I actually expected this sooner wonder why it took them so long to justify.
This will only mean that other sites like dissolve with eventually need to lower 4K prices and as for pond5 the future of 4K there will depend on what the contributors will eventually do,
which goes without saying that few people will justify 4K price above 199.
Of course no mention of royalties change to video or the discarding of web and/or sd resolutions.
I quote from the email i just received.

Since we launched 4K at the beginning of 2014, we've been incredibly inspired by the quality and diversity of the videos our contributors have submitted to the collection. We know adjusting to the workflow and production demands associated with submitting 4K has involved a bit of a learning curve, and we are thrilled to see your wonderful work.

While the vast majority of our footage licensing business is in HD, we anticipate the 4K format will continue to gain traction and are continuing to make investments to market your content.
With that in mind, we are changing the price of a single 4K clip from $299 to $199. In addition, we will be launching 4K packs for the first time, which will allow customers who need multiple 4K clips to purchase in larger quantities in one transaction.

The pricing for our 4K packs is as follows:

5 Clips $929
10 Clips $1,759
25 Clips $4,259

Our thinking is this new price point and package options will open the door to licensing your work to a wider group of customers, and we're excited to see the results in the weeks and months ahead.

1.5 times lower is -150 dollar

I have to say I am disappointed and discouraged by this price change. This will devalue the whole 4K market. I know that Shutterstock price is often used as a guide in setting prices by other agencies and artists, myself included. And it just became 1.5 times lower overnight.

The 4K market value as you perceive it is a bubble slowly bursting like all bubbles.The electronics companies now offer 4k acquisition and projection many timer cheaper that in was 1 or 2 years ago and they will continue to do so (ask the gh4 owners for example and the new blackmagic 4k camera owners after July).
Im not trying to justify shutterstock in any way after all they have completely destroyed hd pricing (this month's hd and below commissions btw are completely laughable for me),now it is time for that to happen to 4k as soon as it becomes mainstream.

But they could at least have taken out the web sizes.It is only logical that when you send an email saying how mainstream 4K is becoming that you take out the smaller resolutions, (maybe not SD)
And good luck waiting to "market" our stuff.The only marketing they do is selling cheap and massively and boasting about it,some people should eventually realize that this is what marketing is all about,unless they fantacize that ss goes out to companies and says "hey we have a dude here that is creating awesome 4k clips of flowers,check out his stuff" .
I mean really...

Quote from: Konstantin Sutyagin on June 24, 2015, 14:42

I have to say I am disappointed and discouraged by this price change. This will devalue the whole 4K market. I know that Shutterstock price is often used as a guide in setting prices by other agencies and artists, myself included. And it just became 1.5 times lower overnight.

And good luck waiting to "market" our stuff.The only marketing they do is selling cheap and massively and boasting about it,some people should eventually realize that this is what marketing is all about,unless they fantacize that ss goes out to companies and says "hey we have a dude here that is creating awesome 4k clips of flowers,check out his stuff" .
I mean really...

well said!

hopefully 4K will start to sell

It has been selling alright for me.

"While the vast majority of our footage licensing business is in HD, we anticipate the 4K format will continue to gain traction and are continuing to make investments to market your content.
With that in mind, we are changing the price of a single 4K clip from $299 to $199. In addition, we will be launching 4K packs for the first time, which will allow customers who need multiple 4K clips to purchase in larger quantities in one transaction."


Lol, one of those things that makes no sense.  "Things are awesome and only going to grow, so, we're dropping prices!  Yeah!"  Silly.

I think gbalex nailed it on the head in another thread, both of those statements can be true if it's about taking market share.

Quote from: Semmick Photo on June 24, 2015, 14:57

1.5 times lower is -150 dollar

1.5 times lower doesn't make sense and it certainly isn't $150.

I said minus 150 dollar. 300 dollar 1.5 times lower, isnt that 300-450?

Quote from: Zeus on June 24, 2015, 16:33

Quote from: Semmick Photo on June 24, 2015, 14:57

1.5 times lower is -150 dollar

1.5 times lower doesn't make sense and it certainly isn't $150.

I said minus 150 dollar. 300 dollar 1.5 times lower, isnt that 300-450?

That's the way I read it. A 1.5 x reduction is actually a gain.

1.5 times lower is -150 dollar

$150 is two times lower.

300/2=150
300/1.5 = 200

Quote from: Semmick Photo on June 24, 2015, 14:57

1.5 times lower is -150 dollar

$150 is two times lower.

300/2=150
300/1.5 = 200

No, that's  50% lower, i.e. 0.50 x Try buy a jacket for 150% off.

$199 wouldn't be bad, if the authors got 50 or 70% of the proceeds.
Remind me, how much are they getting now?

Quote from: KB on June 24, 2015, 16:39

As the OP wrote, I also expected this to happen sooner (but am glad that I sold the ones I did at the higher price  ).

However, I stopped uploading 4K content to SS a while ago, because while I have sold some 4K clips as 4K, I have not sold a single one as HD. SS claims that most buyers do not use the HD filter when searching for clips, but my sales anecdotally tell a different story. As long as my 4K clips are going to be filtered out of HD searches, I'm not going to bother uploading them to SS. 

KBm that is a very important consideration. Does this problem exist on P5. I think the problem there is a price filter, where the HD file doesn't get considered if there is higher priced 4k attached even though it could.

As far as I know and can tell, P5's filters work correctly (i.e., they do what I'd expect and don't filter out my 4K clips if someone is looking for an HD clip at or above my HD price).

Quote from: LesPalenik on June 24, 2015, 17:22

$199 wouldn't be bad, if the authors got 50 or 70% of the proceeds.
Remind me, how much are they getting now?

30%

Based on the last 10Q it would be 28%