Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0 (Read 150193 times)

Dimco · « **Reply #425 on:** May 29, 2020, 16:08 »

Way to go!
Bravo Yayimages - sent out email announcing their future plans and the help they provide for contributors getting their portfolio online
Big, Big bravo for Dreamstime - just recieved an email with 10% bigger royalties for contributors!
Bravo Again!
Deposit is also very helpful agency

This was what i was talking about in my initial post from 2 days ago.

Check your emails people

Feeling the heat?

We are changing the landscape, slowly but we are getting traction.
both moves, the india phone factoriesand the contributors status cover proves something is being done.

iStock 2.0, have you had enough? do you need more heat? its up to you! If i were you, i would stop this nonsense and cheap tactics since they devalue your credibility even faster. let’s cut this negativity and get on to business. lets discuss together and i’m sure we can come to an agreement. we are not unresonable, but you are leaving us no choice. we cannot survive this move.

Your turn!

NeonRobot · « **Reply #426 on:** May 29, 2020, 16:40 »

Halting all uploads to SS.
All new stuff will go to better places.
Follow me.

somethingpretentious · « **Reply #427 on:** May 29, 2020, 23:57 »

Why are almost everybody accepting Shutterstocks narrative when talking about the new commission structure?

The commission numbers in the table posted by Shutterstock are simply not true, and yet we all talk about them as if they were true. Well, they are not, they are lower!

This is due to the fact that most clients do not download the maximum amount allowed in the subscription. This is especially true for the larger subscription packages.
If a subscriber uses half of the downloads allowed, the commission paid out to contributors from this subscriber will be half of the numbers posted by Shutterstock.
So in this case, if you are at tier 1 you will receive 7.5%, and if you are tier 6 you will receive 20%.

Shutterstock knows the average % of downloads used for all their packages and subscriptions and they would be able to provide the contributors with the real average commissions for each tier.

Don't contributors have a right to know the real commission?

I suggest we do not buy into their narrative and stop saying things like “contributors are getting 15% at tier 1 and 40% at tier 6” when this is in fact not true. I suggest we instead say “contributors are getting 0-15% at tier 1 and 0-40% at tier 6”, as this is true.

gnirtS · « **Reply #428 on:** May 30, 2020, 00:10 »

I got banned from the forum very early on after posting a PM from the moderators telling me to stop asking questions. Fair enough, was expecting it.

So far at least my account seems to be up though.

Artist · « **Reply #429 on:** May 30, 2020, 00:26 »

Quote from: gnirtS on May 30, 2020, 00:10

I got banned from the forum very early on after posting a PM from the moderators telling me to stop asking questions. Fair enough, was expecting it.

So far at least my account seems to be up though.

wow... this is brutal... where is freedom of speech?

gnirtS · « **Reply #430 on:** May 30, 2020, 00:36 »

Quote from: Artist on May 30, 2020, 00:26

Quote from: gnirtS on May 30, 2020, 00:10
I got banned from the forum very early on after posting a PM from the moderators telling me to stop asking questions. Fair enough, was expecting it.

So far at least my account seems to be up though.

wow... this is brutal... where is freedom of speech?

To be fair its their forums so their rules, they dont have to have freedom of speech....legally! (Morally however...).

It seems looking at the huge SS thread the moderators have gone into hiding and not posting now BUT are hiding posts behind the scenes. The thread has dropped in length 3 pages suddenly with no admin posts at all so they're censoring in the background whilst ignoring the points made.

I suspect most SS contributors on their forum are unaware this group exists so its an easy way of closing them down.

Im not complaining about being banned - i was PMd and warned to stop asking questions because it wasnt constructive. Obviously i disagree with that statement. Then said if i carried on they'd hide my posts.

So knowing full well i'd get banned i thought it better to share the PM so people could see how they were handling this.

What is disturbing that on here and their FB groups some people are reporting their accounts have been terminated as well. That hasn't happened to me (yet?) but thats a very disturbing new low for them if true.

They've just introduced a potentially lethal new policy for contributors and censoring them on the forum is one thing but if they're actively closing accounts as well that really is bad.

Do they really expect people just to say "10 cents? cool. Thanks!" and accept it?

Rage · « **Reply #431 on:** May 30, 2020, 01:33 »

Judging by twitter and facebook news of accounts deactivated, thats the draconian step they are taking. You don't like our policy you dont "deserve" to sell on our esteemed platform.

