# Trying to start up with ShutterStock



## kdthomas

*WOW. JUST WOW.*

Anyone thinking of doing this ... if you think you are worth your salt ... get ready for some humility. This is *NOT* easy.

At least they have a forum with some pretty helpful folks.


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## tirediron

I *know* I am worth *my* salt... whether I'm worth anyone else's... that's a different matter.  What sort of "not easy" were you handed?


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## 407370

I just read the forum about rejected pics and wondered why anyone would participate in this. Do some people crave rejection?

The rules for uploading 3D scenes are just stupid.

How much money can be made on this site ? Please tell me its a lot


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## KmH

There are 2 use licensing models for stock photography:
Royalty-Free (RF)
Rights-Managed (RM)

Microstock photo agencies typically offer RF use licensing.
A RF use license requires a small one time payment that includes extremely broad usage rights.
A RM use license costs considerably more and offers a very much more limited usage agreement.

If you want to make money from stock photography, you want buyers that are looking for a RM use license, not buyers wanting a RF use license.

Here is part of Shutter Stock's use license:


> 2.
> Shutterstock hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, perpetual, right to use, modify, and reproduce Images in the following ways, subject to the limitations set forth herein and in Part II hereof:
> 
> a. On websites;
> 
> b. In print media, digital media, product packaging and software including magazines, newspapers, books (including print-on-demand books), e-books, advertising collateral, letterhead, business cards, product labels, CD and DVD cover art, applications (including mobile "apps"), and opt-in e-mail marketing, provided that no Image is reproduced more than two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) times in the aggregate, and that the Images cannot be readily unincorporated from such digital media or software;
> 
> c. Incorporated into film, video, multimedia presentations, or advertising for broadcast, public performance, or streaming provided that the intended audience consists of fewer than two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) viewers, in the aggregate;
> 
> d. Incorporated into print or digital material intended for public display, including trade show booths or point of sale materials, excluding so-called Out of Home advertising, provided that the intended audience consists of fewer than two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) viewers in the aggregate;
> 
> e. For decorative purposes solely for your own personal, non-commercial use, not for resale, download or distribution, or any other commercial use
> 
> f. If your desired use is not set forth above, or if you need to reproduce an Image more than 250,000 times, please see our Enhanced License or contact Customer Support.
> 
> 3. In the event that you create a derivative work based on or incorporating one or more Images, all rights in and to such Images shall continue to be owned by Shutterstock or its Contributor(s), subject to your rights to use such Image(s) pursuant to the terms and limitations set forth herein.
> 
> 4. All other rights in the Images are expressly reserved by Shutterstock for itself and its Contributors.


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## vintagesnaps

These sites seem to just get worse and worse...

As if the part Keith posted isn't bad enough, Section 5, unless you opt out... has me shaking my head at what usage you're allowing for any models/subjects you photographed and submitted their images. And that payment schedule, 25 cents? a quarter?? really? Submitter Terms of Service

And their stock dropped 13% in December.

And if you appear to not know how to property hold/set the wheel on an SX-70 maybe don't pose with one. lol


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## photoguy99

Microstock's business model appears this:

- you pay all the expenses (gear, time, models, etc) to make some very very very good stock photos
- they license them out in a variety of ways
- ... and take most of the money

I am pretty nearly convinced that all the blogs about "I make money microstocking, and you can too!" are shills, because I frankly don't see how it's possible. There are enough people who will do it for pride, and who do genuinely excellent work, that they don't have to pay anyone any substantive money. Just enough to make the shill blogs sound sort of credible.

I have not looked at the forums, but I assume that they too are full of shills. I suspect that the expenses of a microstock agency are:

- staff to look at photos
- shills
- datacenter costs
- coffee
- carpet cleaning
- stir stix for coffee
- payouts to creatives


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## vintagesnaps

I took a look at the forum, I scrolled down and one of the first things I looked at was Photo Requests, and in the first few were 'nudes' and 'drug' - gee why didn't that surprise me? lol It's funny but it's not. Maybe I should go back and look at Anything Goes.

You could make a couple of adjustments to that list, omit staff and substitute warm bodies, and delete datacenter and insert Atari and barcalounger.


(OK I have to stop looking at this and get something done... one photo request was from '06 and people are still posting... 9 years later here's that picture you wanted.)


