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Author Topic: Please explain the hate towards Getty Images  (Read 26200 times)

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dpimborough

« Reply #50 on: November 15, 2017, 14:47 »
0
No black cat. It's all about the money, and in this department they deliver more than all the other agencies/distributors combined (at least in the photo department-video seems to be a different story).

Why do you think that they still have so many top pros as exclusive contributors. I can tell you that those that are supplying images to stock as their main business are a thousand times more sensitive to revenue than anyone else that does it for pocket money. I can guarantee you that once they don't bring food to the table they will be gone in a heartbeat. As simple as that.


Yeah the prevailing philosophy from some is to keep bending over and taking it

How weak an argument is that?

Weak, or realistic? Better to get some money, or none at all?

If you don't like it, don't use Getty. Getty is far, far bigger than any individual contributor, and there's no shortage (yet) of people wanting to sell their pictures to take your place. So, as a contributor, you have no bargaining power.

Rather than fighting a battle you will never win, make a strategic withdrawal and concentrate your energy on the agencies you do like.

Such a pathetic reason to keep feeding this outfit

I dumped them back in February

A colleague who was a Getty exclusive dumped them last year for the 1 cent royalties.

You keep feeding into this abusive relationship along with others and you just end up encouraging them.

Black cat? No I'm dark smokey grey with silver frosting :D

And have you checked their 15% royalty rates for none exclusives?

Yup sell a photo for $100 they keep $85 the contributor gets $15

Plus all the pissy 1 cent and 2 cent royalties!

If top notch photogs are getting better rates then they would be exclusive


« Reply #51 on: November 15, 2017, 16:22 »
+4

"No black cat. It's all about the money, and in this department they deliver more than all the other agencies/distributors combined (at least in the photo department-video seems to be a different story).

Why do you think that they still have so many top pros as exclusive contributors. I can tell you that those that are supplying images to stock as their main business are a thousand times more sensitive to revenue than anyone else that does it for pocket money. I can guarantee you that once they don't bring food to the table they will be gone in a heartbeat. As simple as that."





The Top people have special deals. Preferred ranking in the search engine, higher royalties, the ability to be exclusive as an artist, but non exclusive with their business (which is often a different legal entity and maybe owned by their partner).

The pros supply all macro marketplaces, theyll have images on Getty, but also on Offset, or adobe premium collections and many smaller places you have never heard of.

Their contracts have nothing to do with the standard contract for the run of the  mill contributors.

and Getty is of course free to negotiate a special deal with whoever they want.

These special contracts is one of the reasons why so many macro photographers prefer to work with one of the many getty partners. It gives them the best of all worlds -  highly personal and exclusive work environment, but they leave it up to their agency to negotiate deals around teh globe with different partners.

this way they have exposure to the entire stock market and dont need to worry about which agency is currently messing up where.

And nobody advertises  them in the contributor community. If you get into one of them, you just focus on production and stay away from the rest of the stockworld.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2017, 17:11 by cobalt »

Clair Voyant

« Reply #52 on: November 15, 2017, 19:45 »
0

"No black cat. It's all about the money, and in this department they deliver more than all the other agencies/distributors combined (at least in the photo department-video seems to be a different story).

Why do you think that they still have so many top pros as exclusive contributors. I can tell you that those that are supplying images to stock as their main business are a thousand times more sensitive to revenue than anyone else that does it for pocket money. I can guarantee you that once they don't bring food to the table they will be gone in a heartbeat. As simple as that."





The Top people have special deals. Preferred ranking in the search engine, higher royalties, the ability to be exclusive as an artist, but non exclusive with their business (which is often a different legal entity and maybe owned by their partner).

The pros supply all macro marketplaces, theyll have images on Getty, but also on Offset, or adobe premium collections and many smaller places you have never heard of.

Their contracts have nothing to do with the standard contract for the run of the  mill contributors.

and Getty is of course free to negotiate a special deal with whoever they want.

These special contracts is one of the reasons why so many macro photographers prefer to work with one of the many getty partners. It gives them the best of all worlds -  highly personal and exclusive work environment, but they leave it up to their agency to negotiate deals around teh globe with different partners.

this way they have exposure to the entire stock market and dont need to worry about which agency is currently messing up where.

And nobody advertises  them in the contributor community. If you get into one of them, you just focus on production and stay away from the rest of the stockworld.

You state this as fact. Sounds like speculation to me.

Why is it non-exclusives want their cake and eat it too?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #53 on: November 16, 2017, 02:58 »
+4
^^ Cobalt formerly worked for them, which gives her more insight that the rest of us have.
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal (he has his own site, his pics were on other sites except SS for over a year after he became 'exclusive'), so why wouldn't others have 'deals'?

namussi

« Reply #54 on: November 16, 2017, 06:46 »
0
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal

I don't know 1) what that deal was, and 2) who "you-know-who" is.

