So, if you have an amazon account, you might want to drop them a line, because if you've taken any kind of landscape photography in the past, there's a good chance your images might be in this "authors books". Feel free to cut & paste the content below if you wish...

He (collectively) seems to have about 1500+ "amazon books" across all of his pen names/accounts... simply takes about 40 landscape photos from "free sites" like pexels/unsplash/pixabay, as well as it appears paid sites like adobe + shutterstock, and then puts it in a "book". Part of the "get-rich-quick" scheme going on for KDP publishing. (While you can get rich quick from good content, and putting together excellent books, and doing things honestly and ethically - this is not the right way. It is incredibly dishonest & deceptive).

While pexels/unsplash/etc do permit "free" commercial use for products/services, they explicitly state that derivative works must be significantly different than simply repackaging content, as well as not trying to pass other people's work off as his own... which, of course his violating both...

These are the account names with publications (aka landscape "books", seems to either be an east indian or arabic name, not sure):
(645 publications) - HMZ MASHA: https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AHMZ+MASHA
(181 publications) - Hamza Almashaqbeh https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C4W7FN49/
(248 publications) - ALMASH SABA https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0CK4VWCPS/
(268 publications) - "Taylor Reevis": https://www.amazon.ca/Taylor-Reevis/e/B0B4GHMXQF/
(251 publications) - Lamar Mayar: https://www.amazon.com/stores/LAMAR-MAYAR/author/B0CK4SHFD1/
(seems only 1 active at the moment) Emma Mirwid: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BX147TQ7/

Basically, if you look @ the preview page of the book (i.e., look inside of the book preview) - you'll find the images that he passes of as his own for "his books", are actually compilation from all sorts of different photographers, without any kind of attribution whatsoever, nor any modification other then slapping them altogether, from those different sites I mentioned. A number of images also seem to come from adobestock/shutterstock too when you scroll down to other pictures.

And as I said, while unsplash/pexels/etc do allow "free commercial use" - they explicitly forbid the type of activity he is engaging it.

a) I.e., for unsplash  - it explicitly states in section 8(g) that derivative works must be 'first significantly or meaningfully' updated.
It explicity states against "simple retouches, resizing, or other minimal changes". The content in this individuals books simply seems to be cut & paste copies
of other people's images, which of course is not a significant change. The Unsplash license is located here: https://unsplash.com/terms

b) For pixabay/pexels, while Pixabay.com does permit commercial use as well, in section (4) it explicitly states again using content in misleading or deceptive ways, specifically: "by giving the impression that Content was created by you, or a person other than the intellectual property rights holder of the Content (including without limitation, by claiming or giving the impression that you hold ownership of, or exclusive rights to, the Content)." No attribution appears to be present in any of the publications, thereby violating these terms as well. The terms are available here: https://pixabay.com/service/terms/, as well as here https://www.pexels.com/terms-of-service/.

c) And then of course - adobe/shutterstock don't permit unlicensed use.

Here are some of his sample "books", with the corresponding unsplash/pexel/adobe/shutterstock/etc pictures. You can pretty much pick anyone of his "books", and find a corresponding image on one of those sites.

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Sample "HMZ MASHA" publications (645 publications):

Publication: https://www.amazon.ca/Stavanger-NORWAY-Mind-Blowing-Photography-Paperback-July/dp/B0C9S9CGVS/
Photographer Victro Malyushev -> Sample Source Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/white-and-yellow-houses-SjAxwFjQyck

Publication: https://www.amazon.ca/BRITISH-COLUMBIA-Photography-Tourists-Attractions/dp/B0C2S71C99/
Photographer Andrew Darlington -> Sample Source Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-lake-surrounded-by-trees-and-mountains-R8fc76MvD4c

Publication: https://www.amazon.ca/YORKSHIRE-ENGLAND-Photography-Tourists-Attractions/dp/B0C5YZLT96/ref=sr_1_11
Photographer Samuel Girven -> Source Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/gray-rocky-mountain-during-daytime-QNhK70HEL6w

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Sample "Taylor Reevis" publications (268 publications):
Publication: https://www.amazon.ca/Calabria-Beautiful-Photography-Meditation-Collection/dp/B0B5KXB7R2
Photographer: Walkerssk: https://pixabay.com/photos/scilla-calabria-italy-1185547/
Photographer: Valtercirillo: https://pixabay.com/photos/san-nicola-arcella-sea-calabria-1979085/

