / Re: Average EPD so far for June
« on: July 02, 2020, 20:08 »
Mostly vectors and some videos.

JAN RPD  $0.72
FEB RPD $0.82
MAR RPD $0.73
APR RPD $0.78
MAY RPD $0.78

JUN RPD $0.66 (had high single sales at the end of the month which upped the rpd, which was more like $0.59)

AVERAGE RPD SINCE DAY 1 IN SHUTTERSTOCK: 0.74$

Definetly have a loss of around 18% in total sales.

I calculated the average rate of subscription, On-Demand, Enhanced and left out single images (no way to know what they were paid before vs now).

Subscription : 0.23$ instead of 0.38$ before.
On demand: 2.81$ instead of 2.85$ before.
Enhanced: 33.70$ instead of 18-22$ before.

Subscription being always around half of total downloads, there is definetly a big loss there.


30
Wasn't subscriptions supposed to change? I am still getting a lot of $0.38 or maybe they kept the annual prepaid plans the same and they changed only the dl's from new customers?

Did they clarify this anywhere? I still have a large part of "normal" sub downloads.

The only way to test what really SS did is by monitoring it as Lifetime downloads vs lifetime downloads before new system came into effect.

So for example my lifetime average in SS was 0,65 / dl, if it drops it means that the new system isn't all that good for contributors.

Subscription now seems to be in Single And Others now

31
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0
« on: May 26, 2020, 11:10 »
Well, I can't make any sense of this. Will everyone zero at the beginning of each year (start on 15% and have to rise up the ranks fresh)? that seems insane.

If not, why is my level on the email tied to my downloads so far since January, and not based on my total for last year, which would place me well into the next tier.

"All contributors reset to level 1 for both images and videos every year on January 1st."
As a quota for the next year, not for the current, at least that's how I understand it. That mail is really lacking...

so you get paid the level of the previous year performance, not start from level 1? if thats the case its not too bad. they do need to CLARIFY that ASAP then before someone burns down their office

Don't hope for that, it's clearly stated in the email:
All contributors reset to level 1 for both images and videos every year on January 1st.

32
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0
« on: May 26, 2020, 11:08 »
This is worse than both iStock and 123rf.

1. The reset to the lowest rate Jan 1 each year

2. It's unit sales not $$, so videos, subscriptions and the SOD high value licenses count the same. Imagine getting one of the high value SODs in January, and instead of $102 you get $51 (because you're at 15% versus 30%)

3. Video is really hosed as their units are the same as image units, but typically (at least in the past) videos sold fewer but at a high royalty

4. Not clear what happens to subscription payments - are they a percentage now or still a rate table. As their enterprise business is shrinking (last two earnings calls) but the "e-commerce" business - subscriptions - is growing, they'd gain quite a lot by cutting our royalties there.

For now, we can turn off our portfolios without removing content, although that may not survive this slash and burn maneuver. As I'm already at my 30% rate (what I've been earning so far), I'd have nothing to lose in the long term by turning off content - if I were to choose to try and protest this despicable cash grab by the new CEO

I'm not surprised, but I am angry. I'll wait a bit for the formal announcement before deciding what to do.

Tossers.

Exactly my thoughts, was asking myself the same question. Reset to rank 1 on January could mean losing on enhanced and special license sales... more so if Shutterstock schemes to sell those in January... and they have not specified anything about the subscription which is the license we sell the most... and videos... sales already dropped, but now it doesn't make any sense uploading more videos, no way to get 2500 sales a year for most.

33
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0
« on: May 26, 2020, 11:04 »
Shutterstock forum is  on fire :-/...

RESET TO RANK 1 each January... then they arrange with big clients to sell large licenses and enhanced licensed while we are at tier 1 and get only 15%?

34
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 19, 2020, 12:29 »
Good for them for putting their money where their mouth is. I respect their honesty

Same, received exactly double of March earning and I appreciate it. I do hope that the income do rise in the next 6 months so that we can maintain this revenue after 6 months. Time will tell, but so far, so good.

35
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 18, 2020, 07:17 »
Didn't they say 15th at the latest in one of their replies? (or was that for reporting not payment?)
Yes 15th was for the reporting. They must be trying to figure out (our calculating) what they need to send more so that we receive double earnings as they promised (at least this is what I hope...)

