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Messages - Uncle Pete
4351
« on: April 17, 2018, 09:12 »
Looks like fun, I want an enlarger that handles 8x10 film, and a 8x10 camera too. Love the wet processing by machine and of course, I wouldn't be a "real" photographer without the vest. I have a bunch of them.  The burning and dodging and the masking, that's detailed and the real reason why his work is as beautiful and special. That's the hands on making it such an individual art. If anyone here used to work in a darkroom and remember how much it was hands on and entertaining, there is something special about making and processing with your hands. Not that I miss yellow fingers or some of the stinky chemicals, with a short shelf life, but the personal connection to making ones works is the important part. If anyone wondered about the Cibachrome print paper, which makes direct positives from transparencies, (so essentially he's shooting 8x10 slide film!) https://www.douglasvincent.com/ilfochrome/ Pretty nice. Oh yeah, that was great, now back to click, click, click and editing some digital photos. 
4352
« on: April 17, 2018, 08:49 »
...and yet you all keep posting that Shutterstock is where it's at, bringing in 100 million more images. Oh, how ironic. 
SS is where it's at for my Microstock income, making the best money for me, (others may have different results) just that some wonder why their sales have dropped. Also it's just a matter of record not a personal anything. "Hey look, 200,000 new photos a day" and people wonder why the servers are slow, especially for video uploads. And wonder why it takes 72 hours for something to get populated across all the servers in the world. The numbers are the answer to many of the questions and also the frivolous claims. Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious? But like I've said before, it's just a record. Anyone can make anything they want for all these numbers. My take is, the new files are burying all of us. I'm not going into why my sales have been flat, or maybe I could call that steady as a more positive way to say the same? I know people personally that have much better photos, video, illustrations and materials than I do, more than I do, and they have dropped in half. Yes of course I like ShutterStock, I earn the most from them in spite of the adverse growth and increased competition. Everyone else needs to decide for themselves. I think many have different and better answers than what I do. Fine with me... Do your own thing. Nothing at all is ironic about noting milestones or warning new people that they need to find something else to do. Microstock is not easy money like some others seem to claim. It's hard work for the small number that succeed, and it's difficult, no make that harder than ever, at this point to make any sustainable returns for ones work. Nothing is ironic about the fact that SS is my best earning site. How about you?
4353
« on: April 17, 2018, 08:20 »
Just for the record, April 17th 2017 - 190,062,118 royalty-free stock images / 1,441,895 new this week, clicking over to 180 million didn't even make me look. That's how many are added and burying individuals like us.
Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
Look back at 2012, that was the total on the site = 20 million, now we have competition adding that many in under four months! Doesn't matter that standards are down, or popular isn't anything that resembles what we'd think meant popular. The numbers are enough to kill any solid returns like we used to have.
4354
« on: April 17, 2018, 08:03 »
It would be interesting if anyone has kept a record of the poll I expect there's been a long term decline across the board particularly the low earners
I actually thought the screen captures would bring some comments on the state of Microstock. Maybe most here don't read the "Newbie Discussion" area? Things like, look how many agencies there were that made the list in 2012? 19 (whatever the numbers, 50 people or more were voting) Look at what IS numbers were when the totals were combined vs split. IS was 50 - now Ind are 25 and Exclusive are 200 many months... Fotolia/Adobe and Pond5 are the only two that have gone up in the poll. (did I miss something?) Make a note for Alamy but that has to do with who votes more than earnings, as I know personally the licenses there have dropped in dollar value, but have increased in number.
4355
« on: April 17, 2018, 07:45 »
I don't think I have had a "good" SOD in over a year. Usually they are about 2x subs, but plenty are at sub rates and almost all are below the on demand rate.
Yes the SO run about half the OD, but my SO are steady at 3 or 4 times any Sub. I don't know how people are getting these extra low Single and Other unless there are some large special package contracts being sold. Most of my work is photos if that means anything. Wondering if the low are the Illustrations?
4356
« on: April 17, 2018, 07:39 »
Where do I see my views on ESP?
https://esp.gettyimages.com/app/statsEither my account has died, Getty has frozen in the Winter storm or there's nothing going on. I haven't seen a change in downloads or views for days.
4357
« on: April 16, 2018, 08:10 »
It would be interesting if anyone has kept a record of the poll I expect there's been a long term decline across the board particularly the low earners
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?page=PollResults
Thanks, I should have remembered that site.  OK here it is, what do you see? I thought that only 10 making the 50 votes was interesting to start with? Made with available data, Late Sept/Early Oct was closest to same period that appeared in sample years.
