BobD

I can't see any problem differentiating between account customers and pay on demand. I have said before, all that is required is a check box for PU or presentation sales saying 'I understand that I am buying an image file and refunds are not available'. I assume that account customers would not on the whole be buying PU licences.

I have no objection to the PU licence as such, it's the refunds after someone has the full size image I object to.

It's come to something when you get red arrows for reporting a sale.

I just bought that mk 3 offer for my wife. I am very impressed with the quality of the images, so much so that I am thinking of buying one for myself. My question to more experienced RX users is the point you are making, is it worth paying so much extra for the later models?

First I would like to commend everyone contributing to this thread for keeping it civil, I know the subject raises some passion in many photographers. From my own experience I cannot see my experiment with ms has had any effect on my Alamy sales. In the year I had images at SS the number of Alamy sales remained pretty much the same with just 5 less images sold, being that I am not creating much new content, I would regard this as much the same. What has changed is average sale price, from $25 the previous year to $20 the last year. I suppose that could be interpreted as the influence of MS, but not my images only. My experience is that completely different images sell on Alamy and MS, if only I knew in advance which was which. I did double my income overall during that year. The truth is there are good and bad points to both models. Alamy Good points. Fair pricing in the current climate ( although reducing all the time). Reasonable upload procedure and acceptance. Bad points. Low sales per image, time waiting for payment clearance, refund policy for non account customers r.e. PU sales, poor tracking of image use. MS Good points. Immediate payment with no refunds, High sales per image Bad points. Low commission rates, sometimes overly fussy acceptance criteria.

If you do this it would be interesting to compare shutterstocks May and June figures.

Here's what I think will happen. Shutterstock will announce that they are dropping the reset in January in favour of a rolling 12 month level. Everyone will celebrate a major concession from shutterstock forgetting they will still only get 10c for the majority of sales. It won't make much difference to shutterstock as even the level 5 and 6 contributors are getting 10-17c for most sales. Unfortunately the inability of photographers to stick together and take determined action when something like this happens will only lead to it happening again some time in the future. They must be laughing at the attempts of the contributors, I reckon they have dropped 9 million images since it started, that will be hardly missed.

What you say is true, the high performers will double their percentage in short order but that still doesn't change the fact that most package sales are producing 10c sales with a few reaching the giddy heights of 17c. These are far and away the majority of sales. Even the level 5 contributors are reporting these earnings. They may well increase their earnings with on demand, but these are a minority of sales. I still maintain that unless they are making individual deals with the high earners (also very likely), these producers will take a hit along with everyone else on the majority of their sales throughout the year, the January reset makes no real difference to these people. A lot of others will take months, if at all to reach the higher levels.

How can anyone blame someone from getting off their a**e to make a few extra dollars to support their family. It's the exploitation of them by the likes of shutterstock that I, and I'm sure others find objectionable.

This is true they will climb very quickly to the top level, however the vast majority of their sales will drop from 38c to 10c, so unless they have a separate deal with higher commission you have to wonder if paying models and travel to those good locations will be a viable proposition.

It may be that a few cents go further in poorer countries but as Olivier says if these contributors were so poor they would not have been able to afford the trappings needed to supply images in the first place. You would need a pretty large portfolio just to pay your monthly internet connection charge at 10c a sale. John my understanding is they will pay you out if you cancel your account but not if you just suspend it. I really don't think they are that bad a company that they would try to hang on to your money.

I was doing OK over there, got a payout practically every month and was about to trip over the next commission rate which increased earning quite a bit, but I will not put up with what amounts to slave labour. To be honest I think they wanted to cull a good deal of their unsustainable mountain of images, the last couple of months they have been rejecting images for the most ridiculous reasons. This way they cut down on images and make more money at the same time. There are rumours on the forum that they have made sweetheart deals with their big factory suppliers that maintains the original commission for those favoured few but that only lasts until January when they will be reset to the lowest rate along with everyone else.

I have suspended my images over there, once I receive this months payout I will cancel my account. 1 10c sale was enough.

An interesting watch on the situation over there.

Poor. 4 for $53