Great post Jo Ann. May be the apparent lack of transparency on the prices paid for SOD's, etc is mainly to do with commercial sensitivity (i.e. they don't want their competitors knowing what they're doing)?

Any competitor could easily have an employee, friend or relative shooting for SS to find out. But like policing the sort of conditions that say you can't use an image bought on subscription after the subscription has finished, it would be nigh unto impossible to police what someone tells their boss, friend or relative in private.

Quote from: Ron on September 17, 2013, 11:04

Quote from: tickstock on September 17, 2013, 11:02

I'd be curious to see what the reaction would be if iStock. changed their terms to add things like a 90 day lock in period (exclusives leaving and they want to stop the bleeding), using social media to market (more google drive deals), free (full sized?) comps (giving away our images), secrecy about earnings (the company is about to collapse), no opt out for sensitive use of some images (taking away our choices), etc....

To me those changes look bad for contributors.

You are so predictable

I don't like giving away full sized non watermarked comps for free (are they full sized comps). 

Just FYI, being able to access non-watermarked comp images is a big reason the large ad agencies (which buy the biggest licenses) prefer NOT to use microstock. If they have a legitimate account through their job (they're required to register with their current work email, which proves they're employed by a large ad agency), they can download large unwatermarked images from sites like Getty and Corbis, which they far prefer to use in comp ads and storyboards, because small watermarked images look terrible in layout, especially when blown up for presentation, when they get very pixelated.

Because all of our work is vetted by the clients' legal departments, and because we're fellow "creatives," the chances of someone "stealing" your unwatermarked image in that instance is very slim. I don't know of anyone in my 30+ years of experience who's ever done anything like that.

If the client buys the concept, they pay for usage depending on the size of their campaign. This is where the biggest commissions come in.

The discussion of earnings bit could be resolved simply by banning the dozen or so contributors who bleat about the lack of sales and the imminent demise of SS one week and then can't wait to tell everyone how many SODs and ELs and whatnot they've raked in the next.

Quote from: Ron on September 17, 2013, 11:04

Quote from: tickstock on September 17, 2013, 11:02

I'd be curious to see what the reaction would be if iStock. changed their terms to add things like a 90 day lock in period (exclusives leaving and they want to stop the bleeding), using social media to market (more google drive deals), free (full sized?) comps (giving away our images), secrecy about earnings (the company is about to collapse), no opt out for sensitive use of some images (taking away our choices), etc....

To me those changes look bad for contributors.

You are so predictable

it's his job.

I wish, then I'd be getting the big bucks.

Quote from: ShadySue on September 17, 2013, 14:01

Quote from: gostwyck on September 17, 2013, 13:48

Great post Jo Ann. May be the apparent lack of transparency on the prices paid for SOD's, etc is mainly to do with commercial sensitivity (i.e. they don't want their competitors knowing what they're doing)?

Any competitor could easily have an employee, friend or relative shooting for SS to find out. But like policing the sort of conditions that say you can't use an image bought on subscription after the subscription has finished, it would be nigh unto impossible to police what someone tells their boss, friend or relative in private.

SS publishes their own earnings in incredible detail. It makes absolutely no sense to forbid their contributors to talk about their results if they publish everything themselves.

I also don�t see how a competitor can deduct anything from me posting that I have earned 350 dollars, or when I celebrate that I have moved up to 33 cents instead of 25 cents. On the contrary, it is the very detailed information shared by contributors that got me interested in working with SS in the first place. This is how online communities work. People share results.

I really can�t see the logic in this decision and the idea that SS is paying admins to scout the internet to check if we talk about our results is...creepy?

This sounds like a very negative move. What on earth is coming next??

My thoughts exactly!

They must be worried about our reaction to upcoming changes. They could also be worried about the increasing numbers of contributors posting negative sales information and that could potentially affect market value as well as the ongoing acquisition of new contributors.

Notice they specifically mentioned royalties.

They could also be worried about the increasing numbers of contributors posting negative sales information and that could potentially affect market value as well as the ongoing acquisition of new contributors.

If they are ever worried about acquiring new contributors,they could go back to the old referral commission system.

To me it sounds more like the influence of people who are not familiar with online communities and social network marketing is getting dominant. I can�t believe that people who have lived online and seen SS grow would recommend such a policy.

It cannot be enforced and creates very negative buzz.

How is that good for an online business?

Anyway, we will see what they do. But it is scary.

I don't remember Shutterstock being very community oriented at all.  They don't do lypses or events to get contributors together, the admins rarely were part of the discussion, the forums were predominantly used for pimping.  This action isn't aimed at stopping people posting in their "community" they can already stop that part by locking threads and deleting posts they don't like, this was aimed at outside posting of sales and royalty rate information.

The stock community is not limited to the SS forums. It is everything - the blogs, the reports, Facebook,twitter.

People have been blogging their results for years and years. So why is it suddenly a problem??

You don't seem to want to hear it but my guess is it's not suddenly a problem but there are some changes in the works that will make it a problem.

No, I agree it is probably about the future. And to me it sounds like bad news is coming.

I agree, damage control up front.

Supposing they were about to implement the insane royalty chart from BigStock at Shutterstock? That would get people talking - and perhaps they'd want that not to happen. I used to make $xx and now I make 1/10th of $xx...

Quote from: cobalt on September 17, 2013, 18:13

No, I agree it is probably about the future. And to me it sounds like bad news is coming.

I agree, damage control up front.

Don't panic people! I've been with SS for nearly 9 years now and still have every confidence in them. They are naturally maturing as a publically-quoted business and it is not surprising that they need to make minor adjustments to the TOS to reflect their current status.

I think SS have a history of valuing their contributors and treating them fairly and I think that those fundamentals have been critical to their success. We all know what happened to IS when they lost the confidence of their content providers. Why on earth would SS want to do the same? Oringer still holds the majority of the stock and shareholders cannot 'force' him to do anything against his better judgement.

If Oringer wants to 'rule the world' of stock imagery, which he clearly does, then messing about with contributors for short-term gain now would make no sense. He has a much bigger war to win yet.

Supposing they were about to implement the insane royalty chart from BigStock at Shutterstock? That would get people talking - and perhaps they'd want that not to happen. I used to make $xx and now I make 1/10th of $xx...

That does seem like a likely candidate. I suppose it could be something we haven't thought of. You don't want those pesky Facebook customers to know how much the poor sad little artists are getting paid versus how much they are charging. I guess the speculation is endless, but it definitely seems like something is coming down the pipe.

The 90-day lock-in, and that stuff about giving out full-size comp images to 'special' customers, boils down to the same thing Alamy has been doing:  lending out our images without paying us anything.   

With Alamy, it shows up as sales that are mysteriously cancelled after weeks or months.   SS is using different weasel-words but it's the same thing. 

A customer gets temporary use of a full-size image for up to 90 days; he might show it, for example, in presentations to clients.  Maybe a designer wants to offer several possiblities, and doesn't want to pay for all the different images he'd need, so he "borrows" them.  Maybe one deal goes through, another doesn't.    Maybe after looking at your photo for while they decide they can just produce something equivalent on their own, but customized. 

But note that by using images in this way, the designer is engaged in business and making money.  And we're not.

I don't think this is "black helicopter", conspiracy theory stuff.   There are lots of temporary uses for imagery and these agencies are now offering it free.  Think about it before telling me I'm way off base.