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Messages - changingsky

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5
1
General Photography Discussion / Re: DPReview closing down
« on: June 22, 2023, 08:46 »
Good luck DPReview!!!!

2
Shutterstock.com / Re: Fraud account on Shutterstock.
« on: June 16, 2023, 04:34 »
For all the (deserved) criticism of the use of AI more and more it strikes me one area it could be useful for is detecting similar images *and video* to stop this sort of thing.

The fact it's not suggests to me agencies arent overly bothered.
There are 2 problems: convince the giants (a quality AI works need a decent investment) and the interest of the business shareholders - they have money from all accounts.
And then - what the next? The law enforcement needs also good money. And finally: does the criminal a money to pay? Otherwise again - the government have to feed them in prison.

3
Alamy.com / Re: Is Alamy off line today?
« on: April 21, 2023, 14:34 »
I cannot login. Something is wrong there, reset does not send email. Contacted support

4
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock "Contributor Fund"
« on: December 31, 2022, 06:02 »
Where is this option?

It's in your earning summery, but because whoever does the contributor design sucks at his job, you can't see it unless you scroll very far to the right.
https://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings
I was scratching my head to find it and just did before I read this comment. Where did these people learn web design? Awful!

It was weird when I looked at my top performers earlier the numbers seemed right but then I clicked on the "by product" column and the numbers seemed all wrong until I realized I had to click on each type of earning (subscriptions, enhanced, etc) and add them together - I really don't care, I just want the bottom line! And it's already available so why do I need another page to make it confusing?

It was like someone asked, "How many ways can we show you the same thing so that it looks different each time and confuse the #$@ out of contributors?"

I guess the designer charges by the column and page. Really awful.

On a positive note, this afternoon, I uploaded photos and illustrations for the first time in about 11 months, and they were all accepted and online already. Then I looked at my earnings for the first time this month and felt a little queasy that I'd wasted time uploading anything new.
They don't care about how you feel, how comfortable are you with their interface. For them is more important to redirect you to sales pages. No matter you, contributor, you have no value at all and already for a long time. They gave just a clear message for those to whom this was not clear yet.

5
Hi,

I've just contacted them saying they've become an disgrace.
Maybe we should all do that!

 >:(
Yes they "modified" again - you open url of your contributor's page, SS redirects you to the buyer page again - after a short period they removed this rubbish but today again the same. Disgusting and hypocrite. M...e.
PS: today a client was looking for a stock library advise. I didn't advise SS.

6
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS continues to deteriorate
« on: October 16, 2022, 14:25 »
SS desperate to sell? Already several weeks on first load of the contributors page i am redirected to the sales page of SS and only after that step i can access a contributors page. Useless movement as i don't buy there

Not a big defense of them but:   https://submit.shutterstock.com/dashboard

Depends on what link you have in your bookmarks? That should take you to the contributors scuffling for pocket change page.  ;)
++Thank you. It was always submit.shutterstock.com so i was surprised with those redirects. They survey? I use the same URL, no redirect today :-)

Here's another link you might like, but you have to bookmark it, or it will change back to 25  https://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings/top-performers?page=1&date_range=0&sort_direction=desc&per_page=100

Top Performers 100 per page by sales $$$
Thank you very much, Pete for the advises. BTW, they started again these redirects  :(

7
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS continues to deteriorate
« on: October 05, 2022, 03:13 »
SS desperate to sell? Already several weeks on first load of the contributors page i am redirected to the sales page of SS and only after that step i can access a contributors page. Useless movement as i don't buy there

Not a big defense of them but:   https://submit.shutterstock.com/dashboard

Depends on what link you have in your bookmarks? That should take you to the contributors scuffling for pocket change page.  ;)
++Thank you. It was always submit.shutterstock.com so i was surprised with those redirects. They survey? I use the same URL, no redirect today :-)

8
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS continues to deteriorate
« on: September 28, 2022, 08:36 »
SS desperate to sell? Already several weeks on first load of the contributors page i am redirected to the sales page of SS and only after that step i can access a contributors page. Useless movement as i don't buy there

9
The AI is a human product. Reflecting sick dreams about more suitable world for its creator(s).
Who is creating and on which level - it can be a politician, an owner, manager, software architect, finally developer...
Alltogether can act as a criminal band.
And of course collateral damages. There is already enough reports mentioning forced biases and opinions.
Several weeks ago i removed one app where i posted sometimes. The reason? Suddenly ALL technical content
stopped to show up. I had to open myself accounts which i followed and verify that there were posts.
Instead of content to which i was subscribed or liked, the app started to bring only babies photos, children food, stitching,
promenades with families, happy pregnant bellies etc. Some cinema content was kept (they found it neutral for this soup?)
Ok you understood? They just wanted to show which subjects i must receive because of gender and age.
I find my content without this app. They can keep amateurs of prefiltered content.

