POND5 Theft & Fraud

I noticed my question: "What's your better idea? We're all ears." went unanswered. I was hoping for a discussion.

Not so sure you attacked Ryan ... he's also a contributor, btw ... I think that you simply did not know that he's one of "the good guys" and, as AtomazulX quoth more gracefully than I, (sic) he is a significant indication that the end of all we care about with Pond5/stock is not necessarily imminent, and that there is some hope.

One thing though, in seriousness, is that your comment about the big companies caused a very slow chain reaction in my thinking about things and I realised that the single most important detail is that they (the big companies/conglomerates) do is to diversify. Some of their ventures fail. Some succeed. Some subsidise others. We should emulate that resilience.
Frankly, I'm not, and never have been, nor ever have aspired to being a 100% full time stock media producer, with that as my entire livelihood. It has taken over/shapen my life, yes, and even in these slow, uncertain times, I see it as my primary activity, but thankfully, not my only means of financial subsistence. There are other ways to make things work, and I'm glad of them, as they also bring variety (the spice of life). Stock income is making about a quarter of what I used to. But ... I've also adjusted it so that it's no longer taking 110% of my time, energy, focus, and money.

Regardless, it is insane, but better to be doing something enjoyable and relatively open as far as schedules and quotas, than to suffer a commute and "regular" vocation.

4th July i asked (pond5 Support)
“how do i find my subscription earnings for subscription downloads"

5th of July Jeff (Pond5 Support) said,
"Artists will now be able to see their subscription earnings on the My Financials page on the 1st of every month."

1st August I asked again (pond5 Support)
“how do i find my subscription earnings for subscription downloads”

2nd August Jeff (Pond5 Support) said,
“The subscription earnings are supposed to be available on your dashboard on the 1st of the month for any subscription downloads the prior month.We are finding glitches in the subscription earnings on some of our artists dashboards.This should not interfere with any payouts that are scheduled for the 15th”.

5th August i asked (pond5 Support)
“was the glitch fix and what is my subscription earnings?"

6th of August Matt (Pond5 Support) said,
"Artists will now be able to see their subscription earnings on the My Financials page on the 15th of every month”.

It's the 16th,week’s of waiting and still I can't see my subscription earnings from July 2022 and no one from pond 5 will reply.
Looks like they’ve run out of excuses and it could be true what people are saying, "Pond5 is a scam”

It's called "float". P5 earns interest on the payments you haven't received yet. The longer it takes for you to receive your payments the more money P5 earns from your money. Like that

singletrack500m572

Yep,good old greed!!!

@AZ_Jackson
I had to rub my eyes hard to believe that this topic is serious and not a joke. I'm sorry but I don't share the same opinion. I understand the frustration but judging Ryan and Pond5 suddenly like this is largely strange....
My best suggestion would be to reread the contributor agreement, which is constantly evolving. If you don't like what you read, you can always terminate your account.
cheers!

JUMPCUTFILMS, glad to hear you're pleased with the new contributor agreement. Get back to us when you start getting $1.68 payments for your content!

Ok, I will give an example ....$1.53 in 2019...roughly 4 contributor agreements before the actual current in force. 2 years before you join P5. Like i said i do understand the frustration. ;-)

We all share the frustration. However, I'm noticing a lot of these (mostly newer) people expressing such anger and angst are not sharing solutions. I don't have any either, I'm sorry to say.

Are you guys aware of the "Stock Coalition" effort that went on a few years? It was a tremendous effort by generous people, and was successful at opening real lines of discourse with agencies, and yet ... from what I can discern, it kinda came to naught as far as results, sadly. It is an effort like that, effectively unionising stock media producers ... and ONLY if the majority of producers participate ... that can potentially lead to positive changes and the continuance of stock as a viable occupation ... meaning both the agencies and the contributors are making money commensurate with their efforts and costs.

Hi Mizamook,

Sorry to leave you hanging.

I've thought long and hard about possible solutions over many years and yeah, you're right, It's not easy.

In short, it's working together with trust, not alone.

The biggest problem is that almost all of the best platforms and systems (you'll notice this throughout the entire tech industry and practically every other industry, throughout government, institutions, universities, hospitals and corporations as well) are run by those who value money over humanity, morality and ethics. From their point of view there is no value in sharing, fairness or even inclusion, there is only control and profits to boost their own status and ego (a false sense of self) and a desire to gain more power.

Practically nothing in business is heart based and you may have heard the phrase "It's just business" which really is just an excuse to be mean or to justify ruthless behavior. You'll find a lot of the contributors are heart based people who just want fairness and to grow within their field, so there is always going to be this clash. Have you noticed these big companies have all the latest tech that seems to be out of reach for the average Joe? Well this is no accident. Let's just say they're connected and if you're not in the network then you don't get the best apples in the bunch.

