Сообщения

1

General discussion / Re: What is your favourite stock site?

« : Декабря 10, 2008, 05:16:47 pm »

I most admire Dreamstime and believe they are doing the most to equitably share success with the contributor, while at the same time pushing up the value of our images.

Shutterstock is my biggest earner by far, and that is without constant uploads.  I appreciate their consistent, fast reviews.  I also appreciate their On Demand program, which I hope becomes a larger part of the overall pie in 2009.

iStock has fallen so far, so fast for me that I sometimes wonder if they are worth uploading to anymore.  :

2

General discussion / Re: Will you leave Stockxpert?

« : Августа 16, 2008, 05:35:19 am »

Good call Lev.  They changed the EULA in the final moments.  I opted back in, and am breathing a bit easier.   

3

General discussion / Re: Will you leave Stockxpert?

« : Августа 13, 2008, 05:31:05 pm »

I opted out of subs Lev, as the EULA was not changed.  Too bad, as I thought it was an interesting opportunity for everyone involved.  If they alter the EULA according to what a lot of us want, then I will opt back in as I have nothing against subs per se. 

How could I have anything against subs?  Shutterstock is my #1 earner for 8 consecutive months?   

4

General discussion / Re: Will you leave Stockxpert?

« : Августа 01, 2008, 03:44:17 pm »

Lev, I couldn't be on the call due to my work schedule.  I just finished reading the notes, and am sifting through the SXP forum thread.

It doesn't look like it went well at all.  SXP wants to keep the EULA as is, allowing EL type rights for a subscription sale.  I want to see the final plans in writing, and that is coming this month.  However under these terms, I assume I will be deleting my portfolio once everything is in writing. 

Do you have any thoughts on the SXP/Photos.com situation?

5

General discussion / Re: Will you leave Stockxpert?

« : Июля 29, 2008, 01:11:46 am »

I won't make a hasty decision Lev.  I have faith Steve/SXP will come through for us, as they always have in the past. 

6

General discussion / Will you leave Stockxpert?

« : Июля 28, 2008, 01:45:30 pm »

 

I sure hope it doesn't come to this.

From the way I, and many other contributors, interpret the usage rights in the Photos.com deal it appears designers will get rights reserved for an EL license by a simple 30 cent subscription purchase.  They will be able to put our images on t-shirts and mugs for resale.

This is terrible news, and it has been confirmed as true in the official thread:

http://www.stockxpert.com/forum.phtml?f=showtopic&n=15291&p=2

Steve,

I know you frequent this forum.  I have to believe there are a lot of large contributors who will pull out immediately if these license terms are allowed to go through.  I enjoy working with Stockxpert, but I won't hesitate to pull out if we are going to be giving up so many rights on our images for a lowly subscription payment. 

I can't help but wonder...WHY?  The RM folks have been saying for years microstock was nothing but companies racing to the bottom.  Price increases in recent months have gone through rather well at Shutterstock and iStock.  Clearly designers are willing to pay up for our images.  Why in the world would any company, let alone SXP, desire to basically give our images away?  Don't you profit considerably more by selling an Extended License than a sub sale? I just don't get the logic in this at all.

7

General discussion / Time to Retire Lev!

« : Апреля 18, 2008, 08:05:11 am »

I just noticed I had a big $1 sale at Albumo back in March.  I never even noticed.  So that means you must have made at least 2 or 3 cents that day.

Time to put on party hats and bring in the dancing girls!               

Just don't spend it all in one place...

8

General discussion / Re: MostPhotos

« : Марта 22, 2008, 10:50:47 am »

Sorry my friend.  No harm, no foul.     Do research it though.  If Laurin believes in it, it has potential.

9

General discussion / MostPhotos

« : Марта 21, 2008, 02:36:53 pm »

I joined MostPhotos this morning.  I normally raise my eyebrows at such a new site.  However Laurin Rinder, who I respect immensely, has given this site a ringing endorsement.  He noted on the microstockgroup forum that he had more earnings there in 3 days than in an entire year at Lucky Oliver!  So I will give them a try and see what happens.  Each RF sale pays approximately 25 euro ($18 USD), and there is a 50% commission (70% for exclusives).

Uploading is a breeze if you use FTP.

The only minor negatives I see are a goofy community rating system, and the complete lack of a review process (some real bad pictures get in). 

The site is MostPhotos.com

 

Be well my friends!

10

General discussion / StockXpert announces new prices

« : Марта 06, 2008, 08:50:38 am »

http://www.stockxpert.com/forum.phtml?f=showtopic&n=11322

Addition of XS blog size
+100% increase for Small size price
+50% increase for Medium
+60% increase for Large

Looks great to me!   

11

Illustration / Re: Do I find here exclusive on Istockphoto vector designer?

« : Марта 04, 2008, 04:28:55 pm »

AndresR reported on another forum that Fotolia has been his #1 earner 2 months in a row.  My data sample is much smaller, but Shutterstock passed iStock in earnings in January and February. 

I like iStock despite the miserably low commission.  But they represent only 25% of my earnings these days, so I would not consider exclusivity.  Also, microstock is so young.  Who knows what new major players will emerge this year or next, or who might flame out.

12

General discussion / February Results

« : Марта 01, 2008, 05:06:57 pm »

I hope all of my friends in microstock had strong results in February. 

I grew earnings by 9.4% in February, and established a new personal BME. Contributions were down from January, which explains Shutterstock falling off. Even still, Shutterstock came in as my #1 earner slightly ahead of iStockPhoto.  I set individual site BME's at Dreamstime, StockXpert, 123RF, and yes even Lucky Oliver where I earned a massive 60 cents.

	Jan	Feb
Shutterstock	45.1%	27.9%
Dreamstime	10.9%	13.8%
iStockphoto	21.0%	25.9%
BigStockPhoto	7.0%	10.0%
Stockxpert	4.0%	5.6%
123RF	1.9%	6.2%
Fotolia	10.0%	10.4%
Lucky Oliver	0.1%	0.3%
Total Earnings	200.86	219.68

[/b]

With the exception of Lucky Oliver, I was very pleased with my results everywhere. It is up to me to increase my skill level and produce better images if I am to grow earnings from here.                  

13

General discussion / Re: Demystifying Shutterstock's Search

« : Марта 01, 2008, 02:07:14 am »

Definitely.  Now I just need some of those real good pictures...   

man. you have very good model in your family. just follow him for a day with camera and blast "editorial" section 

HA!  Might be nice to catch him in action killing one of those humongous animatronic dragons like in the late 1980s.   

14

General discussion / Re: Attn: Steve-Oh

« : Марта 01, 2008, 01:46:45 am »

Thank you Steve.

15

General discussion / Attn: Steve-Oh

« : Февраля 29, 2008, 04:42:47 pm »

Hi Steve,

Things have been picking up lately for me with SXP.  I definitely enjoy being part of the process.

I know in the last year, before I joined, SXP had a change in its Intellectual Property standards.  For instance, no more real estate photos without property release.  Also I thought I read something to the effect of no more sports photos without model release, even if the faces are not visible and the logos are removed.  I don't know if I have the story correct, so I want to show a few samples and see what you think.

This image is a big seller for me at Shutterstock, iStock and Fotolia:



Does SXP consider this to be an IP problem?  Or are images such as this acceptable?  I didn't want to waste a lot of time on uploads, nor waste the reviewers' time, if this was something which SXP feels needs a release.  Otherwise, they generally sell everywhere I upload them to, so I wanted to check first.

Thanks for the patience,
Dan Padavona (DanP68)