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Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0  (Read 122596 times)

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« Reply #750 on: June 10, 2020, 02:49 »
0
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/amp/news/are-your-photographs-worth-10-cents-shutterstock-seems-to-think-so

More people covering the SS debacle

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That's good. Digital Camera World are a pretty big publisher. Hopefully more big news or photography sites will do the same.

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« Reply #751 on: June 10, 2020, 02:55 »
+1
I have send email to shutterstock now over three weeks, but I get no answer. I trying to deactivate my contributor account. I have send email to [email protected] address. Have anyone same problem?

« Reply #752 on: June 10, 2020, 02:59 »
+5
Just wanted to drop in and say how much I appreciate this vector image, which got approved. I especially love keywords like 0.10, 0.1c, fuck you, greed and insulting, lol...   :D

Link to Original work



Gorgeous!!!
I tweeted it......

« Reply #753 on: June 10, 2020, 03:02 »
+5
A couple Facebook groups to join to link up with folks dedicated to pushing back on the Shutterstock commission cut. We're stronger unified.

Stock Submitter Coalition: https://www.facebook.com/groups/261369748434285/
...

This is the group that Jake Sorenson started. He'd asked me to help with moderation, which I have been.

This evening I removed myself as moderator when I saw (after another member complained about it) that the "Brand Ambasador" for Freepik Antonio Gravante had joined the group and been made an admin by Jake this morning.

I want nothing to do with Freepik - my concern is that somehow they are hoping to benefit from all this work leaving Shutterstock.

Jake is suggested that no one else was volunteering and Antonio did, so it's all good...

If you have an opinion, now'd be a great time to voice it. I think this will split the group

Frying pans and fire come to mind freepik is a toxic brand to anyone trying to make money from stock sales.

Its not that this FB group will achieve anything anyway other than whine and throw insults about ss and eachother

« Reply #754 on: June 11, 2020, 03:07 »
+2

« Reply #755 on: June 11, 2020, 03:50 »
0
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #756 on: June 11, 2020, 06:13 »
+8
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.
All the level 5/6 people I know have taken a BIG hit in income this month as well as RPD, including me.

« Reply #757 on: June 11, 2020, 09:07 »
0
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.
All the level 5/6 people I know have taken a BIG hit in income this month as well as RPD, including me.
I know, the same here. Even level 6 doesn't mean you are a big producer, I'm not. I just have few information which makes me conclude that big producers are not hit that much. Without big producers deactivating portfolios nothing can be accomplished.

« Reply #758 on: June 11, 2020, 10:15 »
+12
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.

I think the problem contributors face if they take that attitude - that essentially, we've already agreed we're cheap, it's only a matter of just how cheap - is that buyers aren't going to purchase 3-4 times the number of images just because Shutterstock cut our royalties. Their needs are pretty much unchanged.

If the volume won't go up (or up enough) income will fall even for the factory producers (who also are the ones with expenses to cover, unlike some of the smaller contributors).

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #759 on: June 11, 2020, 10:49 »
+3
Also vector producers vs photographers are quite different.

The really big factories for vectors with hundreds of thousands of images are producing utter, utter garbage.

I mean not good even good enough for "good enough", so I think it would be a good idea to target the top vector people specifically for action (by downloads or quality, not quantity). A smaller pool of people producing high value content.

« Reply #760 on: June 11, 2020, 10:55 »
+6
Freepik or Freeshit is dead, you get $ 0,009 per download image. People who upload and contribute to this shiter microstocks made another microstock sites pay crap like now happen, people kill themself.

« Reply #761 on: June 11, 2020, 11:12 »
+3
Hi fellow contributors!
Please join Stock Submitter Coalition (if you haven't already).
There are many things we can do and together we are stronger.
www.facebook.com/groups/261369748434285/

« Reply #762 on: June 11, 2020, 12:23 »
+1
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.

I think the problem contributors face if they take that attitude - that essentially, we've already agreed we're cheap, it's only a matter of just how cheap - is that buyers aren't going to purchase 3-4 times the number of images just because Shutterstock cut our royalties. Their needs are pretty much unchanged.

If the volume won't go up (or up enough) income will fall even for the factory producers (who also are the ones with expenses to cover, unlike some of the smaller contributors).
But, we are not cheap, that's the point. Although most of sales were 38 cents thousands of people got rich in microstock. So we are not cheap. I just find it hypocritical, or what the English word is, to base the boycott campaign on slogan 10c is humiliating. When the real reason is - I don't won't to work for 50% less money.

« Reply #763 on: June 11, 2020, 12:49 »
+1
The contributors killed themselves by selling their photos for a few pennies. In Alamy forum people said that, I think they have reason.
Look. https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/12997-meanwhile-over-at-shutterstock/

« Reply #764 on: June 11, 2020, 13:21 »
+5
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.