Talk about oliver twist types of authority

Sent from my HD1901 using Tapatalk

Deyan Georgiev Photography · « **Reply #432 on:** May 30, 2020, 03:45 »

I saw a lot of comments, but I still can't understand how this will work. I understood that Shutterstock change the commissions from fixed amount to percentage, would someone explain % of what? As to calculate percent you need reference amount.
In Elements for example you get 50% of the pool and divided bonus from the unused amount. No matter in this case if it is fair or not in each particular agency, but let it be clear.

gnirtS · « **Reply #433 on:** May 30, 2020, 03:59 »

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev Photography on May 30, 2020, 03:45

I saw a lot of comments, but I still can't understand how this will work. I understood that Shutterstock change the commissions from fixed amount to percentage, would someone explain % of what? As to calculate percent you need reference amount.
In Elements for example you get 50% of the pool and divided bonus from the unused amount. No matter in this case if it is fair or not in each particular agency, but let it be clear.

You can go onto the SS site (customer end) and see the available price plans and work most out from there.
Although they are apparently changing them.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #434 on:** May 30, 2020, 04:18 »

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev Photography on May 30, 2020, 03:45

I saw a lot of comments, but I still can't understand how this will work. I understood that Shutterstock change the commissions from fixed amount to percentage, would someone explain % of what? As to calculate percent you need reference amount.
In Elements for example you get 50% of the pool and divided bonus from the unused amount. No matter in this case if it is fair or not in each particular agency, but let it be clear.

They said a few times but keeps getting buried by fast moving threads. It's calculated in the worst possible way for us. Percentage based on if buyers used all dls. So the percentages they are pushing are total BS. We will actually be getting a lot less as a percentage of what the buyer pays.

blue · « **Reply #435 on:** May 30, 2020, 04:45 »

Quote from: Deyan Georgiev Photography on May 30, 2020, 03:45

I saw a lot of comments, but I still can't understand how this will work. I understood that Shutterstock change the commissions from fixed amount to percentage, would someone explain % of what? As to calculate percent you need reference amount.
In Elements for example you get 50% of the pool and divided bonus from the unused amount. No matter in this case if it is fair or not in each particular agency, but let it be clear.

Have a look at this post upper in this thread : https://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-just-became-istock-2-0/msg549810/#msg549810
Mrblues101 has made calculations for us. The table is not exhaustive but you can figure out how the new scheme works.

blue · « **Reply #436 on:** May 30, 2020, 04:53 »

Quote from: somethingpretentious on May 29, 2020, 23:57

If a subscriber uses half of the downloads allowed, the commission paid out to contributors from this subscriber will be half of the numbers posted by Shutterstock.
So in this case, if you are at tier 1 you will receive 7.5%, and if you are tier 6 you will receive 20%.

I think you are misleading : the percentages are fixed (they are what SS says they are) BUT it is the price per file which varies whether the subscription is used in its entirety or not. That's the tricky point !

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #437 on:** May 30, 2020, 05:22 »

Quote from: blue on May 30, 2020, 04:53

Quote from: somethingpretentious on May 29, 2020, 23:57
If a subscriber uses half of the downloads allowed, the commission paid out to contributors from this subscriber will be half of the numbers posted by Shutterstock.
So in this case, if you are at tier 1 you will receive 7.5%, and if you are tier 6 you will receive 20%.
I think you are misleading : the percentages are fixed (they are what SS says they are) BUT it is the price per file which varies whether the subscription is used in its entirety or not. That's the tricky point !

I don't think it is misleading at all. You will be receiving 7.5% in any meaningful way. What is misleading is saying we will receive 15%.

Otherwise what would 100% constitute? How can we be receiving 15% if for example SS is receiving 13X (roughly in the above example) what we receive? It makes no sense and is just smoke and mirrors.

That's why a core demand has to be that % must mean percentage of what has actually been paid for that license or everything else goes out of the window. We wont even have a foundation to negotiate from and packages can be manipulate to s**ew us on an ongoing basis.

That and the January reset has to go. For top tier contributor that will mean a more than 50% pay cut from December to January. Honestly that can only have been though up by millionaires who have no idea how we peons survive in the real world.

Artist · « **Reply #438 on:** May 30, 2020, 06:09 »

I think.. SS should do a fair 50/50 share deal with contributors.

We made shutterstock and we deserve this.

They should quit their empire state office and take a low cost space. There are plenty of way to do cost cutting in backend instead of cutting royalty cost of contributors.

They should take all the possible steps to reduce running expenses and share those savings with contributors.