The most obvious solution anyone disgruntled with way things are is to go it alone or form a co-op with like minded people but you'll quickly discover there is a very low ceiling and every touch point from hosting to development to servers is tightly controlled by this network.

I have spoken to the POND5 CEO, Tom Crary, about the direction of POND5 and the stock industry in general and I genuinely believe under his leadership he might bring some positive change for, not only the contributors, but also the industry as a whole and some fairness may creep in as a result so I'm eagerly awaiting to see some positive changes for POND5 contributors in the later half of 2022.

I think the solution resides in all of us and if we want things to change into something that's going to be more fair then we need to speak up and voice our concerns and state what we would like to see happen, what we will accept and what we won't accept. If you don't think for yourself someone else will do it for you, which has been the old way of the world and the old way of doing business and the old way does not serve us anymore.

It is our intent that will change the course of history and create a better future for ourselves but it needs to be heard. I realize I may have come off a bit strong in the beginning of this discussion but I was just drawing a line in the sand because I'm sick of being ripped off with my loyalty not being reciprocated and sometimes a message needs some oomph to get peoples attention.

Those of you who are saying that I was attacking Ryan are missing the point and not seeing the deception in the message which is why I took the time to break it down. In my heart I know I was violated (whether the sales were justified or not) so it was a desperate attempt of self defense knowing that nothing will change anyway but alerting others to this deception and if we allow these excuses (4 months after) to be ok for underhanded behavior then it will only continue and escalate in the future and pretty soon your entire collections will be free. Where will you draw the line? We have to stop it and voice our frustrations otherwise we will be steamrolled out of business. Is it not ok to defend yourself these days? You know what's not ok in this post COVID era... defending wrong behavior and obediently following those leading you off a cliff. There is a lot more at stake here than someone's feelings and if anyone does the wrong thing and violates another then they need to be called out and accept responsibility for their err.

Moving forward, we are going to have to find a way to co-exist with these connected beings who have all the latest tech and systems if we want to compete in the online world of commerce. There is way more of us than them and if they hear our intentions then they will have no choice but to design systems that benefit us both.

Our intentions should be focused on what has been missing in the past such as honesty, integrity and fairness so that everyone can benefit, after all we are all equal. There is no reason why good contributors can't make a living from providing stock if we all focus on a merit based platform. Get back to reality and stop promoting minorities as though they are majorities. It's creating a slew of amateurs that are willing to give their work away for free just for a few artificial likes which completely stifles the potential of professionals pushing the boundaries of film making.

Lower the entry barrier to film schools and expand the teaching of video creation and story telling and share what you gain with others. We have to realize that as a species we have fallen way off track to what our potential could be and that it's going to take a collective effort to get the industry to a state where we can all benefit. There is much work to be done but consider this the next stage of evolution. Make rebuilding an adventure not a burden.

AI is not the solution as all it is doing is putting humans out of business and out of relevancy and it won't be long before they won't need us around anymore. AI might be cool and make life a lot easier right now but at some point it will take over and your eagerness to engage with this tech now may mean the total demise of humanity in the very near future so please think about your actions and what it means for the future of us all before you sign up mindlessly to satisfy your own agenda. You've all seen the Terminator movies right? Is that really sci-fi or was it a prediction? Imagine you're that scientist who created the systems in the first place and how he felt in the future seeing his work being used for evil intentions.

Bottom line is we don't need AI. Are we not good enough? We have amazing untapped potential if only we're given the chance to shine. Well, now is the time to discover how great you really are. Now is the time to shine. Voice your opinion in the "Comments and Suggestions" forum. I'm sure the POND5 team would love to hear and benefit greatly from your ideas. Some they may already be aware of but some they may not, so voice it anyway. As I said this is going to be a collective effort and if we want a brighter future then we have to create it together. Remember they create systems based upon what they think people want so if you don't voice what you actually want then how will they know without guessing?

Much love

@Az_Jackson I truly hope your conversation with P5 CEO Tom Crary helps in bearing fruit for both P5 and it's contributors in the future.

Realistically a public company with shareholders as well as privately held companies with venture/private capital investors all expect a return on/of their investment, These investor expectations put considerable pressures on company operations in their quest for profitability that usually squeezes operating costs.

If Tom can make positive changes in P5 and the industry that benefit both P5/agencies and their contributors in any meaningful way(s) he will have accomplished what many believe undoable given current market forces and the major agency players.

Otherwise with current business models it seems the industry is eviscerating itself.