with potential contributors able to apply to the site for free, shutterstock has a team of reviewers "charged with ensuring editorial consistency and quality." as of 2016, if one of ten of a photographer's pictures are accepted, then they become a shutterstock contributor. as of 2011, only around 20 percent of applicants were approved, and "less than 60 percent of all the images uploaded by those approved contributors were ultimately put up on the site." once approved, contributors can begin uploading their work through the website. they supply keywords, categorize the images, and submit them to the "inspection queue", where images are examined for quality, usefulness and copyright and trademark laws. each time an image is downloaded, the photographer receives a flat rate. explains vice, "photographers retain copyright over their images, but shutterstock is given full permission to market, display, and license the image to the customers on their site without final approval from the photographer." as of march 2015, contributors added around 50,000 new images daily, and shutterstock had paid around $250 million to contributors since its founding. in 2014, it paid $80 million to contributors.