Its a digital marketplace, they need not to do extreme showoff in real world.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #439 on:** May 30, 2020, 07:40 »

Quote from: Artist on May 30, 2020, 06:09

I think.. SS should do a fair 50/50 share deal with contributors.

We made shutterstock and we deserve this.

They should quit their empire state office and take a low cost space. There are plenty of way to do cost cutting in backend instead of cutting royalty cost of contributors.

They should take all the possible steps to reduce running expenses and share those savings with contributors.

Its a digital marketplace, they need not to do extreme showoff in real world.

Yes and no, public image does play a role. A big corporation like Shutterstock needs to be in a premium location. Imagine if Shutterstock was operating from some run-down shed somewhere in a third-world country, without any way for potential business partners and capital investors to visit them on location. That wouldn't express any professionalism.

There is this quote from the movie American Beauty: "In order to be successful one must project an image of success at all times."

Having said that, those office space expenses shouldn't come out of contributors' pockets.

Artist · « **Reply #440 on:** May 30, 2020, 08:33 »

Quote from: Noedelhap on May 30, 2020, 07:40

Quote from: Artist on May 30, 2020, 06:09
I think.. SS should do a fair 50/50 share deal with contributors.

We made shutterstock and we deserve this.

They should quit their empire state office and take a low cost space. There are plenty of way to do cost cutting in backend instead of cutting royalty cost of contributors.

They should take all the possible steps to reduce running expenses and share those savings with contributors.

Its a digital marketplace, they need not to do extreme showoff in real world.

Yes and no, public image does play a role. A big corporation like Shutterstock needs to be in a premium location. Imagine if Shutterstock was operating from some run-down shed somewhere in a third-world country, without any way for potential business partners and capital investors to visit them on location. That wouldn't express any professionalism.

There is this quote from the movie American Beauty: "In order to be successful one must project an image of success at all times."

Having said that, those office space expenses shouldn't come out of contributors' pockets.

I agree and disagree with you here.

I believe their account books needs to be strong enough to speak for them.
And empire state building owns a huge running expense to shutterstock.

If the showbiz and premium locations is important, then they should also respect the contributors equally.
It should be both side win win situation.

Bart · « **Reply #441 on:** May 30, 2020, 08:37 »

Shutterstockboycott is in a way better, it starts with “shutterstock” which will assist in auto suggest for anyone searching “shutterstock”. Now would be good to do some basic website for that domain and have backlinks to it from a lot of external sites (extra google points for .edu .gov backlinks). I suggest pushing #shutterstockboycott as hashtag since it would build on auto suggest searches and can lead into shutterstockboycott.com versus leading back to boycottshutterstock.com ( which is their platform).

Quote from: mj007 on May 29, 2020, 14:14

Question , I think I know the answer. Is any SS contributor/s on the board of Directors of SS. I assume not... If so why . not . Without Contributors you have no SS. Most Corporations have 6-15 board members. SS needs Photographer Contributors on their board. I do assure you this bad revenue decision was voted yes by the SS board of Directors..

cobalt · « **Reply #442 on:** May 30, 2020, 08:37 »

On facebook somebody pointed out that they have really bad reviews from customers.

You need to skip all the new comments from frustrated producers, but these comments by customers are frightening.

https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.shutterstock.com?page=7

Looks like they had quite a few changes in the last years that I wasn‘t aware of.

In 2019 they had a problem with illustrators and apparently many left because SS totally ignored them.

That whole „dealing with people thing“ is not really working for them anymore?

Mrblues101 · « **Reply #443 on:** May 30, 2020, 09:59 »

Quote from: cobalt on May 30, 2020, 08:37

On facebook somebody pointed out that they have really bad reviews from customers.

You need to skip all the new comments from frustrated producers, but these comments by customers are frightening.

https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.shutterstock.com?page=7

Looks like they had quite a few changes in the last years that I wasn‘t aware of.

In 2019 they had a problem with illustrators and apparently many left because SS totally ignored them.

That whole „dealing with people thing“ is not really working for them anymore?

On May 2019 they changed the way you upload vector illustrations in a way that if you create for SS the final files was completly incompatible with other MS agencies; i think you mean that.

Some vector illustrators left SS because of that.

Rage · « **Reply #444 on:** May 30, 2020, 10:08 »

Quote from: cobalt on May 30, 2020, 08:37

On facebook somebody pointed out that they have really bad reviews from customers.

You need to skip all the new comments from frustrated producers, but these comments by customers are frightening.

https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.shutterstock.com?page=7

Looks like they had quite a few changes in the last years that I wasn‘t aware of.

