Stock Coalition calls for Shutterstock shutdownJune 14, 2020 – The newly-formed Stock Coalition, an industry body representing global photographers, illustrators, animators, videographers and other artists who contribute their work to agencies for distribution, has joined the
call for a global shutdown of Shutterstock portfolios from 15 - 21 June, after the New York-based agency cut contributor compensation to as low as $0.10 per download.
Shutterstock unilaterally changed the terms of their contributor’s compensation agreement, establishing different tiers for different contributors based on the number of license sales, resetting all commissions to the lowest tier every 12-months. Regardless of the method used to determine commissions, many contributors have reported being paid commissions as low as $0.10 for image downloads when the structure came into effect at the beginning of June.
Outraged contributors from around the world vented their anger on Shutterstock’s internal forums and on industry online boards. However, their grievances have been ignored by Shutterstock’s management. In some cases, contributors have reported having their posts and even portfolios removed as “punishment” for voicing their concerns.
Dimitar Gorgev, a spokesman for the Stock Coalition says: “Somehow Shutterstock has forgotten that the only value they bring to the table is their ability to bring buyers and sellers together in an online marketplace. Shutterstock owns nothing and has nothing to sell without the global contributors who tirelessly produce creative content for use on websites, publications, videos, films and other forms of media. It’s clear that the time has come for creative artists to band together and we join the growing global call for all Shutterstock accounts to be shut down from 15 - 21 June.”
“Furthermore, such low commissions rule out the use of professional models, location shoots, props, photographic equipment and assistants necessary to produce work of any meaningful value. As a result, we are also calling on all advertising agencies, newspapers, production houses, web developers and other buyers of stock to also boycott Shutterstock over this time in favour of more contributor-friendly agencies that include Adobe Stock, Pond5, Dreamstime, Stocksy, Alamy as well as most rights-managed and many niche agencies,” Gorgev continues.
“As the largest agency of its kind in the market, we urge Shutterstock to immediately reverse the strategic direction the company has chosen and to explore the many options available to them to extract real value from the stock assets with which they have been entrusted. We encourage Shutterstock to engage with us and their contributors in a meaningful way in order to establish a way forward that ensures both reasonable pricing and fair compensation for creative work.” Gorgev concludes.
By Sunday, 14 June, large numbers of contributors, including some with substantial and popular portfolios had already deactivated their work at Shutterstock. Others have gone as far as to completely delete their work from Shutterstock, preferring to work with more "contributor-friendly" agencies instead.
About the Stock CoalitionThe Stock Coalition is an industry body representing the talented global photographers, illustrators, videographers, animators and other artists who contribute their work to agencies for distribution. Our goal is to ensure fair value and compensation for our collective creative works and to support agencies with strategies that align with these goals.
We already have more than 3 260 members on Facebook, while our official website is on the way at
http://www.stockcoalition.org.
For more information, please contact:The Stock Coalition
Email:
website@stockcoalition.org