36
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 17, 2020, 08:17 »
Guys, please don't hijack this thread. If you guys want to talk about public domain and stuffs, please bring this to another thread.
That was my point earlier, not sure why the subject turned to this. Just to finish with a answer to Me who sees me as the PD devil. I feel that you are frustrasted about this and think I am the cause of all this? No Shutterstock did not stop accepting PD because of me. They stopped altogether. No they dont have a special agreement just with me. You can have one too, just ask them but if you cannot meet their requirement you will not be able to send. In 2013 when they stopped, I had hours (years) of work and much money involved in buying books. Me, my wife and stepfather were working a lot on this niche so I contacted them as I was a little stressed out that they decide to stop PD, and after 3 months their legal departement came with a solution, and I know that some other have this agreement. SS said it was because it took too much time for their reviewer to validate the PD status of each image.
Lastly, SS, Deposit, Adobestock, Canstock, Mostphotos, iStock, 123rf, etc. They all accept PD. I dont force client to buy my images. They can do the research (you have the name of the book in the description), find the book, buy it, scan it, arrange it, vectorize it. Or they can buy mine or someone elses for 0.38$. Time has value, the books also. And to finish, there are MILLIONS of images in books, I dont own the monopoly. Go ahead, do the same no one is stopping you, Im just a guy behind his desk, not the devil of Microstock :)
Start a new thread or contact me directly if you have other question, but for the SS agreement, contact them they will tell you the terms, as I cannot.

37
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 16, 2020, 20:39 »
So, Morphart, you have been asked a few times on here and SS forums, how it is that you are able to upload and sell scanned vectors of old public domain illustrations and make money from them when they are not your own creations, but you have never answered the question, you suddenly just disappear from whatever the thread is - care to do so now?

How is it that you can scan all old images from books like Troussets Encyclopaedia, convert them into vectors and sell them to make money from? Do you have a special agreement with SS? Do you feel any guilt that they aren't your creations but you are making money from them? Do you have special dispensation from SS to upload public domain images that no-one else has? You have 611 pages of "vintage engraved" images, over 61,000 images which you did not create.

Will you answer or disappear?
Hi!

I don't remember you messaging me about this and not sure why you focus on me? Uncle Pete asked me some advice and information and I gladly gave it to him, not quite sure what you want me to answer to you?
I don't have anything to prove and I don't make the rules. I started with PD in 2011 when I saw so much of that content on iStock with most being bad quality scan so I tried to make them better, pure white on black and keyworded and uploaded them. I gave it a try and developped a niche over time. If you think there is no work behind it, just jump in the game and do the same thing, I don't see no one stopping you and I don't mind, there are already thousands doing this. I am definetly not the only one using public domain material, on gettyimage/istock you'll find many hundred of thousands of PD images and none are from me.

So to answer you questions (just not sure why I need to be a delegate for that):
- Do I feel guilt?
No, public domain work is what it is. Public domain. There are music artists making money out of PD work, millions of books re-edited and republished as is from PD work, millions of people using PD illustrations and photos on merchandise, thousands redoing old PD theatre piece, etc.
I don't make the law. Do I feel creative pride? Of course not. However I do love plunging into 1800s books and finding old text and illustrations and putting them back to life and available for people. This brings me some visibility and I get very interesting custom vintage illustration contract where on those I can create original work for clients using the old vintage style which I also love doing. I also have 40 000 creative color vectors and 3000+ video clips, why is this shocking you?

- For Shutterstock, I don't normally go to their forum unless I have a specific issue with them, and I don't remember you messaging me there either or emailing me. In any case, if you see that I don't answer in regards to shutterstock or other people do not answer, then you have your answer there. Please ask Shutterstock your concern and questions, as I cannot disclose any information. I just reread and I cannot disclose the terms of the agreement with SS, that said they do not say I cannot disclose that I have an agreement.

Now...... why are you posting this in this thread again?

Message me in PM and I'll gladly answer your question, but I don't have anything to prove and don't want to do a philosophical debate on public domain. I mainly do not involve myself with the forum so much now as I focus more on work and feel most of the thread now is mainly complaining. I have fun in the early years, I do like to read those that are here since I started in 2011 and try to follow up with this everchanging industry and try not to lose income over time.