I think the problem contributors face if they take that attitude - that essentially, we've already agreed we're cheap, it's only a matter of just how cheap - is that buyers aren't going to purchase 3-4 times the number of images just because Shutterstock cut our royalties. Their needs are pretty much unchanged.

If the volume won't go up (or up enough) income will fall even for the factory producers (who also are the ones with expenses to cover, unlike some of the smaller contributors).
But, we are not cheap, that's the point. Although most of sales were 38 cents thousands of people got rich in microstock. So we are not cheap. I just find it hypocritical, or what the English word is, to base the boycott campaign on slogan 10c is humiliating. When the real reason is - I don't won't to work for 50% less money.

I've been trying all sorts of ways of talking about this to draw attention to it. An essay won't grab anyone's attention; too much detail and people stop reading. I liked somone's comment on an early tweet that included an image "That image is worth so much more than 10" I think using 10, even when some royalties are 12 or 14 has more impact.

I haven't used humiliating (others have, but they've also used a bunch of language I won't as I think it's counter productive)

I also think it's helpful to talk about our royalty cuts funding a 17/share dividend this month. It's more complicated than that, but it helps get the point across about who's helped and who's hurt by these changes. I also like the idea of using their Empire State Building offices (even though I'm sure most are working from home at the moment) because it's evocative too - big execs living high on the hog (Stan Pavlovsky's $4+million salary) sticking it to the small business contributors.

Anyone who has suggestions for other ways to get our point across, feel free to find me on twitter (@joannsnover), pm me here or in the Stock Submitter's Coalition on Facebook. Note that I will not use anything with slave, slavery, any third reich images or language, or any swearing (however much Shutterstock deserves it). This needs to be business-friendly.

« Reply #765 on: June 11, 2020, 15:13 »
+4
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much.

They're going to get hit hard just like the others.  For most people selling images, the majority of sales are subs so moving from 0.38 down to an average of 0.2 or 0.12 is going to lose a chunk of money no matter how big you are.
The slight increases for the rarely sold other licences are unlikely to cover the huge drop from subs.

« Reply #766 on: June 12, 2020, 02:01 »
+2
big contributors and even studios are claiming their income from SS decreased, -30%


« Reply #767 on: June 12, 2020, 02:11 »
+3
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.

It's a 30-40% drop for level 6 contributors. My original math from before the start day was way off. What SS doing is abhorrent.

reisegraf

  • ...a traveling photographer?

« Reply #768 on: June 12, 2020, 06:03 »
+1
So, before I decide what to do with SS, boycott or no, I checked the average SS royalties of the first days in June. I'm on -.41/DL, what is much lower than the average of the previous months, about -.55/DL.

But my problem is, if I would boycott SS, I would have to do the same with 123rf (-.47/DL), Bigstock for sure (-.28/DL) and iStock (-.43/DL) - all low paying agencies...
And I would then cut 66%! of my total income! You most probably ask yourself why I still work with Bigstock? I just sell totally different pics there, they sell images what I never sold with others, I dont know why, but it's additional income for me.

Btw, I'm selling about 600 images/month. With SS I was on -.38 for the lowest royalty rate.

How about you, how are you proceeding, and did you compare your sales these days?

Greeez, Martin


« Reply #770 on: June 12, 2020, 07:59 »
0
HI

Where on your SS account does it tell you what level your at, and how close you are to the next level. Or do you really have to add up each months total sales?

« Reply #771 on: June 12, 2020, 08:13 »
+1
Where on your SS account does it tell you what level your at, and how close you are to the next level. Or do you really have to add up each months total sales?

You'll have to add up the individual months' total downloads.  Go to Earnings -> Earnings Summary and pull each month's download count and earnings (to calculate your RPD).  I made a little spreadsheet to make comparisons easier.  Make note of your prior months total downloads so you can just check and add the current month and see how you're progressing toward the next level.

« Reply #772 on: June 12, 2020, 08:14 »
0
Where on your SS account does it tell you what level your at, and how close you are to the next level. Or do you really have to add up each months total sales?

You'll have to add up the individual months' total downloads.  Go to Earnings -> Earnings Summary and pull each month's download count and earnings (to calculate your RPD).  I made a little spreadsheet to make comparisons easier.  Make note of your prior months total downloads so you can just check and add the current month and see how you're progressing toward the next level.

Oh well, thanks Dis...

