How to Get Banned at Adobe Stock and How to Fix It

Don't do these things! And if you screwed up, here's what to do next.

Author

Microstock Life
August 28, 2023

You’ve spent years building up your portfolio, your earnings are growing, and then BAM! You get an email saying your account has been blocked.

It’s a nightmare scenario for every Adobe Stock contributor. Many of us live in fear that we could slip up on something unintentionally, and we’ll suddenly find ourselves in Adobe jail.

How do we avoid this situation? The quick, easy answer is to make sure we strictly follow Adobe’s terms and conditions. But diving in deeper, what are the violations that are most likely to lead to a ban? I’ve been in microstock for 15 years, watching the industry closely, and these are the things I’ve seen other contributors get banned for with the greatest frequency:

  1. Stealing others’ content / violating copyright. It might be blatant theft — downloading someone’s image or video and uploading it as your own. It might be using someone’s image as a source and creating a vector or other illustration from it. Whatever the case — don’t do it!

  2. Having more than one account (if using them inappropriately). Adobe just clarified its rule on this. You CAN have more than one account to “track different asset types in separate accounts” or if your account gets close to reaching 1 million assets (uh… which would mean generating 35 assets a day… from birth to your 80th birthday). But you CAN’T have multiple accounts to spam with identical content or get around AI upload limits.

  3. Unusual activity on your account. There have been cases of Adobe contributors conspiring to download each others’ work to boost their rankings, or just making fraudulent purchases. But I’ve also seen cases of the contributor doing nothing wrong, and there was simply a sudden popularity for an image resulting in many downloads, which looked suspicious to Adobe. This one can be out of your hands, and you’ll need to appeal to Adobe to convince them you did nothing wrong.

  4. Multiple versions of the same file. Don’t spam the Adobe library with nearly identical images or videos. There needs to be significant differences in your submissions that would make a buyer choose one over another.

    Be sure to follow these rules on AI generated images, and check the boxes!

  5. Showing recognizable faces without a release. This has always been a no-no and is a growing problem now that Adobe is accepting AI generated images. The work you create using tools like Midjourney may place an actual person’s face (or close enough to one) in your images, and if you don’t have a release, you’re violating contributor terms and could find yourself banned. Many contributors submitting AI work are now finding it safest to only show people from the back, or from a far enough distance that faces are not identifiable.

  6. Referencing other artists’ names. Another AI-driven violation. Some contributors generating AI images are including “in the style of (artist name)” in their prompts, and then using those names in their titles or keywords. This is strictly prohibited.

  7. Including trademarks or logos. If you’ve been a contributor for a while, you’ve already learned to erase the Apple logo from a phone or computer, the Nike ‘swoosh’ from shoes, and other well-known trademarks from your images. But in the new frontier of AI, these artifacts can be hidden in images without the contributor realizing it, and an eagle-eyed Adobe reviewer will be quick to spot them. Banned!

  8. Not checking the AI generated box. If you’re submitting AI-generated work, make sure you’re answering appropriately when submitting. This is the fastest way to see your work rejected and your account potentially blocked.

So let’s say you made one or more of these mistakes and find your account blocked. What do you do?

There’s only one way to get out of Adobe Stock jail. It’s not to ask other contributors for help or call the Adobe headquarters. You must send an email to mailto:[email protected] and request clarification on why your account has been blocked. They should respond via email that they are looking into the matter, and hopefully before long, write back with the reason for your block. You can write back acknowledging the issue and offering to take steps to correct the violation. With any luck, a sincere willingness to address your misstep (assuming there was one) may help you get your account unblocked, unless you purposely stole copyrighted work or committed fraud. (Which you would NEVER do, right?!)

Seen my microstock agency report card?
Check it out here!

Also check my latest Microstock Life videos sharing my earnings and learnings from the world of stock photos, illustrations, animation and footage.