..

the best thing is to not share your opinions,when its something negative towards the agency  at their forums anymore.they dont want you to criticize them for any of their actions.including the joke 10 cents sales
its their site.its  their business.ITS their rules.although i find it bit funny that there is a thread for other agencies to work with with the title new oportunites. i guess that didnt bother them, that people  talking about their competitors and the thread is still active
what really annoyes  me with ss is not so much the 10 cents ok its something serious.BUT the whole AI reviewing images
you getting tons of rejections cause of some stupid program and it drives many people away .
unfo i see this happening lately with adobe.the one rejection after the other and i have to wonder if they are also using an AI

Yes, I had a beef about adobe when they rejected all my lot of photos for tech reasons when it should have been for I. Property. I wanna leave there as well because I don't photograph people and ther's not many things you can shoot without the I.P. violations.

Yes, I had a beef about adobe when they rejected all my lot of photos for tech reasons when it should have been for I. Property. I wanna leave there as well because I don't photograph people and ther's not many things you can shoot without the I.P. violations.

IP is agency/distributor-independent.
If some agencies don't inspect/check for IP issues (e.g. Alamy), or are very lax on IP compliance (e.g. SS), that puts you at more risk.
You'll find in every contract that you are liable for IP issues, whether or not they inspect.
Caveat vendor.

Sounds like these creative people should wear this as a badge of courage and nothing else.
I am so glad I never put any of MY CREATIONS with this mob.
They need to remember that without us they are NOTHING.

Quote from: dunstun365 on July 03, 2021, 19:05

Yes, I had a beef about adobe when they rejected all my lot of photos ... I wanna leave there as well because I don't photograph people and ther's not many things you can shoot without the I.P. violations.

you've got it backwards - Adobe passes on most images with people (aka editorial)

I never tried that. So all I do with people images, assuming they aren't a single, subject, kind of thing, but lets say image that has incidental people, is mark it editorial and it will pass on Adobe?

I think over the past couple years, we have all observed and recognized that SS has absurd rejections, random rejections, rejections for obviously wrong reasons, and nearly all of these are beyond explaining, because there's no reasonable answer for anyone who asks WHY? 

I was banned from their forums but still have a contributor account but when I get to the minimum payment, I'll make sure I get paid then close my account. Only have a few hundred images on there anyway.

Payout is $35? How hard can that be? Oh I suppose, 350 dime downloads, that could take some time? 

If I'd known 6 months earlier that they'd do that I wouldn't have joined SS.

I can agree with you, hindsight is wonderful, and usually mostly accurate. But as far as I can see, into the past and if I had known, every Microstock agency has pulled the same kind of stunts. So maybe people should have skipped the whole idea of business and profits, from the start? 

When you joined iStock did you expect to be getting fractional cents payment like connect price per image of  $0.00380 which I got many in May. Great pay, only 263 downloads and I get a penny.

Did you expect to get 20 cents for a small 1 credit download from DT and have to earn $100 before they would pay anyone anything?

Or someplace like DP that pays 28c for a download, and got caught buying our images for a sub and then reselling them on another site they own, for a much higher price?

Quote from: Diana Herrmann on July 12, 2021, 06:12

Quote from: Dave on July 08, 2021, 00:25

Sounds like these creative people should wear this as a badge of courage and nothing else.
I am so glad I never put any of MY CREATIONS with this mob.
They need to remember that without us they are NOTHING.

262 million in gross profit for 2020 makes them much more then nothing. They don't care about your badge of courage and don't need you.

While I agree with your sentiment, you may have missed his point slightly. I mean, all of that 262m was made licensing content that belongs to....?

Let me see if I understand. If they made the $262 Million on content that isn't ours. They don't need us? And if they did make it on content from photographers and artists... they do need us, but the people who don't upload, or closed their accounts, don't really matter either way? LOL

I'm to the point of having given up on trying to fight the agencies. I did for years, I dropped and stopped. I closed accounts. I joined in the protests. I lobbied on forums about how we should not support the bottom feeder, price cutting, unethical agencies. Seems like trying to stop a runaway train, going downhill, for an inevitable "train wreck" by standing in front of it? If I comment that agency X is unethical and stealing from us, and has a shady history, I get criticized and told "that's one of my best". What's the use?

