Interesting article co-written by a journalist and a law professor about where the fair use argument has succeeded - and failed - in prior cases. The key issue, IMO, is that things that might be fair use by an individual for personal use, or researchers for academic use are not so if done by a for-profit company for commercial use.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/why-the-new-york-times-might-win-its-copyright-lawsuit-against-openai/

After a discussion of why Google won its case about building a search engine for books, including that it was built to be unable to produce no more than snippets, the article says:

"Ultimately, the fate of these companies may depend on whether judges feel that the companies have made a good-faith effort to color inside the lines. If generative models never regurgitated copyrighted material, then defendants would have a compelling argument that it is transformative. The fact that the models occasionally produce near-perfect copies of other people�s creative work makes the case more complicated and could lead judges to view these companies more skeptically."

The above is about Text and writing, not photos. If the AI for images, starts popping out "near-perfect copies of other people�s creative work" then there would be some complications. That has been the defense, so far, for art, that the new images are not one to one traceable back to any other work.

I think the artists have a point when AI is using their style, and maybe allowing the association with their name. In a similar way, how can AI use the likeness of famous people, in creations, that look in many ways, much like those famous people. That shouldn't be allowed.



Specific person arguments aside, how is this allowed? (and I don't mean the horse with ahead coming out of it's behind, or the others with 5/6 legs) 

It's all speculation until it's proven of course. One of the reasons I'm (slightly) leaning towards believing the accusation is, I see about 150 downloads every month and that number hasn't gone up or gone down for over two years now. My port has grown by over 50 percent during the period. I find that sort of consistency a little difficult to believe unless there's some algorithmic/human control over how shutterstock distributes sales.

Of course, these are serious accusations and would need more than mere personal/anecdotal evidence to prove. But judging by how normalized sales on my port have been and how long I've been thinking about how it, I wouldn't be surprised if the accusations were indeed proven to be true.

Why haven't my sales stayed the same? I've been doing this since 2008. I added files last year. I'm making now, in three months, what I used to make in 1 month. Maybe less. How come only some people are normalized?

"It's all speculation until it's proven of course." That would be something to help us all decide.

Cooking the books is something entirely different than pocketing money from stock sales. Enron used shady constructions with hundreds of daughter companies to pull up a smoke curtain. But anyone who carries out a properly conducted test purchase can check if SS actually steals sales. It would lead to million-dollar court claims if this was found to be true. No giant company would be THAT stupid.

Well aside from the stupid or not part, because we've seen people like Holmes with Theranos technology, defraud some pretty smart investors and faked the whole company documentation on the device. Worldcom, Bernie Maddof, Tyco, frauds are not uncommon. But that has nothing to do, or associate with ShutterStock sales or commissions. Not the same at all.

Why doesn't someone or the group of + people here and all over, that just know, without any proof, that the claims are true, get together and run a documented, independent test? The truth is out there...

On the side for dessert:  Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act 

It created a new, quasi-public agency, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB, charged with overseeing, regulating, inspecting, and disciplining accounting firms in their roles as auditors of public companies. The act also covers issues such as auditor independence, corporate governance, internal control assessment, and enhanced financial disclosure.

In other terms like the rest of us use, if there's something wrong or illegal, it's not just the top heads that will roll. The accountants, the auditors, and many others are liable. There will be some explaining to do that will be very uncomfortable, and end with jail time.

And they would do all of that, and the risk, so they could steal dimes from the poor artists? Really?

I had 3000 files and around 600 videos. The limit was 25 files every week. But doesn't suit my needs. In order for me to submit new files, I have to finish old ones. Just takes more time and decided to ditch IS.

So you didn't have 3,000 and 600 on IS, you had that many files to upload and be processed?

We all have to decide on our own, what we want and how we want to work. I'm not saying that IS is a good place, at all. Just that, to cut yourself off, because of their reviews or limits, isn't going to make a bit of difference to them, but it could cost you money. So, who's hurt the most?

I don't know about keyword and data restrictions on IS, I don't do big sets of anything, but, back to the drone footage, you should do well with that, and the stills that you saved as single frame photos.

There are people who cash often on DT. I haven't in about four years. I used to make more on SS and now I'm making much more on AS, while SS deteriorates. Someone else finds that his collections on both are staying about the same. IS when it has things, can bring slow but steady returns.