Publication: https://www.amazon.ca/Newfoundland-Canada-Photography-Coffee-Table/dp/B0BPGGF5M6
Photographer: Ritche Perez -> https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-color-buildings-near-body-of-water-58691/

Publication: https://www.amazon.ca/Iguazu-Falls-Photography-Meditation-Landscapes/dp/B0B3S26Z12
Photographer: Thomaslkiefer -> https://pixabay.com/photos/iguazu-water-falls-flow-1839165/

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Sample "Hamza Almashaqbeh" publication (181 publications)

Publication: https://www.amazon.com/ITALY-Photography-Coffee-Tourists-Attractions/dp/B0BZF78S6X
Photographer: Rory Hennessey -> https://unsplash.com/photos/a-city-with-a-crane-V08FBNIWShw

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Sample ALMASH SABA (248 publications)

Publication: https://www.amazon.com/ISLE-SKYE-Mind-Blowing-Tour-SCOTLAND/dp/B0CN3DH5MB/
Photographer: Jack White -> https://unsplash.com/photos/a-high-angle-view-of-a-river-EYRjEAr5mgI

Publication: https://www.amazon.com/most-beautiful-churches-world-Buildings/dp/B0CSTGNYVN/
Photographer: Dimitrisvetsikas1969: https://pixabay.com/photos/russian-church-dome-golden-5504400/

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Lamar Mayar (251 publications): 
Publication: https://www.amazon.com/HEIDELBERG-Mind-Blowing-Tour-GERMANY/dp/B0CL6BPTHK/
Photographer: Leonhard Niederwimmer -> https://unsplash.com/photos/a-city-with-a-castle-on-top-of-a-hill-OrEprg4nJAI
Photographer: Gaertringen -> https://pixabay.com/photos/heidelberg-bridge-germany-river-274220/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doing things honestly I think is fine, but the way he is doing it (deceptive/dishonest) is very wrong.

If you have an amazon account, I might drop them a line and let them know, because he is simply repackaging other people's content & passing it off as his own to "get rich quick" is wrong, and there is probably a good chance some of your work might be in one of his "books".

I found this contributor at Adobe today:
https://stock.adobe.com/ch_de/contributor/209153539/oleg?load_type=author&prev_url=detail

He has almost 315k (!) generated images. What the heck?
But at least he has a good, probably manual quality control.

But still, how do you manage to generate so many images in such a short time? It can only be a huge team, probably from Eastern Europe (Oleg?)
I wouldn't be surprised if they start completely plagiarizing other agencies with Img2Img and Inpaint at some point in the future.

Extremely demotivating.

lol, wow! does he have a special pass on how much he can upload? because I'd say he's uploading 30-40k/month then...

but eh, don't worry about it... focus on yourself. imagine there is just one GIGANTIC contributor that has 35 MILLION "ai" images, because in essence that is kind of what it is like.

The fact that she went from making about $100/month before uploading AI images to $1,000/month in 6 months is mind blowing.  Will she make $10,000/month another 6 months later?  Very unlikely.  But I think she can reach $3,000/month in a year or two if she keeps adding quality AI images like she's been doing.  This kind of stuff never happened.  It's the only positive I've seen in the last 5 years in microstock industry for contributors.

https://youtu.be/F6fSIbMpri8?si=Zj8ag7628oTYYE8w

True, there are probably more santa claus images doing better than hers. My point was - for "santa claus" (while of course not every image is a santa claus), of the 425,000 results - basically you'd need to be in the top 10 or top 20 to see any 'significant' financial results.

Not sure why "her" santa claus was chosen over 425,000 other santa clauses (if I knew that, I could consistently produce a lot of different images that do well) - but I'd say it is a combination of luck, timing, happening to stumble upon the right keywords/etc... in other words - not necessariliy easy to duplicate. (I made some santa claus images that I thought were quite good, and for the 3-4 hours involved in coming up with concepts, making them, titling, keywording, upscaling, editing, cropping, fixing, categorizing, submitting, - I think I made... let me check... looks like about $5 (about $1/hour)... Of course, $5 is better than nothing, and of course there is the possibility for future residual income - so I am of course grateful for that... but... there are certainly a lot of santa clauses...