10
Off Topic / Re: Russian photographers should be banned!
« on: March 13, 2022, 03:02 »
And continuing the logic. Efforts of many countries were needed to end the II war. Ordinary Germans who was against the regime were powerless to accomplish it. It was before the nuclear era. Now the collective efforts are needed again. But the political and economical ones, otherwise we probably will not see what happen after. The game without rules it is just a non-stop change of the rules. Call for a collective responsibility brings nowhere. If it was applied to all Germans, the modern world could become a dystopia. In the news i see a lot of messages that russians started to leave their country too, about 200 000 for now. Who cannot change the regime, can at least stop feeding it by living and working there. The regime loses its brain capital. The world become too small to use a war for conflict solving. And the world has many other problems.
I sent money to a charity. Everybody does what he can to help Ukrainian population. Status quo of the borders should be restored. Without starting a III war. Call for a highest qualification of politicians, elected in the democratic part of the world.

11
Off Topic / Re: Can anyone ID this logo or shape?
« on: March 05, 2022, 05:27 »
ancient axe (as a weapon)?

12
Off Topic / Re: Will the Russia/Ukraine war affect sales?
« on: March 02, 2022, 02:02 »

You cannot compare now to 80 years ago. that is simply bonkers, in fact that is what Putin is doing now and he is as mad as a box of frogs.

Lets just put this in perspective, times change and the world and societies were very different 80+ years ago, you miss all the nuance, pressures and the pragmatic decisions that were made for reasons at the time.

Thank you, that's what I thought the whole time during the little history lesson here.
It makes little sense to dig up the sins of individual countries from the past and then draw conclusions about the present.
We don't burn witches in Europe anymore - and that for good reason  ;)

we can't forget the past -- nothing excuses Russian aggression, but from a Russian POV their actions to add a buffer zone are justified by a history multiple invasions from medieval times thru Napoleon in 1812, Crimean War in 1853 & Hitler's invasion (causing 8 MILLION military deaths & 15-20+ million civilian deaths)

Correct. In my youth, many older people in the Netherlands still had an antipthia for Germany, fear that that time would return.
But that was a long time ago. Germany is now a good neighbor.
This was not entirely true for Russia after the Cold War, but the fear had disappeared (reflected in the low defense budget).
Putin apparently stuck in that history. And he was probably never able to accept the collapse of the Soviet Union. Actually a pathetic man if he wasn't so dangerous.
All dictators have identical pattern of their end of life.

13
Off Topic / Re: Russian photographers should be banned!
« on: February 27, 2022, 03:56 »
Requests to sanction ordinary people there to force them to change the power are naive. The power there is separated and self-protected from the citizens. People have memory in their blood about the repressions, demonstrations shot, psychiatric actions, isolation, brainwashing, manipulations. The war will continue till the sides have their resources. In Russia government will not pay much attention to the people. Re-read the history. First priority there is the interest of those in power. Politicians of the world have never faced this level of threat of the red button even in the 60ths. The solution should be political and the war can be ended only when politicians find a solution, at least temporary for the moment.

14
Off Topic / Re: Will the Russia/Ukraine war affect sales?
« on: February 26, 2022, 10:42 »
This is a good example of "shoot where you are with what you have as best you can."

Any decent photographer who happens to live in Ukraine could make a killing (so to speak) shooting editorial images right now. Assuming they survive their encounters with Russian rockets, tanks, and troops.

But for the rest of us, Just Another Photographer has it absolutely right. The soldiers (both Ukrainian and Russian) who will die and the Ukrainian civiliians who are now forced into refugee status to avoid being killed or captured and brutalized are the ones we should focus on (so to speak). Whatever lost income may result from this unfortunate situation is a minor concern in the grand scheme of things.
Editorials will contribute for the future court in Hague.

15
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy sale for 7 cents
« on: January 11, 2022, 14:56 »
For the sake of balance, if you mention 7cent sales I feel I have an obligation to also mention the huge sales that may occur at Alamy. Two of my examples from the 8 months. $250+ gross each x 40% for the net.

