This just came in:

Dear xxx,

At Shutterstock, one of our most important goals is to drive our contributor's success by continuously delivering new earnings opportunities to you, our partners. Our enhanced license provides a great opportunity to license your content at a higher price point. Over the past year, we have been testing ways to better communicate the value of this premium license to our customers.

We have determined that a fixed rate payment for enhanced licences limits our ability to continually drive more downloads. Therefore, effective January 25th 2016 the enhanced license payout will move from a fixed rate of $28 to a tiered percentage model, similar to our custom image license. To help simplify the earnings schedule, your enhanced license payout will now be determined by your earnings tier.

We are your partners and our job is to work tirelessly to serve you and grow our marketplace together.

Paul Brennan
VP, Content Operations

"We are your partners and our job is to work tirelessly to serve you and grow our marketplace together. "

He got that wrong he meant to say "We are your masters and our job is to tirelessly screw you over until you bleed to do the absolute minimum for contributors and disregard your place in our world" 

Yes,  I got that as well.
And  I wonder what it means?
basically instead of 28 for every El, the make it income dependable. So you can earn more or less dependant on your earnings tier.
Where 38 = 28 I suppose, the low earners being cut.

But I dont know, it could be opposite.

Paycut?

"To help simplify the earnings schedule"
The current scheme cannot be more simple: $28 for each Enhanced License. Period

http://submit.shutterstock.com/payouts

This is the current schedule right now. I assume they'll be updating it with tier payout for EL images in a few days. I doubt this will affect veterans in any way...they'll still get $28 per EL. Its the newbies who are going to take a hit this time around...maybe something like $28, $26, $23, $19.

Won't be much of a problem for me since I'm only going to lose a couple dollars per EL, until probably June when I should reach the top tier.

So SS will make a lot more under this setup, so yes, it's a paycut.

The three EL plans published are 2 for $199, 5 for $449 and 25 for $1,699

That works out to $99.50, $89.80 or $67.96 each for the buyer

At 30%, what I will now make is $29.85, $26.94 or $20.38

At the lowest tier, 20%, they will pay out $19.90, $17.98 or $13.59

If there are custom deals for even lower prices, then the paycut just gets bigger

BTW, I don't yet have this e-mail from them...

They could sell EL's for much higher prices.  I don't think its hard to reach the top tier with SS, unlike some other sites that make it almost impossible.

Quote from: Minscer on January 22, 2016, 21:53
http://submit.shutterstock.com/payouts

This is the current schedule right now. I assume they'll be updating it with tier payout for EL images in a few days. I doubt this will affect veterans in any way...they'll still get $28 per EL. Its the newbies who are going to take a hit this time around...maybe something like $28, $26, $23, $19.

Won't be much of a problem for me since I'm only going to lose a couple dollars per EL, until probably June when I should reach the top tier.

Yes the newbies who SS just allowed to flood in by lowering the acceptance threshold from 7/10 images to 1/10 images

I am sick of these lies and corporate BS buttered up to make it sound like they are doing us a favor 

This probably means that they will be offering discounts on ELs to high-volume customers, and will pay a percentage of what they receive, not fixed $28. Which means we'll most likely see a lot of ELs for less than that. Hopefully, the volume will make up for the difference...

Quote from: Minscer on January 22, 2016, 21:53
http://submit.shutterstock.com/payouts

This is the current schedule right now. I assume they'll be updating it with tier payout for EL images in a few days. I doubt this will affect veterans in any way...they'll still get $28 per EL. Its the newbies who are going to take a hit this time around...maybe something like $28, $26, $23, $19.

Won't be much of a problem for me since I'm only going to lose a couple dollars per EL, until probably June when I should reach the top tier.

They are now saying they will update that page on Monday.

Cart  Horse

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on January 22, 2016, 21:59
I am sick of these lies and corporate BS 

lets wait for numbers, who knows

http://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/87696-enhanced-license-change/

I posted a note saying that they should at least be blunt that this is a paycut.

It used to be that SS had never cut our royalties, but no more

 
We need to flood them with complaints. Even though I'm in that $3,000-$10,000 tier, I'm still complaining. I just sent mine. Here's how you can send your complaint.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/contact/

I chose the "Other" category in the menu

Quote from: Harvepino on January 22, 2016, 21:38
...
We are your partners and our job is to work tirelessly to serve you and grow our marketplace together.
Paul Brennan
VP, Content Operations

He forgot some smileys 

QUICK, EVERYONE DELETE YOUR PORTFOLIO!

THIS IS THE END!

IT'S OVER!

YOU'LL NEVER MAKE MONEY AT MICROSTOCK AGAIN!

RUN FOR THE EXITS!

*sarcastic panic off*
Maybe there will actually be more ELs now. Who can tell really?
Anyone who thinks this is a huge affront to contributors can disable ELs for their port. Or just delete everything and throw your hands up in the air while posting repeatedly in the "doom and Gloom" thread.

Well I am not concerned about the $ as I dont sell them too often. What worries me is the communication corporate BS approach and not respecting the principles that SS had towards contributors. Which is kind of sad.

first we have the "watermark gate"....then we had the 10 pictures approval..now this.... not really good signs....For me, there are more files offer, than real files  download ...so that's why those changes... shursock is sinking maybe....

Normaly the bad news came in autum now the agencies try to screw us at new year.

If it doesn't make you feel good, it's probably not good news.

What a load of corporate speak. This can only spell trouble, especially for the lower tiers.

Whether it is good news or bad (and for myself, I think betting on the latter would make a far better return on cash than how my slim earnings might be affected) this is an entirely useless email.

Individually, I understand the meaning of every word in the email. But putting them together in that order they do not add up to anything useful at all.

There is certainly an element of the "chocolate ration increasing from 20 to 15 grams" about the message but still inclined reserve judgement until I see the actual rates.

And since then did they introduce an On Demand Image (small/medium) price? I always thought it's one price on all sizes at SS (like the one currently also on payment schedule, at 1.88 USD for lower tier).

Otherwise, the news on EL are definitely bad for most of us and perfectly clear to explain (i.e. their recent open of the floodgate due to new acceptance policy of 1/10). I guess they realized they are loosing the market share quickly and have to stabilize and/or catch up with other agencies. In fact, although this month (January) is usually a slow one due to holidays, in my case it's just terrible for most agencies; however, what is even more amazing is that FT has earned me so far this month more than SS, what has never happened to me before.

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on January 22, 2016, 21:59
I am sick of these lies and corporate BS 

The only truth in that whole email is "effective January 25th 2016 the enhanced license payout will move from a fixed rate of $28 to a tiered percentage model, similar to our custom image license."

Lying has become a habit for these cooperate people.