4358
« on: April 14, 2018, 18:50 »
Also it is quite likely that those exclusives that are doing well stay exclusive and those that are doing poorly either quit exclusivity or lose interest and don't report in the poll.
Makes perfect sense. The ones who do well, stay Exclusive, also Exclusives do get a higher percentage. We don't know how many Exclusives take the poll, only for every other agency. Wondering if the IS number is Indy and Exclusive combined. Only Leaf knows. Now look at Stocksy 2/40, or ClipartOf 2/250, Getty 10/65 - I'd like to know how many IS Exclusives are taking the poll for that 267 number?
4359
« on: April 14, 2018, 13:20 »
For the actual inclusion of full (unwatermarked) images, thats a little murky because they have it like a "database" format for "search"... (i.e., google has been doing that for 20 years, and no one questions them. Just use google image search).
This site is not an image search and no it's not murky at all when they say Free To Use since they are actually linking to the *websites* that have those images on them, and not actually hosting the images, and assuming of course those websites/businesses have licensed the image (whether cc or actual licensed stock), I don't think there is really anything that could be done about that, because "technically" it's not really wrong (again, look @ google image search).
Technically it is wrong and again, stealing bandwidth and linking to another site for materials is also wrong. Especially when they claim copywrited materials are Creative Commons and alright to use. If that's what they are doing, the url for one of the images, as an example is "data:image/jpeg;base64" As for the cc attribution... that is different... simply because I don't know if the images they've included are actual cc (creative commons) images, or actual licenseable stock photography... if they are actually 'stock' images (and they are incorrectly identifying them as creative commons) - I don't know if anything can be done about that...
Agreed nothing we can do, a simple look and you would know that the images are NOT creative Commons. Just use that search you hate so much, which we use to find use and find abuse and find images for sale...  although I don't care for this type of site (because it seems to be circumventing the intent of stock sites for licensed photography) - since they are doing it in a search format (similar to google image search, so they are not actually the 'publisher' of content, rather just a 'forum'), not sure if anything can really be done about it...
Yes I agree, I don't like them either. It's not a search if they are advocating illegal use with a lie. It's not just a broad search either, the site is selective. OK you aren't defending them you are making excuses why we should just ignore and say, nothing we can do. And you are comparing them to Google Image Search which is untrue. How's that?
4360
« on: April 13, 2018, 12:18 »
Top Three - SS, AS, IS - and Alamy I'm active. Others on a "don't care" basis, if I feel like shooting something out to them.
Someone long ago said either the top two and skip the rest, because the extra effort is a waste of time, or upload everything to everyplace you can.
The top two have become three and I personally find some travel and scenic have more potential on Alamy than any Microstock sites. But if I was someone new, just starting, and didn't do video (because then the answer is different) I'd say top three and consider the rest after you are established at the better paying agencies.
4361
« on: April 13, 2018, 12:07 »
I rarely check Getty's ESP site as it's not the most user friendly. In actual fact, I haven't checked in ages. So tonight, out of curiosity, I downloaded some sales reports just to see how things are going. I started with December 2017 and noted that I had made a $31.24 sale amongst the other sales for that month. Down below, it said that my net payment was $101.13. So looks like Ive made payout at last.
I then checked January and February's sales reports from this year. And down below on each of them, it says that my net payment is $0.00 and 'Minimum payment not met.' How can this be? By the way, I haven't given Getty my payment account details yet so the funds haven't been sent to me.
You need to seriously contact IS because this isn't the place to get payment help, or find where your money went. That aside, a few possibilities. (and probably more) 1) They have a Paypal or check payment address for you? 2) They have none and it's on hold, but the payment due is $0 currently. 3) They sent your money to someone else... Personally the drop in earnings has been since January 2017 but aside from that, I can't say anything for others. I'm kind of hopeful (Sucker born every day...) that closing TS and moving everything to IS and Getty will help sales. While there are some new lower rates, the flat rate sub on TS wasn't ever fair in my opinion.
4362
« on: April 13, 2018, 11:55 »
For the actual inclusion of full (unwatermarked) images, thats a little murky because they have it like a "database" format for "search"... (i.e., google has been doing that for 20 years, and no one questions them. Just use google image search).
since they are actually linking to the *websites* that have those images on them, and not actually hosting the images, and assuming of course those websites/businesses have licensed the image (whether cc or actual licensed stock), I don't think there is really anything that could be done about that, because "technically" it's not really wrong (again, look @ google image search).
