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Messages - alan b traehern

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76
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS strict rejection policy
« on: September 10, 2022, 07:09 »
Two accounts and they are noticing the same images uploaded to both. You won't last long.

Calling ss racist rejections for same images uploaded to another account?

77
Adobe Stock / Re: Adobe Stock Free Collection question
« on: September 10, 2022, 06:56 »
What' is selected? And what's the criteria?

I've had some of my images selected by Adobe to be part of the program. Is it something to be proud about or they just select something randomly to be part of it?

Thanks for any info.

An image that made me .78 since uploaded, will now get me paid $5. That isn't giving away for free and I made more money than it ever did before. Not random, they want free images to attract new customers.

78
...It's the agencies that decide the price and they aren't the ones who have higher porduction costs, so they see no reason to raise prices for end products as, unlike contributors they have no financial loss due to rising production costs.

That's the whole problem. In microstock producers can't decide their prices. We can't forward our rising expenses to customers and microstock agencies don't have high enough morality standards to do it for us.

i agree with your analysis, except (of course) another reason ms dont raise prices is competition - if one agency raises prices, they're at a competitive disadvantage w other agencies

cascoly,

I don't follow your argument, because the same laws apply to MS agencies as to the rest of the free economy. If your argument was, true, no gas station would raise prices, no craftsman, no parcel service, no fast food chain, no supermarket, etc. because of competitive disadvantage.

But they all do - only the microstock agencies don't. Why not? Because we put up with it. From my point of view, it's as simple as that.

in most of those cases you cite,  they're near monopolies; also, many have prices that can easily be raised / lowered (sometimes of a daily basis) - eg, without explicit coordination, most gas stations raise prices immediately when oil prices increase, but only slowly decrease when oil does.  if a major portion of the suppliers don't participate, prices revert. 

MS don't have that option as their market is both more muddled, less structured & less correlated - the market is splintered- it's also not as easy to change prices, to test the response of other agencies. so, when one agency raises prices, the others gain a competitive advantage by keeping prices low

as far as "Because we put up with it.", that has near zero effect, as the SS boycott showed - the number of suppliers is huge and constantly increasing, so there's not been any way to get a co-ordinated reaction from a critical mass

The FT boycott before that and the IS boycott before that, had no effect. We can work for what agencies offer us or do something else.

79
General Stock Discussion / Re: 3D images?
« on: July 09, 2022, 08:34 »
Old novelty photo trick, no market, no demand.

80
Hello

A little rant from me for hearing too much about Wirestock: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/never-use-wirestock/

Let me know what are you thoughts! Do you think this is all wrong and actually WS is a good time investment?

I was there for a little while amd left once I found my images were being given away in a free site just because they didnt sell well. That really sucked.

You mean the instant pay program? I cant recall Wirestock giving images away for free other than instant pay, which you can opt out of.

They don't give away photos that don't sell well, Wirestock sells nothing, doesn't give away anything, and some of the other comments are also nothing but what if, as they go out of business? Facts are they distribute our work and take 15% for doing that. Like it or don't, but that's not why "you should never ever work with Wirestock". [end of quote] [repeat line] Wirestock sells nothing, the agencies, which are the same agencies, are the same as if we upload ourselves. How can anybody blame Wirestock!

81
What does this mean, when does it end? Pride month and another letter added. LGBTQIA I get the first 4 but then things start to get lost. Is Q for questionable, I for I don't know.

82
I went exclusive on Pond 5 and I made less. Exclusive just doesn't work.

83
Urgh never mind.

Pond is not a concept it's a Noun.

Obviously. Pond wasn't meant to be a concept. Pond was just an obvious word in the title and keyword that someone would type to find dragonflies. The title that was rejected stated something like "Golden ringed Dragonfly basking in the sun after feeding near a pond. Scientific name (Latin name). It was rejected for the scientific name and keyword pond, life. Pond insects. Flying pond bugs all find dragonflies in the search bar. But I wasn't allowed Pond because there was no pond. It was a stupid refusal. I won't debate that any longer because it is patently obviously a pond related subject. Or stream either is correct.