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## zombiesniper

postica said:


> please follow my referal link



This is a problem for me. Your first post on the forum and I'm supposed to use a referral link to make you money? That's rich.


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## tirediron

zombiesniper said:


> postica said:
> 
> 
> 
> please follow my referal link
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is a problem for me. Your first post on the forum and I'm supposed to use a referral link to make you money? That's rich.
Click to expand...

Meh... the bad spammer went away!


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## ronlane

making money from microstock hasn't been that difficult. It's getting enough money in my "account" to actually have them send it to me that's the issue. lol


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## The_Traveler

Thats part of their scam - or business model if you prefer.
By having and encouraging huge numbers of contributors, the payments are spread over much greater numbers of accounts, thus fewer reach payout level and they have an incredible float.  I didn't look to see if they actually pay the unpaid residuals if you quit but, if you've got just 10 or 20 dollars in there, my guess for most/many perople they'll just abandon it.


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## Derrel

ronlane said:
			
		

> making money from microstock hasn't been that difficult. It's getting enough money in my "account" to actually have them send it to me that's the issue. lol



I keep telling people--cruising the streets early Sunday morning will earn more money per month in can and bottle collecting than microstock sales! A good fraternity party can be worth $10-$12 in empties! With the typical 25-cent payout per stock image sale, just a COUPLE of frat boys and their prior night's empty, cast-off beer cans can easily triple or quadruple your income! Go to where the real momey is--empty can and bottle deposit returns! That's where a guy makes the *real dolla' bills*!


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## vintagesnaps

Hey Derrel, that's a plan! Who needs microstock, there's a college town not too far away so I can go hang out around frat houses, maybe I'll pick up something along with the empties! lol

Maybe eventually people will stop using sites like that and they'll go out of business.


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## desertrattm2r12

Fifty years ago stock photography was worthwhile (I was there). But with billions of photos being taken daily and half of the people pointing a camera want to make big bucks, it is ridiculous. Old myths die hard -- that Leica makes cameras in Germany (not much), that Grandma's 70 year old Exa camera is worth significant money, that Leica is the BEST CAMERA IN THE WORLD, that being a professional photography is easy -- my camera will do everything for me, that yet another (7 billionth this week) beach at sunset photo is anything at all but a space taker-upper, that bears are bad because they eat selfi-takers who walk up to them in the wild and turn their backs (free buffet for a bear), that bokeh is photography and the content of the photo is not the content just an annoyance (look at me I can make a cliched, cornball, trite. overdone wild background with my camera, it's never done before), that Barnack was a guy who saw the future perfectly (he just wanted in the beginning to make a small camera to test 35mm movie film) and his dumb double-the-movie-film-frame is not of gift from the heavens, presented with the usual Burning Bush ceremony. I could go on but you get the idea. Perhaps I am too cynical.


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## beagle100

desertrattm2r12 said:


> Fifty years ago stock photography was worthwhile (I was there). But with billions of photos being taken daily and half of the people pointing a camera want to make big bucks, it is ridiculous.. I could go on but you get the idea. Perhaps I am too cynical.



perhaps,  7 billion sunset photos certainly changes the equation


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## Ornello

desertrattm2r12 said:


> Fifty years ago stock photography was worthwhile (I was there). But with billions of photos being taken daily and half of the people pointing a camera want to make big bucks, it is ridiculous. Old myths die hard -- that Leica makes cameras in Germany (not much), that Grandma's 70 year old Exa camera is worth significant money, that Leica is the BEST CAMERA IN THE WORLD, that being a professional photography is easy -- my camera will do everything for me, that yet another (7 billionth this week) beach at sunset photo is anything at all but a space taker-upper, that bears are bad because they eat selfi-takers who walk up to them in the wild and turn their backs (free buffet for a bear), that bokeh is photography and the content of the photo is not the content just an annoyance (look at me I can make a cliched, cornball, trite. overdone wild background with my camera, it's never done before), that Barnack was a guy who saw the future perfectly (he just wanted in the beginning to make a small camera to test 35mm movie film) and his dumb double-the-movie-film-frame is not of gift from the heavens, presented with the usual Burning Bush ceremony. I could go on but you get the idea. Perhaps I am too cynical.




I could not have said it better myself. The camera companies keep advertising their wares to make you think it's easy to be good. If it's easy, and anyone can do it, it won't pay, so why bother?


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