As for the cc attribution... that is different... simply because I don't know if the images they've included are actual cc (creative commons) images, or actual licenseable stock photography... if they are actually 'stock' images (and they are incorrectly identifying them as creative commons) - I don't know if anything can be done about that...
although I don't care for this type of site (because it seems to be circumventing the intent of stock sites for licensed photography) - since they are doing it in a search format (similar to google image search, so they are not actually the 'publisher' of content, rather just a 'forum'), not sure if anything can really be done about it...
Did you look at the site? They clearly say "you can click on your desired Business image and use the Business picture embed code to add to your blogs, forums, websites and other online media. The embed code contains all necessary CC attribution, that are mandatory to include" which is not true and there's no creative commons for a stolen image AND they are crediting the agency not the artist. Google, nice straw man argument, attempt at diverting from the original question, does none of that. They run a search for people to find something on the web. There's no claim that anything is free to use. Would you make web searches illegal? But I'm nice I'll play along. Google "Note: Before reusing content, make sure that its license is legitimate and check the exact terms of reuse. For example, the license might require that you give credit to the image creator when you use the image. Google can't tell if the license label is legitimate, so we don't know if the content is lawfully licensed." And search results?  IMAGES MAY BE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT Say someone is looking for something you made or you as a photographer, where do you think they will look. Google. When someone is looking for a legitimate use and wants an advanced search, that works, and can search all agencies, where will they go? Google. Now back to the point. Pinsdaddy and their foreign language version, are linking and promoting illegal use with an incorrect claim that your work is creative commons, and all someone needs to do is, copy and paste it came from "X" agency and it's legal. Plus no watermarks. Let me see if I understand, you defend the illegal use and the crooks, while you attack a perfectly legal search? Did I get that right?
4363
« on: April 12, 2018, 10:14 »
I doubt the world really needs new pictures of cheese cake.
Or more of most of the popular or easy to shoot subjects. Someone who uploads new versions of their old work and wonders why they don't get more sales, is missing the point. They are competing with their own established good selling work. The market doesn't need more shiny titanium gears on a blue background. It's been done, there's only so much need or demand. The demand and market for any subject or image is limited. L I M I T E D Making more of something that's a good seller, will not necessarily make more sales. You'll just dilute any future sales. And then there's that problem with competition, over one million new images a week, most of them of the same best selling, most in demand subjects. 2018 and someone else is getting your slice of the cheesecake. But it's not one person, it's 100 thousand other people. Where's the demand and how many buyers are there for this? 57,022 Cheesecake Slice stock photos? Suggestion is find things that aren't well covered, aren't most popular, or make specific views, angles, and examples of something. That's the kind of new work that will be more productive. Be different... The days of upload today, three downloads by Friday are long gone.
4364
« on: April 12, 2018, 09:23 »
http://www.pinsdaddy.com/business_KZMU9gKUrXg5eRQCXBYgGhNXN*GyqTAn59CPSfizecs/ Oh tricky, illegal characters, the link would need to be copied and pasted. Here's Tiny URL version: https://tinyurl.com/ybsktayxWelcome to our Business section from here you can click on your desired Business image and use the Business picture embed code to add to your blogs, forums, websites and other online media. The embed code contains all necessary CC attribution, that are mandatory to include, so you don't need to contribute the image authors manually. If you want, you can customize your Business embed code: resize the Business image as well as select the position in which you would like it to appear on in your article. It's then simply a case of copying the short code and pasting the Business code into your post.Is this legal? I see some of these as crediting some site that probably paid for the use. There are also other searches with watermarks still on them Shutterstock for example. I didn't cross search but I'm sure that people here will start to see their work or friends.
4365
« on: April 11, 2018, 10:51 »
clearly they messed with the algorithm and sales stops again...i hate them really i will sacrifice all my sales to see them go bankrupt.
No one's forcing you to have your work on their site.
