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Author Topic: D-Day (Deactivation Day) on Istock - Feb 2  (Read 221567 times)

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« Reply #125 on: January 15, 2013, 00:23 »
0
With mixed emotions I have to speak up.

As an IS exclusive, it possibly benefits me when you nice folks delete your files. But the majority of you are friends and really wonderful people and I do not wish to benefit from my friend's actions when I feel they are involved in a martyrdom activity that will have little affect or significance to Getty management. The files you are deleting can make money for you. You worked hard creating them. They should stay and work for you.

Getty management will not care about what you do and will be glad a bunch of "squeaky wheel malcontents" are out of the system. They have plenty of images. The iStock "amateurs" are not that important to them. That is why they will cut unethical deals and cut your commissions and leave iStock staff in the dark about what shady dealings they are doing. Getty and Klien are unethical, back stabbing, ruthless, money-grubbing, narcissistic shysters. YOU don't matter. And buyers don't care as long as they find an image they want at a good price.

If you feel strongly about trying to make a statement; do it. But I feel the only one you will be hurting will be yourself.

OX
...thinking this through


« Reply #126 on: January 15, 2013, 00:42 »
+1
Only about 300 of my portfolio of 2000 or so illustrations are still on IS. But I did deactivate 13 more today (about half of them were flames). So add that to the total. (I might add that stopping submitting to IS and deleting most of my port there has not exactly 'martyred' me -- my year-over-year sales went way up after I stopped contributing to IS - buyers found my images elsewhere.)

Should I have waited for Feb 2 to deactivate? Sorry, but I think that most of the people who are waiting are not really planning to deactivate files at all, I'm afraid they are making threats and hoping that IS will come up with some placating announcement in the meantime, and then everyone can go back to normal.

But that is a mistake. Independents are slowly committing suicide by submitting to IS. Every dollar Getty earns is going to be used against us eventually. This business is a war: Getty/iS and their Exclusives versus the other sites and us Independent Submitters.

Think twice before you put more money in Getty/iS's pockets. It may seem that you are gaining, but you are really helping them gain. In the end, they will strangle us, put us out of business, and leave themselves and their exclusives as the only microstock game in town. That is their goal; we should not help them attain it.

« Reply #127 on: January 15, 2013, 00:45 »
+6
Thanks for your concern Ox, but I think I would be hurting myself more if I permit them to continue to take ownership of what I upload, strip the metadata and distribute it freely as their own. 

« Reply #128 on: January 15, 2013, 00:51 »
0
Quote
(BTW his portfolio link isn't working here, http://www.dreamstime.com/yuri-arcurs_info)


wow thats strange. Yet his images are easily found...

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-business-man-stretching-his-hand-handshake-image10130379


If I had to guess, they don't want him promoting his own web site from his DT profile page so they disabled it.


thats a very good guess, I had my website removed because it contained istock on the middle of it (ministocking)

« Reply #129 on: January 15, 2013, 01:40 »
+10
Quote "As an IS exclusive, it possibly benefits me when you nice folks delete your files. But the majority of you are friends and really wonderful people and I do not wish to benefit from my friend's actions when I feel they are involved in a martyrdom activity that will have little affect or significance to Getty management."

You are absolutely right that you are going to benefit from this. As an exclusive your view of microstock is IStock. So your perspective is skewed to think that this initiative is just about Getty/Istock which is actually quite reasonable. Your argument holds a lot of value from your perspective but not a lot of value from mine.

This is my perspective. I have a product that I want to sell for many more years. My product will sell as long as there are people who are willing to buy it. I know that as long as there are customers I will find an outlet or an agency to represent my product and I can continue to make a living off of my images. I am willing to change and adapt as needed but as long as I have potential customers I will find a way to sell to them. If all of a sudden all of your images are offered for free because your agent decides to give them away, my customers start to go away. Pretty soon free is what is expected and I can no longer make a living because I no longer have customers. Am I scared to have my images given away by Getty... yes, but not nearly as scared as I am of them giving away everyone's images. I can create new images and I can change sales avenues but I cannot compete with free. There needs to be a stand and if I need to take a hit to my income to ensure my future that is what I need to do.

I agree that Getty/IS could care less about me, but they aren't the only players in this game. The industry is bigger than that and others are watching. The contributors need to make a stand and show a united front. If enough people step up the agencies will take notice and maybe, just maybe they will think twice before one of them strikes the next "deal".