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #773 on: June 12, 2020, 08:17 »
+6
It looks like the earnings of the big players  will not drop that much. They have strong portfolios (should we use stock market term all weather portfolio) and it is also possible that SS is fine tuning search engine to drive more traffic to them, so they would not leave. All of them are now "shocked" and "insulted" and "humiliated" with 10 cent sales, but in reality all they (and all of us, lets face it) only care about overall income, not RPD. Why I think that? Pure logic - 38cents was already so low it could also be called insulting and humiliating. All microstock concept is based on that. So, they won't care is it 10 or 5 or 1 cent as long as the overall income is satisfying. SS will take care that income doesn't drop that drastically, and everything will be the way it used to be. and the small contributors? Who cares about them.

I think the problem contributors face if they take that attitude - that essentially, we've already agreed we're cheap, it's only a matter of just how cheap - is that buyers aren't going to purchase 3-4 times the number of images just because Shutterstock cut our royalties. Their needs are pretty much unchanged.

If the volume won't go up (or up enough) income will fall even for the factory producers (who also are the ones with expenses to cover, unlike some of the smaller contributors).
But, we are not cheap, that's the point. Although most of sales were 38 cents thousands of people got rich in microstock. So we are not cheap. I just find it hypocritical, or what the English word is, to base the boycott campaign on slogan 10c is humiliating. When the real reason is - I don't won't to work for 50% less money.

I've been trying all sorts of ways of talking about this to draw attention to it. An essay won't grab anyone's attention; too much detail and people stop reading. I liked somone's comment on an early tweet that included an image "That image is worth so much more than 10" I think using 10, even when some royalties are 12 or 14 has more impact.

I haven't used humiliating (others have, but they've also used a bunch of language I won't as I think it's counter productive)

I also think it's helpful to talk about our royalty cuts funding a 17/share dividend this month. It's more complicated than that, but it helps get the point across about who's helped and who's hurt by these changes. I also like the idea of using their Empire State Building offices (even though I'm sure most are working from home at the moment) because it's evocative too - big execs living high on the hog (Stan Pavlovsky's $4+million salary) sticking it to the small business contributors.

Anyone who has suggestions for other ways to get our point across, feel free to find me on twitter (@joannsnover), pm me here or in the Stock Submitter's Coalition on Facebook. Note that I will not use anything with slave, slavery, any third reich images or language, or any swearing (however much Shutterstock deserves it). This needs to be business-friendly.

I agree "humiliating" isn't a very useful lens to use for publicising this. For native speakers it also sounds entitled and doesn't garner a lot of sympathy IMHO

But I also don't think the 10c slogan is great social media etc. People outside of the business don't understand whether 10c is good or bad. Lots of people will think of this like netflix of spotify or something, where artists are supposed to make up money from huge volume from an endless supply of consumers.

They don't know this is business to business and also high production value for a lot of us.

The best frame I think is that SS has taken the opportunity to cut their artists payments by a huge percentage in the middle of a pandemic while they have massive cash reserves and profits. Which is after all the truth and the simplest message for outsiders. IMHO there is no better message than that of the single mother posted in another thread. If we replied to every SS twitter or facebook post with:

"I'm a single mother. I lost 2/3 of my income. My son and I will literally have nothing to eat." quote from Shutterstock artist after they cut their income in the middle of the pandemic

there would be no better way of getting buyers on board.

They actually make it quite easy when their posts are almost always so hypocritical and opportunistic.

When they post images celebrating mothers, post:
"What about all the single mothers who can't support their families thanks to your pay cut for your artists?"

Same with all the other identity politics stuff they are trying co-op while their management "likes" hate tweets nonstop (or at least did until we discovered them). Point out the hypocrisy of celebrating diversity while slashing the income of many BAME artist (I think this is acceptable in this specific case as I would see it as pushing back on SS co-opting rather than co-opting ourselves).

The "your artists" frame is also important IMHO. Corporations have been trying make out they have no responsibility to their workers for a long time by passing everyone off as a gig economy cog. Yeah time to push back on that too. You want to put videos all over the internet with grinning hipsters claiming they are SS artists like they are part of a big family? Well own it.

« Last Edit: June 12, 2020, 09:20 by Justanotherphotographer »

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #774 on: June 12, 2020, 08:36 »
+5
The best frame I think is that SS has taken the opportunity to cut their artists payments by a huge percentage in the middle of a pandemic while they have massive cash reserves and profits. Which is after all the truth and the simplest message for outsiders. IMHO opinion there is no better message than that of the single mother posted in another thread. If we replied to every SS twitter or facebook post with:

"I'm a single mother. I lost 2/3 of my income. My son and I will literally have nothing to eat." quote from Shutterstock artist after they cut their income in the middle of the pandemic
When they post images celebrating mothers, post:
"What about all the single mothers who can't support their families thanks to your pay cut for your artists?"


This.


 

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