Wow! Shameful ...

Yeah, especially if enough people don't catch the error or watch DP close, a "technical glitch" which seems to be repeating and common.

I got a $0.09 sale yesterday but today it was corrected and now it shows the regular amount for a sub.
I thought it was a mistake, but I just just got another $0.09. Another mistake?

Maybe the mistake is submitting anything to DP? 

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/denver-post-publishes-photo-wrong-park-coors-field-guide-article-1.3918457

This image of Citzens Bank Park was published in the Denver Post under an article that was supposed to be a guide to Coors Field. (Michael Heiman/Getty Images)

Or does this mean the original photo from Getty was misidentified by the Denver Post? Why does the caption show Getty as the source then, with photo credits to
Michael Heiman - Senior Director, Editorial Operations at Getty Images? Kind of odd all over, because it's a Getty Photo in both cases.

Just makes me wonder where they got the misidentified photo in the first place. Like... a stock site with spammed up keywords? 

I disagree with deleting 2years old files... in our case, a lot of first sales of videos come from old files 2+ years. Which is funny.

Agree, I just had a first DL for $24 on an oldie but goodie that sat for way over two years.

I'd love to see them get rid of the spammed keywords, the inch by inch duplicates or so minor changes that it's virtually the same image. Get rid of same images with filters or nothing but many variations of color balance adjustments, toning. B&W an exception. I suppose a background, soft focus, desaturated would also make for an exception. Ready to use.

When there were only 1 or 2 million images (hard to say that only part) the agencies could have stood up against including keywords for anything not in an image, or something so minor in the far background that it wasn't part of the composition. That way when a buyer searches for apple they actually see an apple not a tiny apple tree on the horizon. Or worse yet, how many times can we find a search with words used and not a speck of what's in some of the keywords?

Relevant search results, as many have pointed out in the past, would make any agency the King of The Hill. IS tried but didn't implement or follow through. Now it's just a PITA because needed words are not allowed. The rest don't seem to care.

Same as reviews, where we were at least fighting to have something good accepted, now everything passes. Is it really possible to have some agency, stand up and say, "we want accurate keywords only" and limit the true similar images, where someone mashes the shutter release and has 50 new photos. Don't buyers care enough to say, this is BS and a waste of time, slogging through mismatches and wrong words?

Thanks Leaf. Adobe now shows on the graph:  http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?page=PollResults

Quote from: stockastic on April 02, 2018, 12:07

I've learned something about Google advertising recently because I tried running some ads for print sales. And I've had exchanges with people who know more about it.  Many advertisers have concluded that it's a waste of money and that Google is running all sorts of games.  You have no way of knowing what you're actually getting for your money, Google can show you any numbers they want, you can't verify anything.

I've heard the same including unusual views and click farms to make Google more money as you use your budget. Same 3 results as others but using dogpile I hit this one https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2018cv01910/324533/ nothing more. Dreamstime.com, LLC v. Google, LLC Put that into Bing and many.

All docket listings = https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZPSB&pc=MOZO&q=Dreamstime.com%2C+LLC+v.+Google%2C+LLC  only news comes from us. Does that say anything about, how little the other news media cares about Microstock, Dreamstime, or just another Google lawsuit?

Good find Microstock Posts!

SuperPhoto, I'm going to give you the benefit of a very small doubt, and suppose you are thinking the images are hotlinked.

There is one instance where I don't mind if someone uses my images without buying them, and that is hotlinking to the thumbnail in a forum.  If they are not using it to make money, but just trying to illustrate their comment, that use is a sort of advertising.  The hotlink will give someone a way to find the site I am selling the image on, if they want to buy it.

Otherwise, thieves can die in a fire.

Hotlinking images from another site, is stealing bandwidth and just as bad as stealing images. http://www.webweaver.nu/html-tips/hotlinking.shtml

Yes if someone posts here and uses a hotlink, that's different, it's just a forum illustration. Probably not legit, but also not being used for commercial or other website purposes. There was (and still is) a site that searched for our work and posed them as "free backgrounds", better yet, while they were giving away your work and mine, they also used hotlinks to my web pages to do the theft. They didn't even host the images they stole.

If you read the article you'll see how to deal with this, in the case where they had hotlinked from my personal web pages. I edited the page, used a renamed file for my site and then added a copy of the original that said, in big red letters, "this image is stolen and is not free".  I haven't checked but for years that's what showed on his free background site for the images he stole by hotlinking from my web pages.

I pay for the hosting and the bandwidth has limits. I don't like it when someone steals my paid bandwidth for their cheap site or for a blog. I don't believe you should either.

lol, don't worry about it.

a) It's probably a placeholder. ANY professional (real) site would not get business if they had 'shutterstock' all watermarked over it.
b) If they ARE a real site trying to get busienss, they probably don't have the money anyways to pay for it - and it is advertising for you.
c) Also - asfaik, they aren't "stolen" either. Pretty much every stock site lets you download preview/watermarked images/video/etc.

a) don't know if it's a placeholder, doesn't matter, illegal use
b) No it's not advertising, it's stealing
c) Wrong, downloading a sample and using it are far different.

Can I have some of your best images to use on my website? I promise to mention your name if I ever make some money. Sorry can't afford to pay but you'll get exposure, views, and maybe credit. 

So... do we get X% of whatever they win?

X% of nothing is still nothing. But maybe if you pay for the lawyers, you can insure you get a cut. 

Filing a lawsuit is proof of nothing, just that Dreamstime is unhappy. I like the jury trial, that's a smart move. We'll have to see, but I can understand why DT has filed at this point. Sales down, income down, rank down, the future isn't looking to prosperous. If the next quote, from their claim, is true, even more reason to go all in.