I don't think there are many "good" agencies anymore. Do you contribute to Alamy? First beware and be aware is, batch rejections, it's all there, but people seem to get upset when they do, what they promise to do, at Alamy.

One fail all fail, all uploads, all waiting batches, everything! Start with small batches until you are sure that you won't be rejected for unsuitable camera, or something else. Otherwise you'll be angry, like the rest, who discovered, Alamy does what they say they will. One Fail ALL fail, means ALL.  All means ALL.

AFter that, they start everyone at Gold = 40% for the first year, and all you need to do is earn NET $250 in a year, to stay at that 40% level.

I find it worth the potentially strict review policy, but self review, don't send them Crapstock or marginal images, and your golden.

Also unless something changes, Alamy policy is, they do not review based on content, just quality. If the image is big enough, sharp enough fine enough and whatever else, it passes. None of that, not suitable for stock stuff.

I don't know their policy on similar because I don't do those. If many of yours are alike and that's why IS got upset, then you might want to spread them out and make diverse sets.

40%

The big thing people need to remember is essentially these "ai" tools are:
(a) based off of massive theft

A big thing you might remember is, that's a personal opinion, the courts and laws haven't decided that, yet.

$$$$ sale, 2 years ago

Wouldn't you like to find that one in use? Seems like an installation on a business/commercial property or public site.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 15, 2024, 13:04

Quote from: Faustvasea on February 13, 2024, 01:30

Quote from: cobalt on February 12, 2024, 23:42

you can try every genre but still be very selective. especially if you have many agencies to work with.

the 25 image limit will be lifted, it is not a permanenet thing.

the 25 limit meant to expire in March, and I've asked for increase and they have extended till end of the year. No point been there. I've read some other comment on here with other contributor leaving them too.

If you read comments for any agency and decide based on what other people write here, you'll have no agencies. Different people have had different reasons for not liking or wanting to not work with every agency mentioned on the forum. While others will send everything to anyone. Decide for yourself.

The iStock upload limit is the same for everyone, or was years ago:

Bronze (500+ DLs): 25
Silver (2,500+ DLs): 30
Gold (10,000+ DLs): 35
Diamond (25,000+ DLs): 50

I don't know now, but it was not a month, but something in the area of a 72 hour period. Everyone is the same. At the time, the restrictions were in place to slow the uploads so the reviewers could catch up. Before that, anyone new had a limit and we progressed based on sales.

Are you in a hurry to get large numbers of files, uploaded to iStock? It seems odd that if you can't get the accepted fast, you'll just choose to have nothing at all? Perhaps you could adapt to somewhere in the middle?

I have an account waiting deletion 3000 images and 500 videos. I can't submit new stock when my old one is sitting there. They put 25 files restrictions last year, and said it will be reviewed again at the end of this year. And this made me to delete my account. Definitely won't contribute there anymore.

Oddly they have done this before to all of us. Or was there a reason for the 25 restriction? Is that an upload, every 3 days, a week, or what? I don't think I understand you. You have 3,000 to upload, then how many accepted so far, on IS, right now?

You are cutting off yourself and your income, to spite them for not letting you upload as many, as fast as you would like?

I looked at your SS collection, very well done. You sure make good use of the drone. Nice location, scenery and subjects.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 09, 2024, 14:04

But they won't need the images again. The AI places don't care, because they don't need to use the images again. Just like what they scraped from the Internet. Once the image has been used for machine learning, it is not being used again.

What I'm saying is, the six year license is for training, not use. Once the training is done... we get nothing.

They will. They will create new AI models and these models will need the images once again. How do you want to do that without these images? The new models will increase amount of parametres, will be trained to do more stuff that the old model was not trained to, you need these images to train it on. You cannot just use the previous model that will miraculously use the previously trained information in a completely new algorithm with new features. You do not need it for fine-tuning the algorithm, but in the six-year period, there will be at least 3, maybe even more totally new generations of models trained completely from scratch.

That's good. I hope they do some new training and use something of mine. I haven't had a cent from the contributor fund since last year.

I have no video on SS anymore. That could explain things.

For some reason I'm getting quite a few deformed faces these days. I thought we were past all that.

Is it something I am doing? My prompts are pretty simple so I don't understand how faces can look so bad these days.

I don't do much with people, or real photo, but one of the tip places said add a command Not Ugly, or Not deformed. Some days I wonder?

