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Messages - michaeldb
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 ... 37
151
« on: April 13, 2014, 21:15 »
Fotolia issues a 1099 based on the royalties that were credited to your account during the calendar year, not what was paid out.
I believe their rational for that was that the royalties in your account are listed as credits that you can use to purchase images so they consider that a form of payment. Those credits can later be converted to cash when they hit the minimum payment but the time of payment is when the credits hit your account.
That's fine if that's what they want to do. But I don't recognize that as the amount I earned. And I suspect neither does the IRS. I can't pay my mortgage, bills, or ebuy a cup of coffee with Fotolia credits, so I only consider the funds they actually pay me with to be my real earnings.
If you go by that logic, then if am paid let's say $100 by check in 2014 and I don't cash that check until 2015, then the $100 doesn't count as income for 2014 and it's added to my 2015 earnings instead. The reason being that I can't pay my bills with a 3rd party check, which means I can't do anything with the money until I either deposit it in my checking account or cash the check. So by your reasoning the $100 doesn't count as income until I cash the check. I don't think it works like that.
It's a difference in accounting methods. Typically in what is is known as Cash Basis you count the income when it is received, regardless of when it was invoiced or earned. In Accrual Basis You would count it when it is earned, not when you are paid.
Sounds like you are using Cash Basis for your business and Fotolia uses Accrual Basis.
Good explanation of the difference. Shouldn't the IRS require one method or the other for 1099s? It seems like allowing both would be a huge source of confusion. Very interesting thread BTW. I never request payments late in the year because, for example, if I defer payments I might have requested in Oct, Nov, or Dec 2013 until January 2014, then I do not have to pay taxes on that amount until April 2015. If FT is really using the accrual method for 1099s, they are foiling my plan 
152
« on: March 28, 2014, 23:02 »
Except of course for Easter break, which is always a bummer for sales.
My sales have softened on all the sites in the last week or two. The first weeks of nice weather are here in some of the Northern Hemisphere, and in the US Spring Breaks are beginning - some schools in my area are out this week - even though Easter is a long way off. I am a little pessimistic about April.
153
« on: March 26, 2014, 21:51 »
My sales at Cutcaster have been small relative to other agencies and inconstistent. However they have actually been increasing lately. I made $87 there in Feb. Certainly enough for me to keep submitting.
I like CC, John has always seemed like a nice, honest guy.
Bravo !
And Your portfolio ?
50.000 files or maybe 100.000 ?
Thank you. I do illustrations, vectors and JPG, and I have about 2000 on CC.
154
« on: March 25, 2014, 22:57 »
My sales at Cutcaster have been small relative to other agencies and inconstistent. However they have actually been increasing lately. I made $87 there in Feb. Certainly enough for me to keep submitting.
I like CC, John has always seemed like a nice, honest guy.
155
« on: March 25, 2014, 22:52 »
Contacted them to opt me out of partnership programs. Will wait and see before resuming uploads.
+1
+1
156
« on: March 06, 2014, 00:46 »
... Does this mean that word press and other template designers can place images directly for use in their templates and sell them? What about scam, porn and other undesirable sites?
You're right, Kelly. There will be no way to police this. Getty has opened the door to 'commercial' being a meaningless restriction, if sites which sell ads are not 'commercial': "Blogs that draw revenues from Google Ads will still be able to use the Getty Images embed player at no cost. 'We would not consider this commercial use,' says Peters. 'The fact today that a website is generating revenue would not limit the use of the embed. '"The value of the assets of contributors, even those who refuse to submit to IS, has just been drastically reduced. The sales of GL and other agencies will surely suffer. Only Getty will profit. What will it take for us contributors to stop doing business with them?
157
« on: March 05, 2014, 23:38 »
To me this sounds like a definition of anti-competitive practice...
You're right. This is what is called in economics 'dumping'. A company sells a product at a loss (or in this case gives it away) in order to destroy the revenue stream of its competitor (SS). In this case, it isn't Getty who will take the loss, it is us. The assets being destroyed in value are our images, even those of us who don't submit to Getty/iStock, because our sales at SS et al will fall. Getty will profit by selling ads. There are laws against dumping, but they would not apply to this case I'm afraid. I started submitting to IS in 2005. Some years ago I realized that IS/Getty are not operating in good faith, so I stopped doing business with iStock - stopped submitting there and withdrew almost all of my images. Personally, I do not understand the people here who continue to do business with a company they know to be acting in bad faith. Those people are hurting all of us.
158
« on: March 03, 2014, 23:10 »
Do you think they want to do something along the lines of Alamy IQ?
http://www.alamy.com/customer/help/alamy-iQ.asp
It looks like Alamy IQ is a single limited digital asset management tool, while WebDAM is a complete, enterprise-oriented DAM system, and a good one. Probably a very smart acquisition. Many subscribers who use SS as their sole source of images already use the site as a sort of DAM system, or a part of one. DAM is not far afield from SS's core business or and its enterprise acumen. It also looks like SS is making no secret of its strategy for the future: Focus on large enterprise customers. Will this be good for us contributors? Probably for some of us, not so much for others. If you were invited to Offset, your SS future looks bright, I would think. Personally, I wasn't invited. But I do business illustrations and I sell a lot to enterprise users, without the help of Offset and its link on the home page of SS which draws customers away from my images. So maybe I will do ok in the future, if not at SS, at other sites. It looks like people who submit photos of kittens, flowers and animals at the zoo may not have good prospects at the future SS. Which probably comes as a shock to no one.