"47. Google also plans to enter the online stock photography business segment directly..." That should be interesting if true.

Partnership - adwords with Shutterstock: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/280120/google-shutterstock-licensing-deal-automatically.html Down at the bottom, "Google joins AOL, Salesforce and Sprinklr in integrating Shutterstock search capabilities directly into their products." Shouldn't we be seeing an income increase?

Basically, DT is claiming that Google cooks the results to benefit SS and IS and adds Adobe to the group, even though Adobe doesn't pay for the advantage. DT's main market is discounted images. Called "competitive pricing" in the lawsuit. DT says there's a monopoly and anti-trust violations involved because of the way Google treats Dreamstime, because Google profits from the others higher rank. DT says new buyers have declined 30% since the "manipulated" drop in the search ranking. DT's drop from page one and further down has in effect reduced their clicks from the search, 95%. Also "low cost per acquisition advertisements were being removed" for non-compliance while higher cost, similar ads were allowed to stay.

The antitrust part is pretty much general ways that Google is in violation. DT also asserts that "overcharged and over delivered AdWords to
Dreamstime" which isn't the first time I've read a complaint from an advertiser about AdWords costs and contracts. Amusing, if any of this can be that, DT claims unfair removal of ads when SS ran similar ads. When DT wrote to Google to complain, they were ignored. Hey how does that feel? 

I use Bing for my default search. I enjoy the points and can get gift cards for places, just for doing what I do anyway, which is search the web.




How's SS doing? Some people have noticed that the drop in sales for us has been connected to the drop in the rank.
SS

DT


I don't know how much to base on Alexa graphs and I don't have an account, so that's about all I can see.

Quote from: ShadySue on March 28, 2018, 09:21

Hmmm, "The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which was passed as part of the HIRE Act, generally requires that foreign financial Institutions and certain other non-financial foreign entities report on the foreign assets held by their U.S. account holders or be subject to withholding on withholdable payments.  The HIRE Act also contained legislation requiring U.S. persons to report, depending on the value, their foreign financial accounts and foreign assets."
I was told the CIA could check on anyone's bank account, not just US subjects.

I don't know about CIA (which is very possible, but I can't comment), but they don't have to know that you are a US account holder, they just have to suspect that. By the way, a "US account holder" is anyone who lived in the US for 123 days each year in the last 3 years. Which pretty much applies to any Canadian "snowbird". Because that makes that person a US resident for tax purposes. So those aren't some sneaky US citizens, just anyone who stayed in the US a little too long to be considered a tourist.

And it would likely be the NSA not CIA who monitors emails. SIGINT is signals intelligence, TEMPEST spys on computers/information systems or other unintentional data, and  HUMINT is Human Intelligence, spys Etc.,  OSINT is Open SOurce Intelligence, Internet, Facebook  , publicly available sources = Not Covert.

CIA - is charged with international (outside the US) threats to the US. They are exceptional good at HUMINT

NSA - is charged with international threats but they are exceptional good at SIGINT & TEMPEST

FBI - is charged with domestic (inside the US) threats to the US. They are exceptional good at HUMINT and OSINT

Source: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-CIA-NSA-FBI-and-Homeland-security

The link lists many more but the main three that could be interested in emails or phone listening, in general, are above. That also depends on where you live. But SIGINT would be emails, radio, cell phones, and any kind of signals.

I've had a sudden surge in sales over the last few days. They are very welcome after weeks in the doldrums.

Me too, I think it might be an end of the quarter, the subscription is running out, kind of thing? Except there is also a flock of ODs along with the subs. Could just be Spring and my favorites, half of them, are more in tune with March, April, May events. I hope this keeps up.

None of my Easter theme shots have sold recently, which I'm not surprised. Search returns 158,027 Easter Eggs Basket 

Unusual "sold for the first time" downloads of two year old or more photos. Newest upload got an OD on Saturday. Saturday? 

And in case all this good news is too hard to handle, March 2018 is going to come in, under 2017 not including the SOs. I won't know until after Sunday but I don't expect much with Good Friday long weekend and Easter vacations. Some places offer, work Friday, get off Monday.

Not for me and to against trend I'm doing well this month

Mine too, more than usual subs and ODs are active. As someone else mentioned FT is also moving up, active sales. All the rest are dead or quiet.

Sales numbers a bit down (allowing for shorter month), but rpd down to a shocking $1.47.
Earnings 16.5% down on last Feb. (Oddly, last Feb was by far the lowest rpd of the year, but I can only imagine that's a coincidence)
New worst month for $$ since Aug 2007.

Nice (I mean the $1.47 not the drops), I'm an Indy, .65 Photo - .42 illustration - Audio .39 = RPD when I look on DM3. When I sort by months, the top three are Jan, Feb & July 2017.    July had some kind of image EL

I still can't look at up/down vs 2016 because of the removal of over 3,000 Editorial images, which were the meat of the downloads and best money until Getty took over and ESP came in. I mean, yes down, but it's unreasonable for me to compare sales then to what's left now. Dec. 2016 is right in the middle, sorted by $ / Statement date. I guess I need to watch another 8 months.

The reasoning for using Aperture Priority is the depth of field doesn't change over time, when the light source changes. Shooting manual, you would still need to keep the Aperture the same and change either ISO or shutter speed. In a situation where the light is fairly consistent, that's not necessary, but for a Sunrise/Sunset or changing light conditions, you don't want the background or foreground to be changing, in and out of focus.

I like the ND idea and I'll try that. Slower shutter should make the motion blur more interesting. Frame blending also would help.

But after all, it depends one what the subject is, close or wide, lighting control.