And what they label a button, a tab or a link doesn't change where it leads and what it does. It's just a name. Yes the search changes all the time, not to hurt us personally or any of that hogwash but to make the most sales for the company and make the best results for the buyers, so they will download more. It's not about us as an individual. But I still say the best results for buyers would be clean up the inappropriate keywords and duplicate inch by inch image spamming. That would make the buyers happy and me too. I'd start by issuing warnings about spammed keywords and give people a month to fix them. If not, start removing images and accounts. Sorry, none of us are indispensable or irreplaceable at this stage. Reminder: 188,996,528 royalty-free stock images / 1,398,139 new stock images added this week They don't care anymore. IS doesn't care, they accept almost anything, SS doesn't care, neither one does, unless there's some potential legal problem. Adobe is the last one, except the smaller specialty and selective agencies, that actually holds image standards up. Adobe passed IS, remember when IS was the top agency? The gold rush is over, we're in for the long grind now. The rapid growth and expansion has passed. Competition is flooding the market. New competition, new photos, new illustrations, remember the race to the bottom, where we get less and less for the same number of downloads? We're there. Remember slice of the pie, spreading the same number of sales, over many more people? We're there. And at the same time the small agencies are slowing down more, and some will be closing. FT sold, BS sold, even TS owned by Getty, a huge collection of agencies they bought, i s closing and being merged into iStock. If anyone cares to look at this from a business perspective, marketing, supply vs demand, all this along with the consolidation or mergers at the top, makes perfect sense. Video is the last frontier for now. Make money while you can.
4366
« on: April 10, 2018, 09:44 »
Found an image of mine on a DP partner site selling for $200, wonder what my cut would have been if it had sold (a lot less than 3%!). Cancelled all partner sites and don't upload anymore.
Didn't they have their own "partner site" (which they ran and owned) that they were selling our work to, for a sub and then re-licensing for high fees. You'd get a sub they would charge much more for the re-license. Enough of that trickery, should have caused the Opt out for all partner sales for anyone who reads here. Since my Opt Out was all of DP I can't say much more than be careful, Deposit has a habit of coming up with some unusual business practices.
4367
« on: April 10, 2018, 09:21 »
it has gone very quiet around his business, he says hes never been wrong about business decisions and that he is 3 years ahead of the curve, yet no site selling content shot from a mobile has taken off., i was just wondering how this went as he was adamant this was the next gold mine and we were all wrong
i wanted to check out the app for android but its not available. the site is also not updated to remove the broken link. so i would guess the business is no longer a point of focus.
Good signs that no one cares. I did a bit of searching, found no Android App. Doesn't mean there is none, just that it's not easy to find.
Anyone here (working) on Scoopshot? Anyone making anything from them?
This (STILL!) sums it up:
Scoopt. I put the link to their failure story somewhere. 'Citizen journalism' doesn't work and 'request stock' doesn't work. Because, well, if you request it and people shoot it, it isn't stock.
If you missed it or want to read again, why Yuri went exclusive on IS and how he saw phone photos as the new wave. I got the link from Alamy forums where they made fun of phone photos. Hey wait, Alamy launched Stockimo and SS and IS now accept uploads for Phone Photos. Yuri wasn't totally wrong, but honest, his prediction that Scoopshot or others would totally disrupt the industry, didn't quite pan out, did it? http://arcurs.com/2013/07/microstock-sees-its-first-major-setback-in-6-years-and-here-is-why/There are a bunch of good looking shots and people from around the world. https://pro.scoopshot.com/browse Pro Scoopshot
4368
« on: April 10, 2018, 08:42 »
I'm getting "Top Picks" and "New". I don't recall seeing "Top Picks" before.
Top Picks is what it really was, not Popular, Relevant, or anything else. We've all seen that it has something to do with what they think should be shown first. What it's called doesn't change anything. The label doesn't make any difference, but maybe at least Top Picks is more accurate and honest for what we've seen for years? I get Popular and New on the contributor pages, Most Popular and Newest on buyer search.
4369
« on: April 10, 2018, 08:20 »
I just got the letter today, and it is dated as a contract change of 10th April 2018.
Haven't read it through, but I noticed this, which hasn't been thought through:
"Any information supplied for display with any Image, including captions, keywords, ... and does not include ... any personal details from which a living person can be identified."
I don't think that's what they mean, or else they are going to lose a lot of sales from searches relating to well-known people.
However, even if it's not what they mean, it's what they said.
Full text:
"4:11 Any information supplied for display with any Image, including captions, keywords, Pseudonyms, agency names and descriptions only includes information that is pertaining to the specific Image itself, and does not include contact details, web addresses, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), copyright and rights management information or any personal details from which a living person can be identified."