Plus - when she (and not just her) makes videos of "OMFG! look how I made SOOOO much money doing VERY little work, like and subscribe my video channel so I can make MORE money!!!" - it gets lazy people coming out of the woodwork to try and get rich quick...

If things stayed the same - then yes, maybe she'd get to $3k/month... I highly doubt it though - because quite possibly there will be 10x the contributors a year from now "inspired" by her get rich quick videos, + also competing platforms/sites/tech/etc...

It's "possible", but not sure if it is likely...

But again, go for it if you wish. I find it interesting, just saying it may not necessarily be 'easy' or the 'get rich quick' path you are looking for. Certainly is possible though, obviously other people have done it.

@
I wouldn't bet on it in the long term.
Nvidia is a heavyweight cooperation partner that brings a lot of technical and theoretical know-how in the software/hardware industry and model development of AI.
NVIDIA Picasso for example seems also to generate 3D models and has a web integration of user applications like photoshop, etc.
https://www.nvidia.com/de-de/gpu-cloud/picasso/

If they manage to generate the 3D objects photorealistically, I see even more potential here, because you can generate entire scenes in which you can adjust every detail as desired (think of product visualizations, for example, in which you can rotate the objects or move the light source as desired).

//Edit:
It is interesting to note that Cuebric has been developed with Nvidia for products for film production.
Looks extremely promising there.
https://cuebric.com/disguise

Interesting, thanks. One phrase though I find quite overused is how "everyone" seems to be saying their video/tool/item/etc is a "game-changer". Ugh, no it's not. It's annoying using that so much. But anyways, cool tool, thanks.

My friend, instead of crying and whining about AI images, you better take advantage of this golden opportunity.  Check out this video of an Adobe Stock contributor who had enormous success with her AI images on Adobe Stock. 
https://youtu.be/F6fSIbMpri8?si=LVr2tzPTpJ5LiXwX

You never get the same exact image from the same exact AI prompt.  Also, you have a record of prompting your own AI images.  So, your concern is invalid.  Don't worry about it!!!  There's no crying in microstock business!!

Thanks for the video, quickly skipped through it.

I do agree there are people making $$, but to me - in some ways it is like winning a lottery ticket. She had a very seasonal picture first of all (the santa claus), doing a quick search for the gen ai - there are about 425,000 images for santa claus. For whatever reason - "her" santa claus got picked/promoted, and 424,999 other santa clauses did not. Why, I'm not sure (lol otherwise I'd make sure ALL of my images were 'picked' like that )...

And as more and more of this "look how I made $1k while watchint t.v. and now I can retire in a vacation villa!" videos come about - more and more other people want to "get rich quick" which floods the market with images like that...

Not saying you "can't" make $$ from it - but... it is very competitive, and does require a bit of luck, timing, desirable assets, etc, etc...

I'm not sure if I would call this a "business model", but I'm not sure if the long term results would be there... While I did get in to stock photography/videography later - people that got into it in 2003/2004 said they would have a "single" picture that made them $1k for a "single" sale... The marketplace has changed significantly - such that people are now chasing $0.25 images... For me, of course I am interested in earning $$$ from it, but I also find it kind of fun/interesting...

I was surprised she also openly said she made a "2nd account" for her, "er, in her husbands name", but then continued to refer to it as her 2nd account... while I know people do that - I was just surprised she was pretty open about that in a public video...

Why the final client have the right to use the image? Because the designer gives them.

Why the designer have the right to use the image? Because the stock agency gives them.

Why the stock agency have the right to sale the image? Because the stock stock photographer gives them.

Why the stock stock photographer have the right to sale the image? Because the AI image generator gives them.

Why the AI image generator owner have the right to sale the image? Because they have created this tool.

Why they have created this tool? Because they are smart and because we can not escape of the future and AI revolution.

Last point I strongly disagree with. "They" are not smart - "they" are thieves, using other peoples content, and using your own money (i.e., "taxes"/"inflation"/etc) to fund the theft of your work. Also - you can "escape" it, but that is not the right word either. It is not true "ai" - it is a sophisticated computer algorithm that steals & repackages other people's stolen works.

