Thank you Michael!
How are your sales, did they pick up to their prior levels?
Do you submit new AI stuff after all this? I feel uneasy about contributing anything AI now 

My account has been back online for about 2 weeks now and is now at about 45%-50% of the level before the 8-day block - at the current "recovery speed" I would say it could take another 2-3 months to reach the level of say the 2 months before the block, if this very slow increase continues.
Currently, of my previous Top25 images, only a few are selling, the sales since reactivation seem to be mostly images that were never or very rarely sold before.

And yes, I will continue to upload AI images, because this market is currently still very active, but this will probably not last forever - I think "real photos" will become more important again.
However, I am doubly careful about the keywords, titles and filenames I use - everything is now double-checked on my end. Because my account would probably not survive another block like that.

Currently I have about 4300 photos/videos/AI-images mixed in the queue (3001 files - my submission limit - since up to 3 months) and in the upload area and since the account block I have between 5 and 10 checked files per day - so it's going very slowly to maybe boost the account again.

And now I have to make sure I get to the airport - a few days' holiday :-)

I can only agree with Ralf here - Mat always provided us with information as far as this was possible and I am sure that at one point or another "more information" was simply not allowed.

And even though I've been accused of being a fanboy, I'll stick to my guns and say that we at least respect that, because nobody forces Mat or Adobe to write anything here, even if we don't like the content of the message.

I am completely with you on that!

In the meantime, one always expects the worst, which is probably simply the result of the experience of the last few years :-)

Quite apart from the fact that everyone makes and should make this decision for themselves, one question popped straight into my head:

If I offer via Pond5 at Shutterstock, do I get a 15% share from Shutterstock and this amount is then split again 60:40 with Pond5?
In a 25 cent sale, 15 cents would remain for the contributor.

Shutterstock would then earn twice as Pond5 now belongs to Shutter.
Or am I thinking too complicated here?!

Nice one - Grats 

Just to keep you all up to date:

My account (which was blocked for 8 days) was reactivated late last Thursday evening - 19 images were removed that contained an illegal term/trademark - Thanks again for helping me out here @Mat/Adobe.

Since the account has been reactivated, I have noticed a massive drop in downloads - from an average of 23 per working day (yes, that's not soooo many for some of you) to now 8 per working day on average, a drop to about 35%.

Almost all my images that were doing well before the account are now not selling at all - only one image from my Top20 list had two sales today.

The question I'm asking myself now is: Will the account block also expose you to further mechanisms afterwards that will throw you completely back to the end of the queue (or close to it) in the ranking?
Because before the 8-day block, the account was doing increasingly better.

The thread is already old, but the problem has now reappeared, at least for me.

Currently, my uploads are not processed, the files are in there, but no previews have been created for about 1 week and therefore the files cannot be submitted.
Is this the same for you?

And is there actually a support email for MotionElements?

Thank you

I used the web upload on their site and the upload of the files finished, but none of the files appeared in the unfinished section so far.
Maybe they have a big load of images in the queue or just their fileserver crashed... I have no idea...

I think you are making assumptions about misused keywords and filenames. I think you likely have a bigger problem with images such as these

Thank you for the examples - I definatly got what you want to tell me, for sure.

But those images where in no way made with prompts to imitate something or someone and this was never my intention:

- Image series (a - the cats) :If you use german (my native language) "Eine surreale m�rrische Katze" this translates to "A surreal grumpy cat", which is exactly what my prompt was. I never intended to imitate a famous person/thing, that i didn't even know before. So there is no "in the style of" violation happening - at least the image review should have sorted this out, if it is a problem to show a "m�rrische Katze".

- Images series (b - evil clown doll): The prompt was "An evil clown doll in a dirty look", which is just what came to my mind - I think you are referring to the Chucky movie, which i haven't seen by the way. If "An evil clown doll in a dirty look" is a problem, then the review should sort this out, in my humble opinion.

Oops, just saw you didn't mean the movie Chucky, but something from 2017 - my bad, haven't seen that movie.
When making that prompf "Evil clown doll in a dirty look" I was thinking of people dressed like clowns and scared people in the streets...


To be clear: I don't want to absolve myself of blame here - I certainly made mistakes in my images and keywords, because some things were simply not known to me and at some points I was certainly not attentive enough - I don't doubt that.

I am of the opinion that one cannot know everything and mistakes happen from time to time.
These images should simply be deleted in the current situation and the problem is solved - I am also happy to remove anything questionable from my portfolio without hesitation - no problem at all.

If I get the opportunity, I will definitely not upload any even remotely questionable motif - the lesson with the account block was definitely a lesson to me!


Edit:
- Maybe you want to check the search for "A grumpy cat" -> https://stock.adobe.com/de/search?k=a+grumpy+cat&search_type=usertyped with 9k+ results
- Or try "evil clown doll" as a search on stock.adobe.com - you will find lots and lots of similar images to mine

So I would guess those two examples do not seem to be the problem/the reason for the account blocks, if we assume all accounts with the same problematic assets have been blocked.

Don't get me wrong - if those images are a problem for Adobe Stock - let us delete them right away, I am totally fine with that!

Quote from: JustAnImage on August 27, 2023, 15:41

I'm still searching my database of images and videos for possible copyright issues and after a very long read of many official posts in the AdobeStock Discord I came across that the filename can be a problem.... I probably wouldn't have thought of that, since the customer shouldn't actually be able to see it?!

Anyway, I used "Giger" in the filename of an image series, assuming the filename is "mine" - that was a wrong assumption it seems.
The metadata does not contain anything from "Giger", I always remove names (see picture below).

I think you discovered the problem and I'd agree, who would imagine that our file names are a liability?

Thank you - Yes, I never expected that to be a criterion.

Because let's say a file is called "beach in the style of ABC" that's exactly what's in it - so for example I named my files "in Wrendale style" (not in titles or keywords) because "in a watercolor painting style" was too long for me.
To make the assumption that you have copied a style here is a very dubious assumption at best.

In the future (assuming I get my account back) I will use a filename scrambler, a script that makes the filenames unreadable before uploading.

But as I noted above, I did indeed miss a keyword in a series of images when removing the automatically generated keywords, so I'm doing my part to be in this situation.

Now I have to be patient, because I'm sure I've already annoyed Mat and the other Adobe employees from the AS Discord enough with my questions - but I'm sticking to it:

The people with blocked accounts urgently need information on
(a) whether they can get the account back
and
(b) by when this will happen.

...  Anyway, I used "Giger" in the filename of an image series, assuming the filename is "mine" - that was a wrong assumption it seems.
The metadata does not contain anything from "Giger", I always remove names (see picture below).

And the customer gets such filenames during download: "AdobeStock_123456789etc".
...

Quoting myself... but to give a complete picture and not hold anything back.... i just found a picture series in my images where i actually included "Giger" as a search word... how did i miss that?!
I use an automated tool for basic keywording, which I then check and correct.

Memo to self, "That was really stupid!" - so i screwed it up myself with - Grmpf!

Now the only thing left to do is hope that AdobeStock will give us the option to remove the images or maybe even move them to the "Rejected" section afterwards, where the images definitely belong.

@Adobe:
Would it be helpful if I approach AS Contributor Support with my findings, even if I have already written there?

Michael

Thanks for your answer and good luck with restoring your account!

Thanks - I still have some hope left...

@Spike:
Just wanted to let you know :-) At least that was a statement from the official AdobeStock Discord channel.