« Reply #130 on: January 15, 2013, 01:57 »
+7
...As an IS exclusive, it possibly benefits me when you nice folks delete your files. But the majority of you are friends and really wonderful people and I do not wish to benefit from my friend's actions when I feel they are involved in a martyrdom activity that will have little affect or significance to Getty management. The files you are deleting can make money for you. You worked hard creating them. They should stay and work for you....
If you feel strongly about trying to make a statement; do it. But I feel the only one you will be hurting will be yourself.


I think the element you might be missing is that the big concern is what happens to our ability to earn money from our images if we leave them in Getty's hands. They have demonstrated (although thankfully not yet with my images) that they are willing to let them be redistributed for free with the payment of an absolute pittance. Once that happens (and the Friday statement said it was a deal that would probably be expanded), our images in such a deal have no more commercial value.

It's a very, very hard thing to consider leaving iStock - I've been there since 2004 - but the consequences of staying have become beyond unreasonable. It's like a forced buyout of your portfolio at a few dollars per image - I am not interested in doing that but Getty has said they will not permit an opt out. So the only opt out I have is to remove my images now, before they give them away.

All very sad. And possibly I am hurting myself, but I feel it's better that I do it a little bit than Getty does it a whole lot.

« Reply #131 on: January 15, 2013, 01:58 »
+3
Quote "As an IS exclusive, it possibly benefits me when you nice folks delete your files. But the majority of you are friends and really wonderful people and I do not wish to benefit from my friend's actions when I feel they are involved in a martyrdom activity that will have little affect or significance to Getty management."

You are absolutely right that you are going to benefit from this. As an exclusive your view of microstock is IStock. So your perspective is skewed to think that this initiative is just about Getty/Istock which is actually quite reasonable. Your argument holds a lot of value from your perspective but not a lot of value from mine.

This is my perspective. I have a product that I want to sell for many more years. My product will sell as long as there are people who are willing to buy it. I know that as long as there are customers I will find an outlet or an agency to represent my product and I can continue to make a living off of my images. I am willing to change and adapt as needed but as long as I have potential customers I will find a way to sell to them. If all of a sudden all of your images are offered for free because your agent decides to give them away, my customers start to go away. Pretty soon free is what is expected and I can no longer make a living because I no longer have customers. Am I scared to have my images given away by Getty... yes, but not nearly as scared as I am of them giving away everyone's images. I can create new images and I can change sales avenues but I cannot compete with free. There needs to be a stand and if I need to take a hit to my income to ensure my future that is what I need to do.

I agree that Getty/IS could care less about me, but they aren't the only players in this game. The industry is bigger than that and others are watching. The contributors need to make a stand and show a united front. If enough people step up the agencies will take notice and maybe, just maybe they will think twice before one of them strikes the next "deal".

agreed 100%.

I don't care that IS doesn't care about me but I need to try my best  to protect my products from being given away for free.

« Reply #132 on: January 15, 2013, 02:28 »
+5
I was just discussing this the other day, so this came timely. More than ever I'm ready to deactivate my entire portfolio and lose out on the income. I just don't care anymore, and since I'm a student in Denmark I can always get state education grant if my income falls way below the pain threshold. My portfolio consists of only 82 files unfortunately, but they are all vector files and have sold quite well over time. I may keep one (insignificant) image in case they close my account if there are no files at all.

This thread makes me very happy and proud to be part of this community. I'm looking much forward to manually deactivating my files one by one on D-day (should have happened way earlier, but I'm glad it's happening now).

Count me in for 81 files

« Reply #133 on: January 15, 2013, 03:30 »
0
I may keep one (insignificant) image in case they close my account if there are no files at all.

They haven't closed mine, and is it without images for about two years now...

« Reply #134 on: January 15, 2013, 03:32 »
+1
Count me in for 82 files

« Reply #135 on: January 15, 2013, 04:08 »
+2
Quote
(BTW his portfolio link isn't working here, http://www.dreamstime.com/yuri-arcurs_info)


wow thats strange. Yet his images are easily found...

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-business-man-stretching-his-hand-handshake-image10130379


If I had to guess, they don't want him promoting his own web site from his DT profile page so they disabled it.


Stop stirring the pot for a typo. It's yuri_arcurs, not yuri-arcurs.