"waaay more" is relative. for some people, doubling their investment is "waay more". for others, getting like $1k is "waaay more".
if you are in a poor country, maybe making $50 is "waaay more".

that's why I am asking. what do you define as "waaay more"?

Quote from: SuperPhoto on January 13, 2024, 11:43

Quote from: blvdone on January 13, 2024, 09:28

So, it took 10 years to get 6,500 photos on Adobe Stock, but took only 3 months to add 3,000 AI generated photos on Adobe Stock.  $120 x 3 months Midjourney cost is very well spent.  I'll make way more than $120 in AI photo sales this month.  Also, I'm lucky I got 3,000 AI photos accepted before the mass rejection trend started.

What is that "profit" wise though? Without a reference, it is difficult to make a decision, i.e., a bar chart of $2 is much different from a bar chart of $200 or $2000...

Did you read "I'll make way more than $120 in AI photo sales this month. "?

Interesting, I was wondering when they'd have a 'new' version out (it's still based on theft though, anyways, different topic).

(a) Adobe was still doing massive rejections before that. I don't believe it has anything (really) to do with quality, because it seems depending who is reviewing it, sometimes stuff will get approved, and other times it won't.
(b) Took a look at the quality of v6 (just a few simple tests) - some of the "photographic" shots do look more 'natural', but with other shots (i.e., not a standard type of pose "i.e., person standing smiling"), you still get some wierd artifacts, etc... It also seems to (inaccurately) "ban" certain types of prompts, i.e., if you said "beautiful woman wearing short outfit in summer" it would go crazy, because it didn't like the word "short" and figured it must be p0rn or something...

Right now I suppose because "everyone" seems to be trying to "get rich quick" via selling "ai" images, it doesn't seem to really be all that beneficial now (i.e., LOTS of work for teensy tiny payout)... now I suppose with my workflow I still do edit images/make sure they 'look good' - and probably a lot of people don't care (just upload what is input, cut/paste blocks of keywords/etc)...

I do it partially beacause I think it is fun/interesting - of course I'd like to make $$ from it, but if one is looking at getting "rich" from it (at least this way) I think a lot of work is involved... Of course, one can get 'lucky' and get one of the images to sell a lot (and maybe make a few hundred $$ from a single image)...

The "get rich" method is by selling the TOOLS (i.e., midjourney), which the tool itself is based off of massive theft. Midjourney SHOULD pay out contributors in the same RECURRING fashion to the contributors they stole the work from. That may be coming later. They I believe are making several hundred MILLION in regular recurring income right now...

Too bad that Adobe doesn't differentiate between the reasons for rejection.

Another trigger for strictness could also be that the reviewers are now only looking for the quality of Midjourney V6, which was released at the end of December and seems to have a considerable jump in quality:
https://mid-journey.ai/midjourney-v6-release/

Which AI engine do you use?
I'm too stingy for 48 to 60 bucks Midjourney's pro plan with stealth mode. I currently use a cheap provider with stable diffusion engine and various models/loras, who offers a private mode for 15 bucks / month without generative limitations.

Merry Christmas!

Okay. Yes i read this part.
No minor. Overweight man is adult and woman too.
If AI-image, no model release = account ban?

Overweight man = discrimination? Saw other images and videos after a quick search, online, so this should be okay. (?)
Maybe i just skip these topics. Still not 100% clear. Try & error (account gone) is maybe too risky for me.

There really needs to be a checkbox for things that you (I, and maybe everyone else) aren't sure about.

Adding a comment here:

(a) Re: the "hypersensitivity" - I think most people have brains. It is the tell-a-vision via the blackrock/vanguard conglomerate/coalition controlling media outlets/etc which tries to promote and encourage the (insanely stupid) hyper-sensitivity, to try and cause division. (In addition they are using "money" to try and promote every sick type of perversion possible, from really sick obese deformed people in every gay/trans/multi-gender pick your pronoun soup/non normal type of relationship to try and attack families, and trying to 'normalize' that, as opposed to a healthy normal family unit. They basically want to 'control' people, so trying to do divide/conquer). Yes, I would say an overweight man eating a hamburger is fine... after all, usually that is what you see - you don't usually see an obese man eating a salad without salad dressing, unless he wants to get in shape. Maybe do both?