I believe I did point out various examples of this rigidity being lame. I stated that we could no longer have conceptual titles because a photo titled meditation would now have to become "woman sitting oddly alone in room. But we cant have room because only one wall can be seen. Prisoner becomes "young man sitting on generic bed against a wall wearing grey overalls. No prison visible.

I guess it comes down to how badly do adobe want their photos to be found. Not very in that case. And I'm a native speaker of English. So to throw these subjective obstacles in the way is tiresome. It was removed on my behalf and then published. Well I say refused it was placed in a limbo state until I corrected mistakes. After 3 goes I couldn't work out why which is why I asked for help and the explanation given that title must be in English not foriegn languages (Latin is the only name for some insects but whatever) that I can only title what is visible which makes conceptual ideas risky and that future repeated instances of rule breaking like this could result in 'keyword spamming' and closure of account.

Pond. Ok lol  jeeze

Obviously you are wrong. I find many images with Latin names in title and many with concept words that you claim they don't allow. You are wrong or lying.

https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=dragonfly&search_type=default-asset-click&asset_id=469521372

Maybe you are just watched more because you are a keyword spammer and got caught.

84
General - Top Sites / Re: My first month with Freepik !
« on: April 21, 2022, 07:42 »
There's a reason for new images getting downloads right away, A giant vacuum * every new image and saving them. Next year you will have no new downloads. US members have to pay $85 a year to give away work for free.

85
Adobe Stock / Re: Mark as Illustrative Editorial?
« on: April 09, 2022, 11:14 »

Luckily I don't really do many editorial photos in general, so it isn't that much of a big deal to me. They are just a tiny fraction of my port. It just always puzzles me when people here say that Adobe basically accepted everything as editorial as long as there are no people in the photos. For me, unless it's a product photo, my editorial photos get rejected more often than accepted and I can't even figure out a pattern.


The thing is that a  " Illustrative Editorial Guidelines" rejection could be for a number or reasons.  For example, maybe they didn't like your annotation.  A colon out of place for example.
Vague rejections are the way of AS. Maybe Mat can help?

86
Here's how to be accepted. From SS, Heres a tip to stand outinclude a mix of diverse ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, and body types, as well as LGBTQ+ and non-binary people. Content with recognizable faces must also include model releases, as well as property releases for recognizable locations.
They really push this down our throats don't they?

87
Shutterstock.com / Re: Pending and Reviewed Disappeared?
« on: March 28, 2022, 06:21 »
I have images reviewed as far back as 15 days now that still haven't shown up in my port.  :(
I start to doubt that this issue will really be fixed.

They added a catalog tool for buyers, Try before you purchase with downloadable comps. Add a new tool, break the old.

88
Shoot new world order, transhumanism, central banks, social credit systems, loss of personal property. More bioterrorism. Frankenfood made from soy, disappearance of beef. Plant-based food. Big agriculture.
Excellent ideas Cathy

More ideas. Neuralinks, crypto, space travel.

From Elon Musk. The billionaire who also spoke about space travel, colonies on Mars, crypto, artificial intelligence and Covid-19 vaccines said Neuralink is trying to figure out if it can use its chips to get monkeys to play mind Pong with each other.
That would be pretty cool, said Musk, who is CEO of Neuralink, in addition to SpaceX and Tesla.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/01/elon-musk-neuralink-wires-up-monkey-to-play-video-games-using-mind.html

Great ideas. Thanks for the link, Cathy.
The so called "lifestyle" photography with lazy drug-addict multi-gender individuals chilling out is so OLD. The next trend is people communicating with machines and robots; maybe we can have microchips inserted also in the brains or our pets? To make them do things, or to communicate with them? To find out what exactly is going on in their minds? (May be more than just "food" and "walk")
Maybe cyber threats and surveillance can be combined with the idea of neuralink in stock photography.

Anything that includes LGBTQIA+ I don't know what all those letters mean, transgender athletes who beat real women, avocados on toast or Starbucks latest cups.

89
Off Topic / Re: Russian photographers should be banned!
« on: March 11, 2022, 06:16 »
In Ukrania there are neonazis, in Germany there are neo-* , in Russia there are neo-*, in United States there are neo-*. Do you think because some crazy extremist minorities a country has the right to bomb and kill innocent children , women, men, many who are totally against any radicalism. You are totally out of your mind if you think the same way as the leader of Russia.

