Author Topic: Wirestock becomes irrelevant by their own doing (Read 10082 times)

Uncle Pete · « **on:** August 02, 2023, 11:57 »

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your contributions to Wirestock! Your portfolio stands out with great quality and originality.

We want to let you know that we are changing the submission limits on Wirestock. As Wirestock is becoming more popular, we are receiving increasingly larger volumes of submissions from our content creators, which result in:

Delays in content review and processing
Growing costs of labeling, review, processing and storage
Difficulties in detecting copyright infringements and fraudulent activities

To solve these, we are making marketplace submissions a paid option for all accounts regardless of their approval rates. Going forward, in order to submit content to marketplaces, all accounts need to subscribe to one of our premium plans.

This change will not affect your previous submissions. Additionally, you can still post and sell content on Wirestock directly through your portfolio without subscribing. We will start featuring and promoting your content on Wirestock to increase your chances of having direct sales.

As a gesture of appreciation for your significant contributions, we’re offering you a 50% discount on our premium plan with promo code 50DISC. With this exclusive offer, you can continue contributing up to 200 images per month.

Please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Best,
Team Wirestock

Ha Ha, direct sales? Anyone ever had a direct sale, I mean did you direct someone to your WS account, to sell a license? Upload limit 200 with a paid account? $7.79/mo
$93.48 billed yearly and what of the 15% they don't mention that? Only that direct sales are no commission. Selling AI creations? but 5 free a month for $0

I think this marks, let it ride, nothing new, and possibly, SEE YA = AMF in the near future.

Premium: $14.99 a month

Expand your presence with 200 monthly marketplace and challenge submissions
Supercharge your output with 200 monthly AI generations
Perfect your images with 400 AI upscaling

I didn't follow but the AI is through Discord.

JustAnImage · « **Reply #1 on:** August 02, 2023, 12:36 »

Yes, that's really a laugh - they've put themselves out of the running with that.

One thing I would also like to point out:
I have been trying for several months to get an answer from support as to when the dataset earnings from Shutterstock and Pond5 will be paid out to the contributors, because this has not happened yet.
Since I asked this question in support, I have not received an answer to my queries (8 queries have gone unanswered by now).

I've just been running my account there for a few months now and taking the few $ that come in.
I certainly won't be uploading anything there any more...

alijaber · « **Reply #2 on:** August 02, 2023, 14:54 »

The money that they got from dataset earnings, which I don't think they share with their contributors, should be more than enough to cover their "Growing costs".

ouatedeP · « **Reply #3 on:** August 03, 2023, 06:49 »

Quote from: JustAnImage on August 02, 2023, 12:36

Yes, that's really a laugh - they've put themselves out of the running with that.

One thing I would also like to point out:
I have been trying for several months to get an answer from support as to when the dataset earnings from Shutterstock and Pond5 will be paid out to the contributors, because this has not happened yet.
Since I asked this question in support, I have not received an answer to my queries (8 queries have gone unanswered by now).

I've just been running my account there for a few months now and taking the few $ that come in.
I certainly won't be uploading anything there any more...

yeah, they never answered my question on how they allocate DACS payment, or similar, they get from Alamy.

Roscoe · « **Reply #4 on:** August 03, 2023, 11:33 »

Wirestock has a weird way of doing business.
They could have increased their own commission up to 25% for instance instead of asking for a subscription.

I guess they want to weed out the small and low volume contributors. On the other hand. 200 submissions is on the low side for professional contributors.

So maybe I'm missing something here or it's just another stupid move by them. Never considered them as very professional anyhow.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #5 on:** August 03, 2023, 11:48 »

Quote from: ouatedeP on August 03, 2023, 06:49

Quote from: JustAnImage on August 02, 2023, 12:36
Yes, that's really a laugh - they've put themselves out of the running with that.

One thing I would also like to point out:
I have been trying for several months to get an answer from support as to when the dataset earnings from Shutterstock and Pond5 will be paid out to the contributors, because this has not happened yet.
Since I asked this question in support, I have not received an answer to my queries (8 queries have gone unanswered by now).

I've just been running my account there for a few months now and taking the few $ that come in.
I certainly won't be uploading anything there any more...

yeah, they never answered my question on how they allocate DACS payment, or similar, they get from Alamy.

Both of these or all related questions are good questions. Where does the data money from SS, AS, or anyone else, or any other artists payment go?