« Reply #136 on: January 15, 2013, 05:18 »
+1
Quote
(BTW his portfolio link isn't working here, http://www.dreamstime.com/yuri-arcurs_info)



wow thats strange. Yet his images are easily found...

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-business-man-stretching-his-hand-handshake-image10130379


If I had to guess, they don't want him promoting his own web site from his DT profile page so they disabled it.


Stop stirring the pot for a typo. It's yuri_arcurs, not yuri-arcurs.



Here's the link
http://www.dreamstime.com/yuri_arcurs_info
« Last Edit: January 15, 2013, 05:21 by leaf »

« Reply #137 on: January 15, 2013, 05:21 »
+1
The income from my istock portfolio is so low now and I've never been comfortable with under 20% commission.  I've deactivated my top 140 earning images and while I was doing it all I could think of was why didn't I do this years ago?  The Google deal was the straw that broke the camels back.  I didn't have any images involved but seeing that people were losing lots of potential future earnings for $12 and the reply we had from istock made me realise that I just had to do something now.

If they do bring back a flat 20% commission, sack all the managers that have been making appalling decisions for the past few years and give a guarantee that they're going to inform us about everything well in advance in the future, I'll reactivate my images.  There's absolutely no chance of that happening.

« Reply #138 on: January 15, 2013, 06:02 »
0

So far, the facts are that Getty decided to give away my image for free on Google and stated they have more plans to do so.  My reaction to these facts are that I'm going to deactivate my images.
I'll for sure do 1000 on feb 2.  Not sure I feel like clicking that many boxes for too many hours but I'll commit to 1000.  I may get addicted and do more though :)





Leaf - I have heard that Sean Locke added a 'deactivate' button to his Greasemonkey script that helps with that sort of thing.  I have absolutely no idea what a 'greasemonkey' or a 'script' are, but I have heard tell it is a nifty thing for those in the know and saves a lot of bother...


Yeah, I've been using it already.   Thanks.  Here's the link for others
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350491&messageid=6818805#post6818805

edit: fixed the quotes
« Last Edit: January 15, 2013, 09:16 by leaf »

CJ6

    This user is banned.
« Reply #139 on: January 15, 2013, 06:42 »
0
What's the point of deactivating just a few? Deactivate all, for maximum impact, it's still gonna be just a fraction of the library anyway. You're deactivating, not deleting files! Meaning they're right back online if you want them to be. So there's no point in holding back, contemplating strategies (Lisa explained well comparing it to a hostage situation). But as we now know, it makes no sense, it's not logical since, the number of deactivated files is still going to be negligible, but hopefully enough for those greedy bas.tards to notice ;)

Bear in mind that deactivated files over 18 months old must be re-inspected, so not 'right back online if you want them to be' unless all your files are under 18 months old.

OK, then at the very least, deactivate ALL of the files that are under 18 months old.

« Reply #140 on: January 15, 2013, 07:09 »
+4
Why Don't we get behind a site like GL, our images need a good home after D-Day, we could use D-Day to hit iStock and at the same time help build up another site for our work! D-Day at iStock means V-Day at GL a dual message would be better as it is also a positive one for buyers. Picking a small site like GL and boosting its business is good for all of us. We could then take all our negative energy and focus on driving buyers to a new place for our content. I would love to sing the praise of another just to get my mind off if iStock.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #141 on: January 15, 2013, 07:17 »
0
Have people thought about SMing all those on their contact list who may not have heard about this?
Way back (before RCs) there was some other shenanigans they were getting up to and I mass SMd my as-was CN. One person deleted me from his CN as a result (you know who you are!), and over ten people SMd back to thank me for letting them know, as they never visit the forum.

In the interest of open-ness, I'm at a family event away from home on 2nd Feb and won't be sitting in the middle deleting images slow as treacle on my mobile. Sorry. However, I'm working identifying recent 0 sellers (easy with the current best match) that I'm going to deactivate and send RM, and will do so as and when. And I'm not uploading. But I don't think they'll even blink about that.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2013, 07:49 by ShadySue »

« Reply #142 on: January 15, 2013, 08:02 »
0
The problem I have is that I mentally can't come up with a realistic response they could give that would make me feel optimistic things would change.
You are right. There is no statement that they could make that would impress me.
They would need to compensate the affected artists with thousands $ for each file, which will never happen.