159
« on: March 01, 2014, 21:34 »
I guess the real question is should comps be considered a use? You technically are using them to sell something to a client and make money. Is it really any different than making a Powerpoint presentation. At the end of the day, I'm sure nothing will change because they are used to getting comps for free, but it seems like they probably should be charged.
I tend to agree. This 'comp' issue seems like a gray area. If I am a big company, I get a free license to use a 'comp' to create a design which I pitch and may sell to a customer for use in a publication. But if I want to get an image to use in a 'pre-made book cover' (i.e. a design which I offer to customers who may or may not buy it and use it in a publication) I have to pay for the license. And most agencies require that I buy an extended license such as one required for use in a web template, whether or not I ever sell my design to a customer who uses it in a publication. (At least this is the current policy of most or all stock agencies regarding pre-made book cover designs - I'm not sure exactly what SS's policy is, but I expect that they would require me to buy a license, probably an EL.) This seems inconsistent. Should one kind of 'comp' license be given away for free and the other require an EL?
160
« on: February 25, 2014, 01:57 »
China is a Communist country. People who expect that commercial enterprises will proceed there in the same way that they do in other places and that 'Marxism' is a meaningless label may be disappointed.
161
« on: February 18, 2014, 23:43 »
Besides uploading quality images and proper keywording...
It's good to remember that DT penalizes you for having lots of keywords. All things being equal, images with more keywords appear lower in search results at DT. When submitting there, I usually delete a few of my less important keywords. I think it helps.
162
« on: February 18, 2014, 23:39 »
Canstock is a great earner for me.
Me too. And it's easy to submit to.
163
« on: January 17, 2014, 23:29 »
Though the dropping sales figures are bad news of course, both the e-mail and partial payment did reassure me.
Yes, sad to read that sales are down. Thanks for your efforts in finding out what's going on and posting this, Anyka.
164
« on: January 15, 2014, 13:28 »
...We only need a little of your trust...
Good luck with that  I registered on the site yesterday. I agree with Topol that it might be a good idea. Dreamstime sold PNGs as I recall, I don't know what success they've had with them. As a vectorist and 3D renderer it is very easy for me to create rasters in the PNG format with a transparent alpha channel - a lot easier than it is for photographers to create 'isolated' subjects. I always feel like I am cheating my customers when I upload JPGs when I could be uploading PNGs, which would be more usable.
165
« on: January 14, 2014, 22:50 »
Thanks for posting the link. Interesting.
166
« on: January 10, 2014, 22:54 »
Categories are manual
Yes, and a bit of a pain.
168
« on: December 20, 2013, 20:44 »
how many Rodeo contributors are there on MicroStockGroup? When was your last pay-out and have you contacted Rodeo about it?
I have images on Rodeo. My last payment from them was May 2013. I have not contacted them because my I knew my sales there had been going down and in fact I have not gotten around to contributing new images there for a long time. Plus Yuha has always seemed like a nice guy and I am not worried about him cheating me out of a few euros. I figured he will pay me someday if he owes me anything.
169
« on: December 19, 2013, 02:10 »
it just looks like they have a coding problem when trying to sync up to LeadPages which looks like what they were using on their landing page...
Good call.
170
« on: December 03, 2013, 00:37 »
Strange month. In the things I thought I'd never say category, CanStockPhoto out earned SS...
Lackluster month for me, except for CanStockPhoto. It was my 3rd best site for Nov, outselling both 123RF and Fotolia by over $100 each - that never happened before. CanStockPhoto was way above its sales for Oct 2013 and Nov 2012. A BME by over $50.
171
« on: November 27, 2013, 02:20 »
From the POV of an illustrator: Veer tends to have some wild swings both in reviewing and sales. Last month was bad, the one before was good, and I am having a pretty good November there, $25+ sales this week. Veer is worth submitting to for me.
172
« on: October 30, 2013, 22:23 »
Others here may disagree, but I think it is worth submitting vectors to GLStockImages and Cutcaster. What you earn per image can be good, and uploading images is very easy. I have earned good money on both of those sites over the years.
173
« on: October 21, 2013, 21:33 »
My sales at CanStockPhoto have been gradually increasing for several months. Now my October is already ahead of Sept and almost as much as Oct of 2012. Good to see this kind of growth!
174
« on: October 19, 2013, 21:18 »
The software was uncannily effective at finding similar images. I was impressed.
I wonder how it would work on, say, Amazon. After reading a good novel, let's say historical fiction, I often wish I could find more like it, but sometimes keywords don't work too well. If Amazon let me search for books with covers like the one I just read, I would try it to see what it came up with.
BTW one of your pages says "Visual Arrangement...Inspect large image sets at a time without loosing overview."
I suspect you mean 'losing' instead of 'loosing'.
175
« on: October 18, 2013, 02:48 »
A guy goes into an "all you can eat" restaurant and pays 5 bucks. In the very unlikely event that he eats an entire cow, does the farmer who raised the animal and for which he received payment at the market rate, feel that is work has been devalued?
Probably he does not feel that way. Because tomorrow that guy will feel hungry again and will need another cow. But in MS, once you download a RF image you use it until the end of time, if not you share it with your colleagues/friends.
But the farmer can only sell his cow once, while I can sell an image many, many times.
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