 Putin will pay for his genocide. Have no doubt about it. If you ask me, it will be sooner than later. The whole world is against him.....well not the whole world. It seems North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Eritrea support him. Great partners.......

Except only in Ukraine they are killing civilians. 13.000 of them. Your evidence of the genocide? Let's say he is guilty of: Native Americans genocide, Aborigines genocide, Colonialism, WW1, WW2, atomic bombs, Vietnam, slavery. Are you good now?

If you would stop supporting the lies and stop defending the attacks on civilians with not related whatabout, you might see the truth.

Anonymous has successfully breached and leaked the database of Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media, releasing to the public over 360K files.

Russia has a federal agency that controls the media and distributes the Russian government the lies. Why does Russia want to block ban Facebook and Wikipedia. Is there something in the truth that they can't tell the Russian people? Putin will be tried as a war criminal.

90
Off Topic / Re: Will the Russia/Ukraine war affect sales?
« on: March 03, 2022, 08:49 »
Thijs has departed this forum, I see. What a shame. He was much too nice for this group, I think.

I've decided to follow Thijs out the door. No more interest here for me either.

So bye, ya'll. It's been a hoot!

Take your sexist attacks with you.

91
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy sale for 7 cents
« on: February 21, 2022, 09:25 »
Earnings on FAA last year blew away all my stock earnings by a mile

You are lucky with FAA. Because you signed up in 2010 and the FAA greatly favors the artists who signed up early. If we look at recent sales, 90% of them are made by artists registered before 2013-2014.

I have more than a thousand photos, but for their search engine I am practically invisible. I sold 9 prints in 2021, but 6 are from clients I personally referred to the FAA/Pixels from my website

With my 4 POD shops  I only made 4% of my total earnings with microstock. PODs for photographers basically is a waste of time. It is difficult for photographers to sell prints, perhaps for a painter or illustrator it is easier.

FAA is just a popularity contest and old people are favorites? Seems like the search engine everywhere always favors someone else, not people on this forum.

92
General Stock Discussion / Re: NFTs and License Terms
« on: February 15, 2022, 08:27 »
True, I should have written it better, esp as this thread concerns NFT rather than crypto.
I guess my excuse is that it's all geek to me.

Meanwhile:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/4722710433/nft-marketplace-cent-temporarily-halts-most-trading-due-to-widespread-fraud


no problem -- i was mainly amused(?) by the experts who say crypto is mostly criminal with little/no evidence

NFT Whack-A-Mole
https://protos.com/cent-nft-valuables-right-click-save-hiatus/

93
The woke mob, they see racism everywhere.

And much much more.....

Bye

94
That wasn't a house project but you two can go on in your imaginary dream make up world. The answer was on SS forums unless you are banned there. Eighth-Wonder is not a in-house contributor test account.

95
Alamy.com / Re: Alamy sale for 7 cents
« on: December 31, 2021, 06:24 »
Seems to be the "new Alamy"...
My last four sales : Summary for 01 December 2021 to 31 December 2021 ( 4 item(s) totalling $0.96 )

Three sales for 0.15 and one sale 0.51

I left Shutterstock when they started the 0.10 sales and now Alamy is following them....

That's terrible and an insult, maybe time to start taking away my images. When they cut to 20% in July there's no reason to stay. Maybe there's no reason now?

97
SVH some of what you write is not true, but for keywords anybody who doesn't do their own is going to get what you write, pretty bad. I don't know why anybody would send images to Wirestock without keywords, that's just a bad plan, and we all know that. If somebody is being lazy, keyword before upload or get bad keywords.

Photos do take a long time to be reviewed. I have accepted status on some for Alamy, Adobe, SS and DT, maybe because I have been there longer and have more then 70 images? No one cares who you are and most they don't go buy from your portfolio. I see when sales are made and they are listed by agency. Just look at last 7 days or last 30 days. Wirestock is a distributor answer not a sales answer. Pictures that don't sell anywhere, won't sell better at Wirestock.

If you want to get your work out to more agencies without doing the work or take time, then use Wirestock, but don't think anything will be different from uploading yourself. Wirestock is only a delivery system for your work, nothing more.

