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As usual on Getty - 20% ;-)

For example on Alamy he'd get 60% of $65000...

Anyway, regarding 'lottery' it is not enough paid to photographer in this case and it is obvious how Getty earns money.

Noo! Noo! No!

My mistake, sorry!
 
I wanted to say that I was pleased with sales of $ 6.500

An RF image wouldn't sell for $65k, so it was RM, and that's either 30% or 40%.

I think in both cases it depends on who sold the image.  If it's sold by a partner, you always lose a good bite.

Not that it matters much, but by memory Alamy have had a couple of 'infamous' sales for lets say dubious quality images in the last couple of years that were over that amount, I can't remember the exact figures but an image of a fish market stall sold for something like 35k to an American merchant bank and recently somebody sold one of Windsor castle for 11k I think it was that had a few people gasping over. If you bring this up on the Alamy forum someone will point the images out plus plenty more I'd imagine.

I've heard of big sales on Corbis and other independants so big buyers don't only go to Getty, big buyers go to where the image they want is featured. Getty are big without a doubt but they are certainly not the 'mecca' that you make them out to be, I've read of some very successful photographers that won't go near them because of their commission rates and lets say 'attitude'

And I think you'll find Bob and Chris got 20% of the 65k

You're nearly right, in both the cases I mentioned it was obvious quality wasn't the deciding factor by a long way, it came down to the simple fact that a buyer wanted an image of something and these were the only ones available, it wasn't so much about exclusivity either the image is (or was I had a quick look and can't find it now amongst the wash of similars!) still for sale.The fish market example has a story behind it, mention the big 'tuna' sale to anyone that's been with Alamy a while and they'll remember, at a contributor event a few years ago Alamy showed the image in question, everybody initially thought it would be in relation to examples of the type of quality they're looking for i.e. we don't want crap like this, but instead they announced it had sold for 35k ish and it was to point out that sometimes the subject matter is more important than the technical quality.

The windsor castle prompted the usual debate of how everyone else could have taken a better shot, but guess what - nobody had. Believe me it was not a good shot, but amongst the thousands available it was the only one from that angle and the client (a travel company I think) obviously needed that angle.

You can learn at least two things from this, technical quality isn't always the most important factor to a buyer, and you never know what will sell.

yeah i remember that one with the tuna (or was it a shark ?)
and if you look at the images spotted in the forum and published in magazine
they're mostly mediocre if not crappy shots.

and yet, they sell, as that's what the customers need.
it's harder and harder to grasp what's hot selling on RM.

i've never sold my favourite images on RM, and often
i sell the ones i didn't even wanted to upload.

micros are much more informative regarding sales, views, zoom,
trends, if we had something similar for RM i could have a bigger
picture of the market and shoot consequentially.