For the "sake of balance", you should say the same thing about those 10 cents from SS.  ;)

 full time work is hard to find these days.

Actually it's the other way around: wherever I turn my head I see "we hire" signs.
There are not enough workers, these days, for all the jobs that are available.
Amount of jobs ads never shows the real status of the market. Huge layer of intermediates ("body shops") repost the same or slightly changed texts. Many employers cannot find employees being linked to aggressive contracts. Many job seekers cannot find a job because they cannot go through "culture" filters of intermediates (understand this as age-gender-origin-agree-with-everything-shut-up) or requirements without any practical base written by people "not in the subject". The things are more complicated. Look for the root cause.

16
General Stock Discussion / Re: Selling digital drawings
« on: January 06, 2022, 03:08 »
Can it serve as an IP property registration in one place?

17
Just requested to delete my images.
The worse the site is, more problems to delete images. These even don't give such option for a user.

18
Off Topic / Re: New Years topic
« on: December 22, 2021, 08:14 »
I have only empty section. I use Opera

19
This is about technique and your personal ability to keep the camera movements steady, maybe some training also. Software does the magic but limited. For 1/15 and sometimes 1/8 i go without tripod. Of course, the object should be still, like architecture or plants in the calm weather. "Fly around" camera movements for festivities i did only with a phone, because of its weight, but without helping gadgets.

20
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy Demographic Survey
« on: November 18, 2021, 03:54 »
I did not receive this. This kind of data collection, especially by a private company, is forbidden in France.

Don't give away your personal datas to private companies, they will resell them to whoever needs personal datas to build their business. Don't feed the beast.

Exactly.

I too was thinking that this can't be legal.

The data they are asking is personal sensitive information.

"Data relating to religion, politics, health, etc. is considered sensitive under the EUs data protection law and gets special protection."

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/legal-grounds-processing-data/sensitive-data_en

"Sensitive personal data is protected under EU law and can only be processed by organisations if specific safeguards are in place."

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/legal-grounds-processing-data/sensitive-data/under-what-conditions-can-my-company-organisation-process-sensitive-data_en

Sure, they are an UK company, but I am a citizen of an EU country. They may get away if we give them this information voluntarily, but such personal data is no way relevant in the business of selling and distributing stock photos. They have no business asking any of this.  No way it would be acceptable to use sensitive personal information in any advertorial or marketing purpose.

How are they going to use this information? How is it stored and for how long? How it protected? Who has access to it? The email was vague about it, they said they will "share it".

It would be interesting to get some answers from Alamy.
It is just a new direction of their business. The data have their own cost and become a commodity.

21
Someday there will be company run by us (the artist) where the commission is 70%  plus for the us and our voices are heard and changes are made to benefit us. Someday...
This kind of projects are not a new invention, there were many. Some of them even started here, between this forum members. None of them gained a visible place on the market. Ideas were different: from an agency run by the artists to the network of standardized websites with a common search and interlinking. Lifecycle of these projects is usually very short and they fell because of limiting factors like investments, time, human psychology (and especially artists specific) etc etc.
And there will be people which will start again. Wishing them good luck, even with the references to the failed before projects. A neutral to artists agency was the mostly competitive type in microstock, but this neutrality also does not live long. How this model works and evolves everybody sees in the income digits, very different for an agency and an artist.

22
Was there a case when name of a thief on SS become public and he was prosecuted? Most of thieves accounts look like generated AI personas

23
Shutterstock.com / Re: Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
« on: September 03, 2021, 00:49 »
"Reset" of search results will happen. For many of portfolio holders it is not physically possible to rename and re-keyword their photos and videos. SS of course will promote the "correct" ones.

24
Image Sleuth / Re: Another blatant thief at Shutterstock
« on: August 23, 2021, 07:11 »
Somebody wrote that because of low pricing there is no benefit for SS to keep the thieves online. The real life shows the opposite. Otherwise they just investigate quickly and take them down. There is enough money flowing in with such accounts and all are kept by SS, no need to share a fraction to contributors. Not sure which is the real % of such accounts found by the contributors, it can be very small compare to not discovered ones.

25
Comments in this thread can be qualified as a brainstorming for a company which puts efforts to pay less for us. Especially when it is, indeed, possible to separate a background info noise from the value data.

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