Important Update for Our Author Community: Shutterstock + Envato

[hichameassi]

We’re reaching out today to share some exciting and important news. Envato has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Shutterstock, a leading global creative platform. This agreement is subject to customary conditions, and is expected to close in the third quarter of this calendar year. This agreement marks a significant milestone in our journey, and we wanted to take a moment to let you know what this means for you, our Authors.

Firstly, Envato’s commitment to empowering creatives will continue. The services and support you have come to expect from us, and the relationship we have with you, will remain.

We see this as a pivotal moment in Envato’s journey and we are excited for the future. We have confidence in the alignment of values and the strong strategic fit that underpin this expected union between Envato and Shutterstock.

We will continue to keep you informed of any important updates that come with this transition.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to express our gratitude to you, our Authors, for every part you have played in the success of getting Envato to where we are today and your continued support and dedication to the Envato community. As we move forward, we will continue to listen to the needs of our creative community, build innovative products, and create an environment where your creativity can thrive.

If you are interested in finding out more about the agreement and the road ahead, head to our blog for more information.

Envato Enters into Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by Shutterstock 

If you still have more questions about this announcement after reading the blog, please post them in this forum thread. We’ll aim to collate these and answer them in batches over the coming week.

[BenLeong]

Hi all! Today’s announcement is a big one, and likely to generate more questions from the community. Please read through the post linked above, and ask any questions here.

Travis and I will be collating questions as they come through, and we’ll work on getting answers for you where possible. To help us keep this discussion focussed, please only use this thread for comments and questions specific to today’s announcement: this thread may get busy, so we’ll be moving unrelated questions to the Author Hangout area.

EDIT: I’ve posted the first responses (to big-picture themes among the first day of questions) in the thread, and you can jump straight to that post here:

Important Update for Our Author Community

Hi all. Thanks for all of the questions and comments that have come through so far - I appreciate that this is a big announcement, and that any news on this scale will bring up a lot of questions about the future. I also appreciate that many of you will want as many details as possible, but at the current stage there are limits to how granular we can get. For tonight, I can address some of the broad, big-picture issues raised so far: What does this change mean for Envato today? Will you be a …

[Sinlatown]

As a Shutterstock author, I experienced something. If Shutterstock touches something, that will be much cheaper. This includes customers and authors.

Especially after Envato stopped the bonus program, most of the Author’s income was crushed. What’s next? Paying $0.10 per download?

It sounds like, this marriage will make Envatos owners and partners much more richer and authors vice versa.

The most important question is, what will change in our lives?

[One_studio2]

same question

[masstechnologist]

An an author i want to ask, WHERE IS OUR SHARE?

[Duck-Themes]

Is it the death of ThemeForest? Should I move from here?

[VFXGRAPHIX]

It will be the same when Pond5 purchased. Just a link at the top of the shutterstock site

[Eduard_1337]

Will the 30% Royalty Withholding Tax change from Australia to USA for Envato elements since Shutterstock is based in the USA?

[An-Themes]

Brother, you have new WordPress themes with 0 sales, I also have to, and you are asking if is the “death of tf”?!

[Videostones]

That is a very good question.

[VisualSkyFX]

I don’t think anything will change that much. Since Pond5 was acquired some time ago and is still the same platform - the same interface, licensing options, author share etc.

[BluePaw]

Agreed - apart from the fact that the share for the composers was reduced to 30 percent

[Duck-Themes]

@An-Themes
These two things you are talking about are not connected in any way. This is called sophistry.

[EightBallAudio]

The unilateral submission of our audio content for AI learning was the impetus for me to delete my Pond5 account. They had previously slashed author share as well…

[Schiocco]

It is not clear if this acquisition involves only Envato Elements or the whole Envato including Envato Market and CodeCanyon. Please clarify.

[ChoclateFix]

[Bokstas]

What about licensing? Model releases. And most importantly would you start using their AI reviewers? As most of theirs treat my photos as author paintings and rejects:)
To be honest after old CEO apointed new CEO all author betrail story begun:( sad… R.I.P. Envato

[VisualSkyFX]

At Pond5, you can opt out of AI training, which is very a good decision. Wish Envato had the same option. I didn’t know about decrease in the share of composers; the share of video authors remained the same.

[LCweb]

Yes, this is a good question. Will the taxation remain as is? Money flow always from Australia?

Shutterstock is all about media, theoretically they could “move” customers from their website to themeforest/codecanyon, creating new offers. However in the past years the faith I have towards Envato is zero. Is hard to see this acquisition as a real improvement (considering that the marketplace is dying)