I suspect I'm not alone


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #55 on: November 16, 2017, 07:09 »
+3
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal

I don't know 1) what that deal was, and 2) who "you-know-who" is.

I suspect I'm not alone
I wrote Yu-know-who and pointed out the deal. It's not a secret. It was discussed extensively here at the time. IIRC, one of the other big factories likewise has a pseudo-exclusivity.
Of course, we are not privy to whether they've been able to negotiate a better percentage than the plebs get, but it wouldn't be surprising if so.

namussi

« Reply #56 on: November 16, 2017, 19:21 »
0
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal

I don't know 1) what that deal was, and 2) who "you-know-who" is.

I suspect I'm not alone
I wrote Yu-know-who and pointed out the deal. It's not a secret. It was discussed extensively here at the time. IIRC, one of the other big factories likewise has a pseudo-exclusivity.
Of course, we are not privy to whether they've been able to negotiate a better percentage than the plebs get, but it wouldn't be surprising if so.

Why didn't you just say who "yu-know-who" is?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #57 on: November 16, 2017, 19:39 »
+1
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal

I don't know 1) what that deal was, and 2) who "you-know-who" is.

I suspect I'm not alone
I wrote Yu-know-who and pointed out the deal. It's not a secret. It was discussed extensively here at the time. IIRC, one of the other big factories likewise has a pseudo-exclusivity.
Of course, we are not privy to whether they've been able to negotiate a better percentage than the plebs get, but it wouldn't be surprising if so.

Why didn't you just say who "yu-know-who" is?
Long story, which it isn't necessary to rehash.

namussi

« Reply #58 on: November 17, 2017, 01:39 »
0
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal

I don't know 1) what that deal was, and 2) who "you-know-who" is.

I suspect I'm not alone
I wrote Yu-know-who and pointed out the deal. It's not a secret. It was discussed extensively here at the time. IIRC, one of the other big factories likewise has a pseudo-exclusivity.
Of course, we are not privy to whether they've been able to negotiate a better percentage than the plebs get, but it wouldn't be surprising if so.

Why didn't you just say who "yu-know-who" is?
Long story, which it isn't necessary to rehash.

Very odd. You make a point that requires people to know what you're talking about. But when we ask what you to explain what you mean, you don't want to explain.

Can anyone one else enlighten us about this "mother knows best" secrecy?

dpimborough

« Reply #59 on: November 17, 2017, 02:24 »
0
Besides, we all know that Yu-know-who got a special deal

I don't know 1) what that deal was, and 2) who "you-know-who" is.

I suspect I'm not alone
I wrote Yu-know-who and pointed out the deal. It's not a secret. It was discussed extensively here at the time. IIRC, one of the other big factories likewise has a pseudo-exclusivity.
Of course, we are not privy to whether they've been able to negotiate a better percentage than the plebs get, but it wouldn't be surprising if so.

Why didn't you just say who "yu-know-who" is?
Long story, which it isn't necessary to rehash.

Very odd. You make a point that requires people to know what you're talking about. But when we ask what you to explain what you mean, you don't want to explain.

Can anyone one else enlighten us about this "mother knows best" secrecy?

Yuri Arcurs

« Reply #60 on: November 17, 2017, 04:36 »
+5
1) royalty cuts from already lowest in the industry
2) Made upgrades to the website that made it worse and drove buyers away.
3) told us that money doesn't make you happy while they took a even bigger % for reduced sales
4) introduced a subs system with a minimum level of 2 cents
5) undercut prices on for video on other sites but pay the lowest %
6) flooded the site with extremely poor quality "agency" files for hundreds of dollars, displaced existing contributors files and drove buyers away.
7) refused to implement a price filter until all the customers left
8) actively promoted subscriptions and other getty sites that made more money for Getty and less for the contributors.
9) clunkiest and slowest upload system with no FTP for photos.


namussi

« Reply #61 on: November 17, 2017, 05:01 »
+1

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #62 on: November 17, 2017, 05:01 »
0
Over the nearly eleven years I've been with iStock, I've been astonished at how often they remove a site buyer feature giving the reason that 'only (small figure below 5%) of customers use that feature'.
But a lot of (small figures below 5%) adds up to a lot of disgruntled ex-buyers (why on earth did they remove descriptions?).
At least until a couple of years ago (I have no more recent info), Amazon UK supported users of a small, niche UK OS which could only have had a couple of hundred diehard users at most (and which browsers couldn't use many big websites).

namussi

« Reply #63 on: November 17, 2017, 07:16 »
0
Over the nearly eleven years I've been with iStock, I've been astonished at how often they remove a site buyer feature giving the reason that 'only (small figure below 5%) of customers use that feature'.
But a lot of (small figures below 5%) adds up to a lot of disgruntled ex-buyers (why on earth did they remove descriptions?).
At least until a couple of years ago (I have no more recent info), Amazon UK supported users of a small, niche UK OS which could only have had a couple of hundred diehard users at most (and which browsers couldn't use many big websites).