Now that SS finally joined the race to the bottom, after most others led the way for years. Some many times, with multiple changes. But SS is the evil agency of doom and the Devils tool itself? The rest get a free pass for screwing with us for more years and in the past.

I shouldn't care how much Shutterstock makes or what percentage of the profits (or expense actually) we are. I'm not a stock holder. It's really none of my concern. But how much they pay US, like you or me kind of US, is important. I just looked and their profit is up but sales growth is down. Robbing to poor to pay the wealthy isn't as lucrative as it might have been.



I'll say on the surface, they cut our commissions, cut prices and sales revenue has only gone up 2.48%? If profits don't keep growing, that $100 stock, will dip back down to a $35 stock. I still believe the growth and profits were created on the backs of the workers, the artists, the contributors.

But I also believe that whether I upload to them or close my account, is like throwing a pebble into the ocean.



I'm done trying to fight this futile battle with the agencies. Some people do well and do great work, and do make a profit. For more of us, the returns do not justify the expense of equipment, time and effort, to produce the products.

I've had images deactivated, the rules changed, commissions cut and pay tables twisted. Then when we think something is in the future, they re-organize and eliminate levels as we knew them. When that's done, commissions are restructured or relabeled. Down in value of course.

Show me where the "without us, they are nothing" comes into the means to control and change our own destiny?

Conclusion - if you are investor look for large number of insiders investment, if you are any kind of employee, look for the opposite.

Good conclusion, aside from the detail that we are private contractors not employees. But From the investor side, you make a good point. Time to make an observation, agencies, none of them, care about us contributors, and if anyone ever thinks they do, you have been fooled.

Agencies only care about making money, for themselves and for their investors. None of the agencies are charities or social elevating platforms for the artists benefit. They are in business to make money for the agency.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on July 12, 2021, 09:16

...
I shouldn't care how much Shutterstock makes or what percentage of the profits (or expense actually) we are. I'm not a stock holder. It's really none of my concern. But how much they pay US, like you or me kind of US, is important. I just looked and their profit is up but sales growth is down. Robbing to poor to pay the wealthy isn't as lucrative as it might have been.


...

it's hard to maintain a 10+% sales increase in a maturing market, but the important stat is profit which is static (57-60%) based on these figures (and that assumes other costs have remained steady)

They cut commissions, which means they cut the costs, which have been reduced. 

And yes the market was wild, a gold rush ten years ago. Now it has matured and all of the agencies are adjusting our portion, rank, levels, benefits and anything they can, downward. There have been other plans but we're seeing revenue sharing is the latest trend. Something where we don't see how much or the percentages and just a slice of the pie, at the end of the month.

Not a surprise that Getty started this with their subscriptions, while other versions have been developed. No surprise that agencies cut and cut, dropped benefits and programs, and SS was the last. But they earned the right to be most hated, for sticking up longest, while the others, just slide along, finding new "Exciting News" for ways to screw us.

While it's not scientific, I think the poll on the right, does show trends and has for years. What does it take? 50 votes to make the list. Who's on top?  How many show now? And for 37 votes at 2.4 earnings people still stick with DP? Bigstock is a 0.6! Canva seems to do pretty well.

Yes my favorite two are SS and AS. I'm doing this for the money. 100% a photo mercenary sell out for pocket change. Why else would anyone be working Microstock? My logical conclusion, personally is, work the sites that pay me the most.

Quote from: blvdone on February 14, 2021, 20:52

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on February 14, 2021, 10:28

Be sure not use "please" in a message asking...
Who are you since you are a newcomer?

I'm nobody from nowhere really.  Please ignore me.  I'm ignoring you from now on too.

Bye

Pretty lame to use an 18 month old post from somebody to attack them. Almost obsessive actually.