MicrostockGroup

I'm exclusive and I have put some fines over there.  It is not really working for me and has gone down in the last month which I would imagine is because they have forced the indies to go over to it.

I boycotted it until I didn't have a choice anymore.

I also boycotted until I was forced in but the way istock are going, that might not be for long.

Explain the answer option of Not Sure (for both Indie and Excl).

Is it not as simple as Yes and NO, I'm struggling to see how anyone can be Not Sure of boycotting the policy, or do you mean Don't Care (DGAD) folks?

Obviously, I know all the Indies are now getting steamrollered into it like it or not (or out of "the family") so the question is about where you stood when the choice existed.

No. I am much more in favour of supporting fair small/new sites (by uploading port and telling people) than boycotting big ones. In other words, grab what we can in current status while actively helping to build the next, better one.

Boycotting means leaving our marketshare to the big contributors which don't boycott - understandably so, because they would lose thousands of dollars each month.

As an independent the only choice was to remove your entire portfolio and leave iStockphoto or agree to the PP. If that's a choice, it's a pretty mean-spirited one.

I have viewed the Partner Program as a very, very bad idea for contributors from day 1 (I was exclusive then). I didn't think it improved much with the small increases in royalty payments made on KKT's watch when they tried to increase the content available.

As far as having a choice, if iStock continues its earnings free-fall, it'll be possible to leave the site completely, but as it stands it was too big a chunk to just delete my portfolio on September 28th. Our "choice" was the same as Getty contributors' "choice" with their new contract in the Spring - only a choice in the narrowest possible meaning of that word. What I did do was withhold new content from iStock for 6 months minimum so it gets a chance to sell everywhere else before Thinkstock/photos.com get it. As none of the forced-participation independent content from iStock has made it to the PP yet, I wish they'd just get on with it or call the deal off. But I'm assuming it's yet another thing in the long list of broken features at iStock.

I don't think the partner program is inevitably a bad thing. If iStock and Getty had been less transparently greedy I think they might have structured something that worked well for both contributors and them. However, they've let their own dollar bin and subscription programs languish while TS/photos.com strumble along in SS's dust. Truly the worst of all worlds at the moment.

Only a small fraction of my content will be forced into PP if/when they ever get around to it. I never volunteered anything for it. I don't really see that option on the poll.

Is there an answer for those who came across from StockExpert?

Wait? We weren't supposed to choose the alternative in their ultimatum? Nobody told me that.