Some do microstock to expand their art. For me microstock is 100% business and I keep the ''artistic and creative'' part for custom work of clients.

38
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 16, 2020, 13:31 »
My total April Canva income was up a bit over March - but not doubling, or even up to a decent 2016-2018 level. I look forward to them covering the difference to make it double. The fact that they removed the DL numbers is a little telling. I certainly won't be uploading there until the difference is covered.

My April was also about the same as March.

Well see how they handle that double earnings  ;)

39
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 15, 2020, 08:24 »
Well I saw it before they deleted it, and my downloads had increased by 500%.

No wonder they removed the field from the sales page, as everyone must be pretty angry to realise the true RPD.

Canva are clearly too ashamed to be transparent on this issue.

Wow, 5x more downloads and less income?

Anyone here got an increase in their income with this new subscription? Or we can start a poll if you want to remain anonymous. My guess is Canva expect some to earn more, and some earn less, and after 6 months those that earns less will remove their portfolio.

On my side I had a smaller brand of standard color vectors who Almost doubled (85%), and my other brand dropped income by 400$ (compared to march, other months were all better than march). In the end I end up with around as much as I made before.

Why would Canva make such a bold statement of doubling our income if we fall short by... 100%, with no gain at all? Let's see now if they dive into their pocket and pay us the promised double earnings.

40
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 14, 2020, 20:50 »
Well my earnings are there and they aren't twice as much. They are a few$ short of my total march earnings.

Same for me. My smallest brand almost doubled (from 530$ total to 980$). My main brand LOST 500$ (instead of doubling the income it got cut 500$). In the end I get almost as much as March... not close to doubling it.

Lets see now if Canva follow through their guarantee, which they should.

I sure hope that income increases over the month, would really love having the promised doubled income for more than 6 months. Well see.

Right now a bit disappointed but not surprised, I juste naively hoped Canva would be different than other agencies.

41
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 12, 2020, 09:15 »
You guys are like kids before Christmas  ;)
The only issue is that we don't know what date is Christmas this year  ;)

42
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: May 11, 2020, 11:30 »
Why do they need so much time lately to calculate and pay our earnings?

We're all eager to see the magic number of our new earnings.... last month I received the stats on the 8th. I should be coming any day now... I hope.

43
Canva / Re: Canva .25 and .48 One-Design royalty
« on: May 01, 2020, 13:12 »
In the last 2 days I have had a One-Design sale listed as A$1.00 with .25 royalty and 2 sales listed as R$5.00 with .48 royalty listed , I was wondering if anyone has heard what is up with this or had similar.
This is just the currency conversion as depending on what currency the customer used to purchase the image, and I guess they then convert it to USD.

44
I am looking for someone who can make illustrations for publications in scientific journals.  The subject area is plant pathology/genetics/molecular biology.  Would need illustrations of effects of microorganisms on leaves, interactions between plants and pathogens, molecular processes involving proteins affecting cell function, that sort of thing.  I can do photo manipulations, labeling and simple things in Illustrator myself but for anything else we need someone with much better skills.

In real life I work for the Government, and now that we are on maximum telework for the foreseeable future and can't do much in the lab we are focusing on writing up previous experiments and also writing review articles.  Reviews often get cited a lot and that can be helped with some nice illustrations.  Ordinarily we would do those ourselves, but most scientists are not great artists and I would rather pay someone who knows what they are doing to make a good illustration rather than having my people spend time making lame drawings that will not be as useful (like one I just reviewed yesterday).  We have ideas for several possible figures and can outline what we want and provide a (probably handwritten) example.  Several years ago we did an article where the society publishing the journal had an artist on staff who made us a really nice drawing for free (which I thought was nuts - would have happily paid them).  I've seen that illustration used in many presentations since so it definitely is worth the time to make good art.

I have not hired a graphic artist before so don't have a good idea about amounts but that can be negotiated.  It does need to be someone who is doing it as a business and can take payment by credit card (Paypal won't work - sorry).  We would buy the illustration and use it with our manuscripts.  Since I work for the Government everything is in the public domain so it could not be copyrighted if published, although we could provide an attribution (in addition to paying you).  Would prefer someone with experience in scientific illustration, preferably with plants or molecular biology, but others also could be suitable.  We are talking about probably a handful of illustrations during the next few months, but if we find someone we can work with it could be a long-term relationship with from zero to many illustrations per year depending on need.  If you would be interested or know someone you can recommend please PM me and we can go from there.  Thanks.