Do we need to tell AI, only five fingers on a hand? Or maybe, fish only have two eyes, not two on one side of the head.  I'd never be able to figure out how things are suspended by invisible space, chairs with three legs, or horse that can have 5 or 6 legs, because AI combines what it has learned and if one image had the legs back, while running and the other has legs up under the body, that horse will have six legs.

I got tired of mean faces and bland faces, now I add smiling or happy. Be forewarned, some AI when doing happy smiling people, seems to decide, "laughing" means their eyes are closed. You might have to add, eyes open.

Do you add beautiful, attractive, pretty, normal, symmetrical face... ? Smiling profile of a beautiful woman that doesn't look like she was drawn by Picasso.  Unfortunately AI is stupid and will see "Drawn by picasso" and will not recognize the "doesn't look like", you need to use negative commands.

Good Luck!

Quote from: cobalt on February 12, 2024, 23:42

you can try every genre but still be very selective. especially if you have many agencies to work with.

the 25 image limit will be lifted, it is not a permanenet thing.

the 25 limit meant to expire in March, and I've asked for increase and they have extended till end of the year. No point been there. I've read some other comment on here with other contributor leaving them too.

If you read comments for any agency and decide based on what other people write here, you'll have no agencies. Different people have had different reasons for not liking or wanting to not work with every agency mentioned on the forum. While others will send everything to anyone. Decide for yourself.

The iStock upload limit is the same for everyone, or was years ago:

Bronze (500+ DLs): 25
Silver (2,500+ DLs): 30
Gold (10,000+ DLs): 35
Diamond (25,000+ DLs): 50

I don't know now, but it was not a month, but something in the area of a 72 hour period. Everyone is the same. At the time, the restrictions were in place to slow the uploads so the reviewers could catch up. Before that, anyone new had a limit and we progressed based on sales.

Are you in a hurry to get large numbers of files, uploaded to iStock? It seems odd that if you can't get the accepted fast, you'll just choose to have nothing at all? Perhaps you could adapt to somewhere in the middle?

Just starting a topic to draw your attention to this.

When you search something like "businessman hands dollars" both of these images appear on first page as relevant. However, they were submitted by two different contributors, one as a photo and the other one designated as AI image. The AI image has lower ID number, so it was uploaded earlier.

https://stock.adobe.com/images/money-in-hand-money-in-pockets-dollars-money-is-need-money-is-best-tool-for-human/700646847
https://stock.adobe.com/images/usa-dollars-note-america-dollars-note-bussines/712394348

Doesn't look like AI to me? Maybe the knuckle, but does AI do US dollars that well? AYuva 22 images, Hamdan 6.

Look at this? Here's another one? 2021



 "Image Credit: alexander mills; pexels; thank you!"

https://due.com/how-important-is-it-to-have-cash-on-hand/

Quote from: cobalt on February 12, 2024, 08:29

Between ss, pond5, backgrid and others ss has a very good editorial offering. So why are sales, especially editorial video sales dropping so strongly?

The exclusive pond5 content alone should be a large pull for buyers?

What is the alternative in editorial for customers?

Getty? Is Getty/istock showing a strong increase in editorial sales?

The customers must license from somewhere, editorial can not be replaced with ai.

I'm sticking with my theory that perhaps SS really cut back on advertising spending in certain markets.

I'm pretty sure that my images on SS are not offered on any of these sites with managed collections. The news that they acquired another news, sports or entertainment division, means less for me, not more.

Please someone tell me I'm wrong. I want to be mistaken. This is just more competition for anything we do on SS that's in the same areas of interest.

Quote from: odesigns on February 07, 2024, 08:09

Quote from: dragonblade on February 06, 2024, 21:23

What's with all these youtubers heavily promoting Shutterstock in their videos?

Who? Are these recent videos or old ones when things were more profitable?

I'm not noticing as many these days but some were still being produced and uploaded after SS made the commission changes.

I bet they have referral links on the videos? That's the main reason for the hype.

Quote from: ADH on February 09, 2024, 10:45

Between 200-300 a day to have a decent amount of earnings by the end of the month

Seems excessive. I struggle to see how you can effectively create quality content at that scale unless you have a large team. More is not more.

-Mat

Yes, Less is More.

I've always been unconvinced that just uploading high numbers of similar or sets, would make any difference in "decent earnings". And if the more is, more variety or different, high quality images, then more is "more". But I'm just saying, numbers alone, or portfolio size, isn't what creates income or more sales.

8

Or ∞ Somewhere between those numbers?