So what? Amazon no longer supports them.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #64 on: November 17, 2017, 07:25 »
+1
Over the nearly eleven years I've been with iStock, I've been astonished at how often they remove a site buyer feature giving the reason that 'only (small figure below 5%) of customers use that feature'.
But a lot of (small figures below 5%) adds up to a lot of disgruntled ex-buyers (why on earth did they remove descriptions?).
At least until a couple of years ago (I have no more recent info), Amazon UK supported users of a small, niche UK OS which could only have had a couple of hundred diehard users at most (and which browsers couldn't use many big websites).

So what? Amazon no longer supports them.
You know that for a fact?
My point was that Amazon don't just drop an extremely small number of buyers.
Presumably if they have found that no-one is using that OS any more they won't be supported, and that might be the case, I don't know (as I said) as I'm not keeping up with that OS any more.

My main point was that iS as run by Getty, don't seem to have any worries about losing small percentages of buyers, multiplied by many increments. I remember once the percentage quoted was "only 8%". I wonder how many other companies would deliberately inconvenience 8% of their customers, knowing there is lots of opposition.
I am talking about a drip over ten years, not several in a month.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2017, 09:31 by ShadySue »

namussi

« Reply #65 on: November 17, 2017, 08:03 »
0
Over the nearly eleven years I've been with iStock, I've been astonished at how often they remove a site buyer feature giving the reason that 'only (small figure below 5%) of customers use that feature'.
But a lot of (small figures below 5%) adds up to a lot of disgruntled ex-buyers (why on earth did they remove descriptions?).
At least until a couple of years ago (I have no more recent info), Amazon UK supported users of a small, niche UK OS which could only have had a couple of hundred diehard users at most (and which browsers couldn't use many big websites).

So what? Amazon no longer supports them.
You know that for a fact?
My point was that Amazon don't just drop an extremely small number of buyers.
Presumably if they have found that no-one is using that OS any more they won't be supported, and that might be the case, I don't know (as I said) as I'm not keeping up with that OS any more.

My main point was that iS as run by Getty, don't seem to have any worries about losing small percentages of buyers, multipoled by many increments. I remember once the percentage quoted was "only 8%". I wonder how many other companies would deliberately inconvenience 8% of their customers, knowing there is lots of opposition.
I am talking about a drip over ten years, not several in a month.

That depends on how good those customers are. Some customers can be so unprofitable or just a pain in the arse that you are better rid of them. (Ditto contributors).


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #66 on: November 17, 2017, 08:59 »
+2
Some customers can be so unprofitable or just a pain in the arse that you are better rid of them. (Ditto contributors).
True, but of older contributors, even those who are supplying high numbers of 'requested' images and are keeping steadyish on sales report that they are taking more than two years to break even on shoots (meaning they can't be sure that current shoots will ever break even). They seem to have lost a lot of good buyers.
(NB, this is from iS, not Getty House)


namussi

« Reply #67 on: November 17, 2017, 09:54 »
+1
Some customers can be so unprofitable or just a pain in the arse that you are better rid of them. (Ditto contributors).
True, but of older contributors, even those who are supplying high numbers of 'requested' images and are keeping steadyish on sales report that they are taking more than two years to break even on shoots (meaning they can't be sure that current shoots will ever break even). They seem to have lost a lot of good buyers.
(NB, this is from iS, not Getty House)

That's very vague.

And, given that iStock has tens of thousands of contributors, I'm not surprised that there are some people who say that. But there could be any number of explanations: perhaps, for example, their shoots aren't paying off because too many other photographers have similar shoots?

Remember that people are more likely to complain when things aren't going well than when things are OK.

Anecdotes are frequently interesting to hear, but without statistical and numerical evidence to go with them, they're not very useful.

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #68 on: November 17, 2017, 10:05 »
+8
You've had a couple dozen people explain the perfectly logical hatred for Getty, yet you keep insisting there's no reason for it.

What's up with that?

dpimborough

« Reply #69 on: November 17, 2017, 14:42 »
+4
You've had a couple dozen people explain the perfectly logical hatred for Getty, yet you keep insisting there's no reason for it.