I think it's humorous that they stopped taking images uploaded with metadata and insist on doing it through their system. We can do the work and don't need to pay them to do generic keywords. They also mention frauds and stolen images, which I suppose, those people won't pay for an account.

The whole part about being able to make direct sales from the portfolio is also a joke. $5 licenses, $11 prints for 4x6 and higher for 8x10, plus, framed prints much higher "shipping not included" $50 for an 8x10.

Anyone can open a free FAA account, with more variety of products and use that for order fulfillment. You can also set your own prices for whatever margin you feel is fair.

Pay $179 a year to upload 200 images a month? That's crazy.

Brasilnut · « **Reply #6 on:** August 03, 2023, 12:14 »

I was once a strong cheerleader of WS, even when they were still sorting out their poor keywording issues.

But I feel like they've sold out, big time. It was probably pressure from shareholders / investors but it's a poor excuse nevertheless. Startups want to revolutionize the industry and sometimes they seem like they can in the beginning but in the end up they end up just like the worst of the market. Another example is Pic(un)fair.

They're a small team and couldn't handle the amount of generally poor/mediocre images they were receiving. So in a way, they were victims of their own success.

Another startup agency that I promoted a year ago, Gallerist, struggled and has temporarily shut down. Seems that opening up a microstock agency nowadays is a recipe for disaster, this market is far too mature and almost impossible to compete with the likes of SS / AS / Getty. Perhaps as an Ai-only agency it may work if contributors / buyers have sufficient guarantee of legal indemnity.

I like their team and wish them the best of luck, hope they can one day change their business model to once again be more contributor-friendly.

cobalt · « **Reply #7 on:** August 03, 2023, 13:03 »

This sounds like a barrier against fraud.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it works like magic, because I doubt image thieves will sign up for a place where they have to pay something.

A lot of fraud comes from very poor countries, spurred on by dubious youtubers or even paid for by thieves to sign up.

10 dollars a month might be like 400 dollars somewhere else.

PokemonMaster · « **Reply #8 on:** August 06, 2023, 09:18 »

If I'd decide to upload my portfolio or a part of it to WS, with the limit of 200, I'd spend many years to do it. Probably, more than WS will be existing.
If I'd skip my portfolio and started fully with AI, 200 per month is nothing
Whatever I do, my WS portfolio will remain tiny for too long, I will not be able to gain any profit for a few years with this limit. And you want me to pay for it?
Absolutely useless model for the contributors.

fotorob · « **Reply #9 on:** August 17, 2023, 09:41 »

Statement about the missing data deal payments from Wirestock here in my new blog post (in German):
https://www.alltageinesfotoproduzenten.de/2023/08/17/wirestock-und-die-fehlenden-datendeals-auszahlungen-reaktion-von-wirestock/

in short: they claim they will pay out in august or september 2023.

Injustice for all · « **Reply #10 on:** August 17, 2023, 11:07 »

In my opinion wirestock was,is and will be a totally useless "thing"

blvdone · « **Reply #11 on:** August 17, 2023, 15:26 »

Wirestock's move makes sense. The biggest issue probably is the fraud accounts using those 3rd party uploading services to upload stolen clips and photos. As we have seen in many cases, it's difficult to detect those especially when those thieves edit photos and videos slightly to evade detection. Without those measures, WireStock and BlackBoxGuild's account could be erased from Shutterstock and some other major sites. They don't want that. If you are a thief uploading stolen photos and videos, it's safer to be under disguise of Wirestock or BlackBoxGuild's account and also get higher royalty rate on Shutterstock than uploading by yourself.

milo22 · « **Reply #12 on:** August 18, 2023, 07:35 »

50 percent commission for dataset??

option out then probably means that wirestock simply keeps 100%.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #13 on:** August 21, 2023, 11:07 »

Wirestock is currently in the process of accumulating the proceeds from all dataset deals and intends to transfer them to the photographers' accounts before the end of Q3 2023.

We're now in wait and see mode, while they work it out and "intend" to pay us. I'm not going to pay anything to upload, because of their sad story.

Delays in content review and processing
Growing costs of labeling, review, processing and storage
Difficulties in detecting copyright infringements and fraudulent activities

The first two are their problem and the same because of the WS system.

...all accounts need to subscribe to one of our premium plans.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Wirestock becomes irrelevant by their own doing (Read 10082 times)

Uncle Pete

JustAnImage

alijaber

ouatedeP

Roscoe

Uncle Pete

Brasilnut

cobalt

PokemonMaster

fotorob

Injustice for all

blvdone

milo22

Uncle Pete

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