In 2019 they had a problem with illustrators and apparently many left because SS totally ignored them.

That whole „dealing with people thing“ is not really working for them anymore?

Never knew all this. Guess it tells you that unless we are vocal then even the buyers are not aware of our problems. Like we are unaware of their problems

Sent from my HD1901 using Tapatalk

wollwerth · « **Reply #445 on:** May 30, 2020, 12:06 »

I just looked through their Trustpilot reviews for the first time. Good Lord, how had I not known this?

Rage · « **Reply #446 on:** May 30, 2020, 13:04 »

Feel free to plaster across Facebook & Twitter

gnirtS · « **Reply #447 on:** May 30, 2020, 13:09 »

Quote from: cobalt on May 30, 2020, 08:37

On facebook somebody pointed out that they have really bad reviews from customers.

I think that was me

Must admit ive been submitting for 10 years this month (yay. anniversary....) but id never really looked at them as a company. I just assumed they were doing OK, never looked into buyers side and just submitted.

It's literally only after these changes i started exploring their reputation and the trustpilot is shocking. As is a lot of twitter.

I expected bad reviews from contributors, that was exected but to be honest, potential customers dont care at all about that. Not their problem.
What i wasnt expecting were the uniformly terrible reviews from CUSTOMERS. That is a problem.

The same problems crop up constantly. Charged early for services, hidden and outright nasty terms and conditions, unresponsive or rude support and so on. Not just a few times. Hundreds of times.
Another potential issue is maybe the *type* of customer. A lot of complaints are along the lines of "i signed up for a free trial for a month because i wanted some free images for a website then got charged when i tried to cancel".

If a lot of their customers are only after 1 month of freebies and fully intend to cancel they again have a problem. Those are not the customers you want at all.

Over and over again you see "free trial is a scam. autorenew is a scam. Charged 4 days early. Double charged and support blamed me for clicking twice. Keep taking money 2 years after cancel. Fraudsters. Deceptive business practices. Everything a business shouldn’t be! ".

Theres one "Shutterstock are selling my stolen images" as well. And thats just the last 3 months of reviews.

Those aren't my words, not my accusations - they're direct quotes off the last few months customer reviews.

I found 1 good review from a happy customer. The other 4 good reviews ironically were people happy with the service because they managed to cancel in their free trial without being charged!

I know happy people seldom love reviews and unhappy ones usually do but ive not come across a company with as many uniformly bad reviews on there from actual customers before.

570 reviews. 5% are good or excellent. 93% are poor or bad.

If you were a buyer and considering a stock site, would you seriously consider them after browsing that?

So for me the company despite being a massive, bloated entity could actually be in trouble:-

(i) A huge number of customers are *extremely* unhappy with them. Reputation is important and theirs is not good.
(ii) Quite a few "customers" are after quick freebies with no intention of actually subscribing long term
(iii) They've seriously angered contributors
(iv) Time and time again huge portfolios of stolen images for sale with slow or very slow action to address it
(v) The library in general is a mess. Tagging, similars etc
(vi) share price is on a constant downward trend
(vii) competition is getting stronger (AS etc)
(viii) Microstock itself could be in a depress state for a while due to covid etc.
(ix) The unpatched security bugs allowing anyone to steal images or videos at will which have been around for a few years and still sadly work and documented even on youtube.

Its not likely to vanish any time soon but its time at the top might be drawing to a close. None of the things above point to a good outcome without a severe change of management and shakeup.

Lets put it this way, if you were a small business in the market for a sensible stock subscription package, after doing research would you choose SS ? If you're an individual, the same question?
Or a major company?

(yes i was bored enough to read through about 30 pages of reviews before realising they were all the same).

Dimco · « **Reply #448 on:** May 30, 2020, 13:39 »

gnirtS. ^^^

Well done, you really made an investigation for this!

Mantis · « **Reply #449 on:** May 30, 2020, 13:40 »

Quote from: Dimco on May 30, 2020, 13:39

gnirtS. ^^^

Well done, you really made an investigation for this!

Agree. Thanks for the work you have done here.

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Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0 (Read 150193 times)

Dimco

NeonRobot

somethingpretentious

gnirtS

Artist

gnirtS

Rage

Deyan Georgiev Photography

gnirtS

Justanotherphotographer

blue

blue

Justanotherphotographer

Artist

Noedelhap

Artist

Bart

cobalt

Mrblues101

Rage

wollwerth

Rage

gnirtS

Dimco

Mantis

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