What's up with that?

Namussi just likes to argue the toss.

Either that they are a paid up servant of the Dark Lord Getty

« Reply #70 on: November 17, 2017, 18:16 »
+2
Every agency is free to make personal deals with any partner they want.

Itś called a free market.

In the macrostockworld this is perfectly normal, not just for Getty but for many other agencies as well. I learnt a lot about the industry when I left and started to explore what is out there.

You can negotiate everything with any business partner.

Just like with licenses. Every agency has a huge variety of licenses that they dont advertise on their web page.

So this is nothing specific to Gettyimages, contributors with very high quality content can negotiate their own contract anywhere.

Yuri Arcurs was the most vocal about it, but it really isnt some kind of special industry secret and no, it is not just Getty.

But to be offered a personalized deal by any agency you have to have extremly attractive content and invest a ton of money into your productions.

If you dont want to be bothered negotiating individual contracts with different agencies, then you can become part of a small brand that handles all the licensing agreements for you. Your content is exclusive to them and they deal with rankings and royalty agreements.

There are hundreds of agencies on this planet, the stock industry is huge.

But nobody is going to advertise in public which of the many hundreds is currently the most attractive to be in.

If you have a Getty house contract, they will also distribute their content to many different partners.

But the advantage of getty house is they have no artist exclusivity, just image or series exclusivity.

So you can supply them directly but still go out and shoot other things for anyone else.

If you like Getty, go and apply to become a house artist. But they dont stop you from also supplying offset, or adobe, or stockfood with your other content.

The reason people are now often preferring to upload elsewhere because they get more money.

But nobody will tell you their personal favorite, why should they?

And who knows - maybe there is a huge group of happy Getty contributors that are cheering each other on somewhere?

But since Yuri we havent heard from a big studio going exclusive.

And his exclusivity is not artist exclusive abyway and he can even sell his files on getty also from his own website.

So good for him, he got himself a good personal deal.

ETA: namussi if you like Getty, why not apply for a house contract? You can then work with them with the kind of content they like but also supply the smaller specialized agencies.

The micros are just one part of stock, there is a very big world to explore beyond that.

But if you prefer to be exclusive to istock, by all means go and do it.

Nobody here is standing in your way. You asked us why Getty has such an abysmally bad reputation among artist and that is simply the result of their actions.

Other agencies pay attention how they work with people and have a good reputation as a result. So it is their choice. Nobody else can make their decisions for them.

ETA: Fotolia used to be on the wrong end of the contributor community, especially with their 1 dollar project. But they took responsibilty, realised it was a mistake and have taken many steps to make sure their reputation doesnt suffer again.

Itś all about the management and what is important to them. Some companies care about their repution, some dont. And they are perfectly free to make that desicion, it is their business.

I think every contributor would prefer it if they felt Getty was genuinly interested in reaching out. They could decide we want to have the best reputation in the industry.

Nobody is stopping them.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2017, 18:39 by cobalt »

namussi

« Reply #71 on: November 17, 2017, 22:18 »
0

ETA: namussi if you like Getty, why not apply for a house contract? You can then work with them with the kind of content they like but also supply the smaller specialized agencies.

The micros are just one part of stock, there is a very big world to explore beyond that.

But if you prefer to be exclusive to istock, by all means go and do it.

Nobody here is standing in your way. You asked us why Getty has such an abysmally bad reputation among artist and that is simply the result of their actions.


1) No, that was someone else
2) Thank you for the further explanation about "yu-know-who"

namussi

« Reply #72 on: November 18, 2017, 04:15 »
0
You've had a couple dozen people explain the perfectly logical hatred for Getty, yet you keep insisting there's no reason for it.

What's up with that?

That's not true, is it?

Most of those couple of dozen people have reasonable complaints. There's no need to respond.

One or two of them don't, in my opinion, and so I've pointed that out.

Personally, I've been of the opinion that iStock were a bunch of arseholes since about 2006, when I was banned from the forums for criticising Bruce, Peebert, Lobo, etc.

But then Bruce walked off with $30m  from Getty so I suppose he had the last laugh.



namussi

« Reply #73 on: November 18, 2017, 05:02 »
0
You've had a couple dozen people explain the perfectly logical hatred for Getty, yet you keep insisting there's no reason for it.

What's up with that?

Namussi just likes to argue the toss.

Either that they are a paid up servant of the Dark Lord Getty

Haha.

niktol

« Reply #74 on: November 18, 2017, 08:02 »
+1

Either that they are a paid up servant of the Dark Lord Getty

where can I get that job?


 

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