Deactivating should not be about wanting to achieve something but about protecting our portfolios from becoming worthless.

After thinking about this long and hard throughout the night, if you deactivate, those images are worthless also, except if you are non-exclusive and have them at other site.  How do we know that we will be able to reactivate.  IS has been known to close people's accounts and take other measures, such as banning people from Forums.  They would feel it is within their right to not allow deactivation.  They have already taken away opt out.  IS can be very vindictive behind their "we are supportive of contributors doing well" lines. I am very concerned about being able to reactivate.  Going elsewhere is not an option for me.

Those of you who have other outlets, there will still be income coming in.  At this moment I need every penny I can get from IS.  My top sellers are no longer being downloaded in any significant numbers.  I am almost only selling images before 2009, and they differ all the time.

I can certainly deactivate non-selling images, which will add to the total.  I think it is irrelevant whether they are top sellers or not.  Even with a lightbox showing what images, I don't think IS would care.  There are thousands of top contributors, who have been vocal about issues in the past and we are not hearing from them now..  Numbers alone are more significant, but it is only a gesture.

The only way there will be action is if there is a law suit.  Even if we don't win, they have to spend $, maybe lots of it to defend a class action suit.  I absolutely do not think they will respond to anything else.  The deals have been struck and they are not going to be changed.  But if we can show disregard for copyright and putting models at risk, then we have a bargaining chip.  If we get models saying they do not want their images handled this way (which would be done in a lawsuit as evidence), that would be pretty powerful.

I think the deactivation may get press coverage and affect sales some.  Buyers may form a boycott and once they leave and find the many quality images that can be gotten elsewhere, cheaper from new agencies, they may not come back.

Anyway, these are my concerns and should be thought over very carefully before to something that only hurts the contributor in the long run.

That was my 50 cents worth.  Just things to consider.


« Reply #143 on: January 15, 2013, 08:08 »
0
Why Don't we get behind a site like GL, our images need a good home after D-Day, we could use D-Day to hit iStock and at the same time help build up another site for our work! D-Day at iStock means V-Day at GL a dual message would be better as it is also a positive one for buyers. Picking a small site like GL and boosting its business is good for all of us. We could then take all our negative energy and focus on driving buyers to a new place for our content. I would love to sing the praise of another just to get my mind off if iStock.
I'm all for being positive about GL.  I would also recommend Pond5 for anyone with video clips.  They pay 50% commission, let us set prices and have lots of buyers.

« Reply #144 on: January 15, 2013, 08:33 »
0
Why Don't we get behind a site like GL, our images need a good home after D-Day, we could use D-Day to hit iStock and at the same time help build up another site for our work! D-Day at iStock means V-Day at GL a dual message would be better as it is also a positive one for buyers. Picking a small site like GL and boosting its business is good for all of us. We could then take all our negative energy and focus on driving buyers to a new place for our content. I would love to sing the praise of another just to get my mind off if iStock.

Sorry my experience with GL has not been positive  >:(.  I find their rejections unacceptable as they have managed to reject my images that have been accepted by other sites (I'm on 10+ sites) including Istock, SS etc.  On other hand they sell pretty little!  Someone commented on another thread that they may be prioritizing illustrations, vectors etc as against photographic images and in that case your proposal may be relevant for some of those contributors.  Just my take.  However the Deactivation day sounds like a plan and I will participate unless things change and its called off.

« Reply #145 on: January 15, 2013, 08:55 »
+1
Feb 2nd projected total is now 11,400

« Reply #146 on: January 15, 2013, 09:01 »
-2
On the Istock forums they have removed all posts with Sean's Greasmonkey script.

« Reply #147 on: January 15, 2013, 09:08 »
0
On the Istock forums they have removed all posts with Sean's Greasmonkey script.
I'm surprised they left it there so long

« Reply #148 on: January 15, 2013, 09:16 »
0
On the Istock forums they have removed all posts with Sean's Greasmonkey script.
I'm surprised they left it there so long

 :D The script seems to work well!

« Reply #149 on: January 15, 2013, 09:17 »
+4
On the Istock forums they have removed all posts with Sean's Greasmonkey script.


No they haven't.  It's right here
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350491&messageid=6818805#post6818805

.. but here's the direct link in case they do remove it
http://digitalplanetdesign.com/scripts/IS_myUploads_fixes.user.js


 

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