Also - "discrimination" (that word) is being used incorrectly here... I think you mean "stereotype"? It is an accurate stereo-type.

(b) Nudity, can't really comment on that... I tend to not go into that area, because I think there it is very subjective what could be considered 'artistic', and what could be considered 'porn'... And I think in most cases, people looking to download naked pictures of women generally speaking are not doing it for 'artistic' purposes... After all, if you go into google, or say a red light district, you don't normally see headlines of "XXX! ARTISTIC PORTRAITS OF WOMEN! ONLY $5 COVER CHARGE! ARTISTIC POSES!"

just wondering if anyone else had this happen... I've usually seen consistent performance (sales) in december - looking at my historical amount, it's been roughly the same last 3-4 years... this year, about an 80% drop in sales, may be temporary. just surprised. anyone else seen the same?

I believe you may have copyright issues there...

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev Photography on December 19, 2023, 03:06

So, what is the point of creating this post if not to show the rejected images and find why you got such rejections? It's a frivolous to assume Adobe, the biggest company in the photography area don't know what they do, but you know. Many experienced people here can help you to find some weak points in your job and to resolve this rejection problems.

This has been going on and on and on for months now. The point is to complain and maybe to finally get Matt to aknowledge that there is something wrong. Rejections have become CRAZY on Adobe. I used to have a 95% acceptance rate, it went to below 40% from one day to the next and I stopped submitting real photos to Adobe completely, because the reject so much (at the same time they accept almost all my AI images, even though the full size quality doesn't even come close to the quality of my real photos) and there have been multiple threads by contributors reporting the same issue.
 Yet Matt claims "everything was fine and nothing changed" when people keep telling him over and over and over again that this is not the case.

Now, if this were just posts from new contributors who do not understand the quality requirements for submitting this would be one thing, but the complains come from experienced contributors who have been doing this for years and when the acceptance rate changes so drastically for so many people from one day to the next, then it seems right to assume that a bunch of people not suddenly and simultaneously lost their abilities to take good quality photos and the problem is with Adobe instead. But to this day Matt refuses to aknowledge that.

What is the point in showing Matt individual photos? I've seen  the extreme level of nitpicking he goes to to justify rejections (like "The photo shows different kind of plates!"). This is not an individual problem, but a large structural problem on Adobe. Nitpicking single photos will not solve this problem.

Yes, that is pretty much what I am saying.

I know what a good image is, what a saleable image is. I know to submit unique shots (i.e., no "300 cucumbers" with "slight angle variations" like some ppl do, and actually currently have in their profile). I know about looking & removing artifacts, pixellation, etc. I know about proper subject focus, copyspace, etc, etc. I know about proper & relevant keywording, as well as proper & relevant titles. etc, etc, etc.

And for both genAI & real photos/illustrations/etc, it seems in particular the last 2 months - (more so the "weekend" reviewers, i.e., if content happens to get reviewed on the weekend) - it just seems to be an "auto-reject" for a majority of stuff, almost like "they" need to reach a quota. (Not always of course, but more so than it should be that it has become very noticeable).

Why not - for any contributor account created pre Jan-2023, realize those contributors probably know what they are doing, and be process those images better/be more reasonable for acceptance rates? (Jan 2023 was when the media in a co-ordinated fashion announced "ai" images and "ai" stuff in Jan 2023, and you subsequently had the "ai gold rush").

I realize there are now probably 10's of thousands of new daily contributors (in particular I believe from east india, malaysia, etc) trying to get on the 'genAI gravy train'. While nothing wrong with that - obviously some of those new people probably have no idea what constitutes a 'good' image, nor how to do pre-quality checks, many times quite frankly because they simply don't care - because they watch youtube videos how to make one billion dollars in 2 days from genAI images, and just rush to do it, not caring whether someone has 3 hands, 15 toes, just so they can make 'billions' in one day...

So - why not - as an 'easy' way of reviewers still meeting their quotas - take into account whether an account was created pre Jan 2023, and realizing pre Jan 2023 accounts probably know how to do proper pre-reviews, so be more reasonable in accepting content that is submitting from those contributors?

Thanks.