(Hope I'm allowed to post this kind of thing on MSG).

Hi!

I have contacted you through PM (See My Messages tab at the top of the forum)

Hope I can help you with your project :)

Thanks!

45
Newbie Discussion / Re: New to stock, made my first sale
« on: April 25, 2020, 12:44 »
One big piece of advice. Read a good book (or two) about How to Get Started in Stock....

Steve

Says the Author of best selling "Get Started in Stock"... I see a conflict of interest  ;D

46
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: April 16, 2020, 18:41 »
Today only 1 download, just 1, just $0.35 earning!!!!! really!!!!!???? before i get hundred download in one day, but today just one!!!! have to by exited or happy with this new change?  :'(

What you need to understand is that you will see your April earnings by the 10th to the 15th of May, on the Subscription earning panels. Right now the sales have been normal from the 1st to the 6th of April. The rest, they ''moved'' to the subscription with the new Canva announcement (you will double your March earnings for the next 6 month). I had 10k to 14k download per month. Now I have 2.6k halfway in the month. But I trust to see much higher earnings appear on the subscription part.

47
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: April 15, 2020, 08:08 »
I received the black an white answer from Canva, which is surprisingly satisfying for me and will clear any doubts. I edited out the USD number:
Hey Patrick,

Thank you for your response.

We are positive about how Photos Unlimited subscription worked out that we know that including contributor (premium) content in the Canva Pro subscription will yield you better earnings. Canva Pro has far more subscribers which is why we feel confident that you would (at least) double your total net earnings as this starts.

So if you received say roughly the same amount for you March sales - USD$X000 (which should come out by today, the 15th of April), we expect this to be at least double for your April sales (which will be released by May, 15th at the latest). This inclusion to the Canva Pro subscription started on April 6 (SYD) when we sent out the email. The amount is based on your total net earnings - individual license purchases, Canva Pro subscription earnings, and Photos Unlimited subscription earnings.

I hope this clears it up. Let me know if you need anything else.


Voila!

48
Canva / Re: Canva March Earning Wrongly Calculated?
« on: April 15, 2020, 08:03 »
I just received my Canva earning for March, and there seems to be a problem.

The total earnings I received did not include Subscription Earnings.

Are you guys facing the same problem? Is there a glitch on the accounting?

Normally the subscription earnings appears from the 8th to the 15th of the month. On my side I had my regular sales and subscription amount appeared on the 13th.

49
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: April 14, 2020, 10:58 »
Reread the email and definitely implies double overall income. Just doubling the tiny subs income makes no sense as the worry is losing the other income to subscribers. Who cares about promises of doubling our subs income if it costs even a fraction of the other income.

Seems very unambiguous, I hope we aren't giving them ideas!!
"Today, we are very excited to announce some changes to our contributor program which will increase your earnings by 2X for the next 6 months, and put your wonderful content in the hands of even more Canva users, for use on the platform."
Example:

Your March earnings
$200

Your April earnings


$400+ guaranteed*

*Guarantee only applies if you do not remove any photos or elements from your portfolio. During the guarantee period, your total earnings will be at least double your March 2020 earnings, or your actual earnings for the month; whichever is higher. The guarantee period lasts for six months (Apr 2020 to Oct 2020)."


Notice the word total.

Yes that is was I read initially, just reading post here created doubt in my mind. Like you said, reading the TOTAL EARNINGS makes it crystal clear... in that case I'm happy with the change. My guess is that for Canva to promise double earning is that some contributors will profit out of that, and some will lose. Those who lose will remove their portfolio after 6 months, but it won't change a thing for Canva since the portfolio remaining would be the one that their client uses the most, in any case Canva cannot lose in a subscription pool.

50
Canva / Re: Canva announcement
« on: April 09, 2020, 12:04 »
If their "double earnings" are meant only for subs, we're doomed. No sales since 5th of april. Not something, I'm used too.
Unless most of our earnings are now transferred to subs, if that's the case we'll only know on the 8th-10th of May :-/

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