I don't take a regular look at the ESP site because I find it awkward and tricky to navigate at times. However, I noticed that late last year, my earnings were just over $70 and then the following month, the amount was slightly over $2. So my question is - where did the rest of that money go? I didn't receive a payout. I checked PayPal and there is certainly no payment from iStock / Getty for that time period. I did get a payout from them once before.

Another thing I should add is that I actually earned just over $100 in that period but due me foolishly not updating the tax form, they took out a huge chunk of tax which left me with a little over $70. Though regardless, I don't know how it dropped from over $70 to just over $2 with no payout.

So I shot some green screen footage recently, as I have in the past as well. During the shoot, I checked the corners of the viewfinder carefully and the light on the green screen looked fairly even and uniform. However, when I viewed the footage on a computer afterwards, I was surprised to see a shadow on the top left hand corner of the frame.

Just now, I imported the clip into Sony Movie Studio along with another clip and did a chroma key test. The shadow on the upper left corner does not appear to be an issue. When I keyed the green out, I could see no shadow at all. It looks seamless to me.

However, if I leave the shadow in the footage, would this potentially be off putting to buyers? Could it discourage them?

The thing is a lot of my stock footage is edited with Shotcut and I have my doubts that that software would have the means of removing the shadow. If I wanted that shadow gone, I would have to go the hassle and invest time in learning how to use new software. Although I would have to that eventually for certain future projects, it just seems overkill in order to hide a shadow that is not really a problem anyway (except in some buyers eyes perhaps.)

Someone has just claimed on the SS Contributor Experience forum that somewhere in the TOS, it states that SS can continue to sell content from disabled ports for as long as they like. That contradicts the 90 day rule. And it really sucks if that's the case.

I can't test because I'm banned, but can anyone non-magical post? Only Sean's post is newer than Tuesday afternoon at the moment

As mentioned in the other thread, I cannot post. And I can't send private messages either. At first, I thought I was banned. But maybe that's not the case after all.

I can still see the forums.  Last posts look to be Tuesday.

Except one

https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/100431-why-has-payments-decreased/?tab=comments#comment-1859367

How were you able to reply in the forum? I and several others here cannot do that.

I think that after the percentage reduction they got such a kicking in the press, utube, Facebook, and various forums that they decided to prevent the latest news announced yesterday coming under any negative scrutiny on their home turf. For those of you unaware - the latest news

https://www.bandt.com.au/microsoft-advertising-to-offer-free-access-to-shutterstock-library/

So you reckon they want to keep us in the dark about that? Gosh, what a bunch of nice guys (spoken in a sarcastic tone.)

Ive just had the lowest priced video sale Ive ever experienced on SS - $7.20. I know some people have had much lower returns than that for clips but for me, this is something new. Previously, my lowest was $10 for a clip.

Despite not getting any ultra low video sales yet, I'll probably still disable my photo and video ports when I hit my next payout. I know it will only be a matter of time before I receive crumbs for my clips.

Must have been painful to them having gotten all adverse comments removed from FB and other social media only to discover that they were hosting their own adverse comments site. 

There is something very amusing in that!

It seems that I can't reply to existing threads or start new ones on the forums at SS. Can't send private messages either. Hopefully, the ban is temporary. I didn't receive any notification about it or anything like that. No e-mail.

Ive hardly said anything negative on the forums. I did share my outrage of the new massive payment cut but so have most other contributors. And I expressed my thoughts about that ages ago - not recently. And some contributors have been a lot more vocal and aggressive about that topic than I have.

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to wait it out.

"Africa studio

Welcome to the world of modern commercial images and footages.

Bright, creative and trendy images and footages will help you visualize any subject and field of activity."

For such a big company earning so much money in the microstock industry, I'm surprised they couldn't afford to pay someone to do a grammar check on their text. 'Footage' is an uncountable noun by the way. What they wrote doesn't sound very professional.

Regardless, I was really hoping their split from SS would be permanent. Though that is clearly not the case.

They do not sell personal data of photographer and model(s). But a client can buy a MR copy with removed all sensitive data, check e,g, P5 client FAQ.

Ah yes I so I see:

"The provided release will have the full text of the agreement and signatures visible, but any identifying information about the models, artist, and witnesses will be obscured.

The fee to obtain a copy or a release is $50/$75 for each file. To request for a copy of a release, please contact us and provide us with the file IDs."

Very interesting.

This query relates to buyers who purchase a license to use model released stock images from a stock agency. Obviously, the buyer is informed by the agency that the photo or clip featuring a person has a valid model release form. Though does the buyer ever see the model release? Is the buyer given a copy of the release? Or is it a case that they have no access to the release and rely on the trust of the agency that there is a release that was provided by the photographer?

The reason why I'm curious is I am considering trying to sell some stock directly with no agency involved. And I may have some images featuring myself and possibly other people (who I would normally need model release forms for.) I would inform any interested buyers that I have releases for the models. Though is it likely that they would demand to see the releases or download them? And if they go ahead with that, I'm wondering if there would be any disadvantages like the risk of identity theft etc.