MicrostockGroup

Yeah I am sure they would greatly increase their exclusive content if they allowed exclusive uploads from non-exclusive photographers.  Perhaps they would allow 20 non-exclusive uploads/week and 20 exclusive uploads/week

Obviously there would need to be some strict rules to stop this happening.  So how do Getty do it?  They have exclusive images and let their contributors use other sites.  Surely if they can do it, so can istock.  Aren't they connected in some way nowadays

I'd guess that for most Getty contributors Getty represents a significant portion of their income. If they tried skirting the rules and got blacklisted they'd be screwing themselves royally. Even if Getty is a quarter or third of their income could you imagine losing that much?

For most micro people they probably make enough to buy dinner out a couple times a month so they have less to risk by gaming the policy and submitting an exclusive image at one place and another slightly different one from the same series elsehwere.

'
Hi mate!

well actually its not far from what we have got at the moment. Just take a look at business-man or business-woman.

They have the images in the collection anyway so how are they missing out?

Nah, jokes apart!  ofcourse not, theres some great talent within IS but you know theres a whole heap of dayrate photographers out there in fashion, Advertising, industry, etc, etc,
and quite frankly, many of them are extremly good.
Issue here though is Image-exclusivity, I can understand why its frightening for many because it would open a giant door with much stiffer competition then already.

Might interest you to know that within the Getty-RM where its supposed to be rock-hard exclusivity, the majority of members including myself supply to others. Nobody mind as long as pics never clash and they havent done that in the past 16 years.

best.

"Image exclusivity" isn't stopping anyone from joining IS or any of the few remaining IS copycats. There isn't a great wave of photographers out there waiting to come on board. IMHO.

There is a new generation of stock photographers who began with IS and the IS copycats. Many of them are producing work which is both technically and conceptually hugely more significant than anything which was available as stock 10 or 15 years ago. Oh and many of them are already also working as significant "dayrate" photographers.

So called "image exclusivity" is utterly a non issue IMO. The IS exclusivity arrangement is still much more about building loyalty and community than anything else. Out of loyalty and community comes a better crowd sourced business model. Crowd sourcing depends on community and it is community and crowd sourcing which makes the model economically viable. And IS remains in the first instance a business built on a crowd sourced model. If they had to pay for even a fraction of what community gives them for free the model would not work.

^^ If this is true, then Istock has lost a LOT of ground over the past couple of years thanks to Getty's disregard for the "community".  At least that is what I gather from a number of recent marathon threads.   

The partner program and Thinkstock have just about put the last coffin nail in the "community spirit" over there.  At least if the many disgruntled postings from most of Istock's former biggest cheerleaders are to be believed.

To be honest, I'm not sure "community" matters that much anymore, at least as far as successful production goes.  The forums are like my watercooler, and it's a good place to vent, but you could get that on any forum.  The part that matters is the interaction with the staff, so at least you feel like you might have some idea what's going on, or who to contact if weird things happen.  This "motivation" and "goals" thing makes me think people see this as a big friendly game, instead of a worldwide competition.

iStock lypses are organized to get them big influxes of imagery and to jazz and train up the new members.  I've never figured out why people waste their best shooting ideas on self-organized lypses, aside from being able to just get together with a bunch of people to have fun.  Well, I guess that's community, but it's not like it's sensible from a business end of things.

Let me restate this - the community aspect of things is in direct opposition to the business side of things, at this point, imo.

That was a good one!  I might have to steal that line from you (your shrink)!

Mat

Yup, I'm sure that's the bottom line.