98
Shutterstock.com / Re: Highest price for a photo on Shutterstock.
« on: December 28, 2021, 12:01 »
     What I find surprising in this post is that some contributors
appear to have no problem allowing the SS to manipulate and
change the original agreement you had with the agency when
you first signed up with them.
     I signed up with the SS in 2009. The signed agreement stated
that I would receive a minimum of $0.35us and I would start as a
Level 1 contributor. If I sold more than 10,000 images I would
move up to Level 2 and earn a minimum $0.38us per image, etc.
HD videos, at the time, started at a minimum $23us per clip and,
like images, increased when you achieved a certain amount of
sales.
     There was nothing in that agreement that stated the SS could
lower commissions or do whatever they * well pleased. It may be
in your agreement if you signed up more recently but in my
original agreement there is nothing stating that the SS would lower
my commission or drop me back to Level 1 whenever they * well
pleased.
     This was a binding agreement. Changing that agreement arbitrarily
is illegal and unethical.
     My hopes that we would launch a Class Action lawsuit against the SS
will not happen based on this post. My apologies if I upset a few
contributors.
     I've learned a lot in this particular post.

You're wrong the contract says, "Please note that Shutterstock reserves the right to modify these terms at any time in its sole discretion, it being understood that no changes shall apply to any pending arbitration proceeding commenced or legal claims asserted prior to such change. Shutterstock will notify you of any such change by an announcement on this page, your login page, and/or by other means to provide you the opportunity to review the modifications before they become effective. Modifications to these TOS will not apply retroactively. By continuing to make Content available through Shutterstock, you agree to be bound by all such changes. If you do not agree with any of the changes, please remove from Shutterstock, pursuant to the terms herein, all or that portion of your Content to which you do not wish the changes to apply."


Nobody started at 35c we all got 25c. There was nothing about selling 10,000 images, your memory is wrong and your facts are wrong. There's no class action suit except in your imagination. No agreement was ever binding forever contract. SS is underhanded and unethical but not illegal.

99

You are correct, some of the free sites are clearly linked to the agencies and they don't hide it but there are a others that "appear" to be stand alone free sites like Pexels. 

I just think "free" is bad, stores have had sales since the beginning of time but not free, there is some really good free stuff out there and I can't sell my video clips if there's a reasonably good free clip out there that will do and especially in this economy?, people are loading up on the free stuff.

Wow.....I think we're missing something, reading that and the unsplash link there it makes me wonder how agencies like SSTK and Pond5 can even compete let alone us.   I went looking on Pexels for some video content similar to what I have selling on pond5 and I should similar but better quality on pexels for free.

So now the question is for both editorial and commercial video and photos, how to WE compete with free and how is money made with FREE?, 

Not even gonna try to figure out the contributors who give their work away for free to these sites, only think I can think of it they needed a massive loss for tax purposes before they went out of business.


Pexels pays nothing, but there is a donate button, every time someone downloads an image. I don't think I'd rely on donations or trust people to use my images properly. But there's your answer.

Top Ten List - maybe ask one of them? How much does someone make from 2 million views?

1 10.3M Views
Kasia Palitava (56 photos?)

2 3.59M Views
Цвета Тишины
3 3.08M Views
Yaroslava Borz
4 3.05M Views
Alexey Demidov
5 2.24M Views
Alex Kozlov
6 2.18M Views
Veronika Bykovich
7 1.98M Views
Daria Kruchkova
8 1.98M Views
Rizky Sabriansyah
9 1.92M Views
Svetlana🎞
10 1.91M Views
Nikita Igonkin

Unsplash the book and their story:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mikaelcho/the-unsplash-book



Please learn to start your posts after the quote you make the forum look like disorganized crap.

100
The new compensation model allows contributors to receive a true percentage share from each download, rewarding content creators for producing quality work that is fresh, relevant and currently in demand by our customers.

This sums up SS...by the way, the port is full of stolen images.....

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Rockkss


Have you reported it to SS or don't they care?

I did...3 years ago.....and they don't care.

I can see why any agency doesn't care, unless they are forced to care as in legislation or massive lawsuits it's more profit for them when the stolen goods are trafficked so real incentive for them plus it would cost them as they need staff to manually deal with it.




Please learn to start your posts after the quote you make the forum look like crap.

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