You can't include in the EXIF or descriptions - your website, name, phone number, email, Etc... which would allow people to contact you directly? Not about famous people if I'm reading it right. http://www.alamy.com/terms/contributor-contract-changes.asp?utm_campaign=1157400_Contract%20Change%20-%20April%202018&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alamy%20Contributors%20&dm_i=2SWW,OT20,12IO8X,2JDNC,1Contract changes in case anyone didn't get the email.
4370
« on: April 09, 2018, 12:18 »
No reply to any email since start of the year, including phishing warnings, spam, site issues or contributor questions. Not one. Maybe they are too busy suing Google for neglecting to answer them and blaming Google for sales downturn.
4371
« on: April 09, 2018, 12:16 »
Sales just keep on dropping. I see on the customer website they're trying to convince people it makes sense to license images for legal protection rather than downloading from "those free sites." That says a lot...clearly sales are being negatively affected by all the stolen work and free sites out there. And from the tremendous amount of competition, now that they accept everyone and everything.
No disagreement on most of that except my sales are flat, not dropping. Competition up, free up, theft up, growth fairly flat. And as usual, right after I entered that, the next day, I got the biggest EL ever on SS. Let me say for the record, sales are not steady or predictable, I don't know when suddenly I'll get a whole series downloaded or a flock of ODs. There are ups and down, seasonal and some predictable general trends, but watching day by day just makes no sense. Month this year to same month other years, that's a good start to see how things are. People with really large, diverse collections, used to be able to tell, with some idea, month to month, year to year. Then suddenly all that dropped in half. Of course they are going to be suspicious and try to find a reason why. It's called competition.
4372
« on: April 09, 2018, 12:13 »
Illustration would be first choice?
4373
« on: April 09, 2018, 11:54 »
Well cool, no watermark, screen captures of everything, at 1350 x 900 = 1.2MP free! Free Downloads, or artists can sell POD style. https://www.clickasnap.com/terms TOS I signed for a free account to take a better look. Forced follow: Please select some users to follow. You are currently following 0 users. Please choose 6 more to continue.OK then, now I can see the account, and the site seems terribly slow, anyone else or is it just me. Now it's time for my SEVEN uploads. The limit. Upload reads Title and keywords, description is up to us. Pick a category. Although I can promote for: Cost per view: 5 So do I get a view for this or just from the gallery pages? I thought there was something about, post to facebook and have people look. By the way, this is one of those not visually suitable for stock of mine. My right foot after a log was dropped on it. Whoo Hoo, what fun. I tried to make a folder for "why I limp" not sure if it worked? Nope I can't seem to make a folder yet. Odd but true, I got four messages and a subscription, which all vanished, along with three images. One of the comments was "remove this" another was "this also" they were all my foot which I thought was kind of fun? https://www.clickasnap.com/i/78hx9pgqmm84azulHeck yes, I'll be rich in no time with people just looking at my foot Druid Circle Photo! The current estimated payment per view is $0.0014 I got a note from one of the originators about my removed photos. I'm beginning to like them better. Someone is actually watching what goes on and hopefully it won't be like some "Fine Art" places, where copyrighted stolen or illegal use is ignored. Maybe they have something good going, but I'm not going to hold my breath about making any returns, until I see something actually happen.
4374
« on: April 09, 2018, 11:01 »
Greetings!
Wanted to share some updates about WireStock.
We recently launched our company website and the first version of the white paper ( in depth description of the project). Please check it out at wirestock.org . We tried to incorporate a lot of your previous feedback and questions into our vision.
Further feedback would be appreciated.
p.s. We also started working on the prototype version and will share with you as soon it is done.
Are you creating your own tokens? How is it based on Etherium? Say ETH was $850 in March and now it's $400, would someone who bought tokens in March be paying a higher price for the same work than someone who bought tokens yesterday. How about the artists. We get paid in tokens with a moving value? How do we turn them back into local currency that we can spend, to avoid value changes? If we got paid in March and didn't immediately convert the tokens, then we would have lost half our pay. Can you explain better how STOKEN will hold a value and when you said through Etherium blockchain, will we have MetaMask wallets for example or what?
4375
« on: April 08, 2018, 07:37 »
This is strange. When I use my home connection, the image quality on Netflix is crap. But if I connect though a VPN such as SneakFlix I get HD quality. Isn't a VPN slowing connections down most of the time?
Sounds like your ISP is throttling Netflix.
Yes it does. There's a possible example of net neutrality not being observed.
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