I'm not sure any of that matters. When I look at my bottom line, it's about half of last year. Considering my royalty reduction was a wash with a price increase, that can only mean my sales have tanked. So neither me or IS are making more or benefited from the changes. I'm just one contributor though.

I share the same opinion as Jsnover.
Anxiously waiting!

The previous royalty system was idiotic and indeed unsustainable!
It will never return. (And that's a good thing!)
If the targets and percentages are reasonably set (what is "reasonable" is, is open for debate) it is a perfect system.
The only flaw I see in it is that different media types have different targets instead of only one.

The previous royalty system was idiotic and indeed unsustainable!

No royalty system is unsustainable for an agency, if they take 70% of the money that buyers pay for our work.

I know u're really ambitious, growing fast (port, earnings etc), but think about what will happen in a couple of years when you hit the wall (most people hit it after 3-4 years, also those that started in 03). It's just stupid capitalistic mentality to expect indefinite growth. It's impossible, we all got this message 3 years ago, when the recession hit;)

The previous royalty system was idiotic and indeed unsustainable!
It will never return. (And that's a good thing!)
If the targets and percentages are reasonably set (what is "reasonable" is, is open for debate) it is a perfect system.
The only flaw I see in it is that different media types have different targets instead of only one.

The old system was completely sustainable. iStock had a guarantee that it would get no less than 60% of the gross. In reality, given what a small portion of the large pool of contributors ever really get serious about building a saleable portfolio, their take wouldn't ever get that low.

The new system is clearly much more profitable for them - a grading on a curve scheme where they can guarantee no more than a certain number of people get each percentage. The assumption was that they want the overall payout to be 20% to contributors and 80% to them.

What you should be alert to is that (a) any system they put in place today they can change completely tomorrow and (b) the clear indication of intent to minimize payouts to contributors wherever possible makes for a challenging business relationship. Look at what they've just done to Getty contributors, forcing their content onto Thinkstock whether they like it or not (they can drop selling via Getty if they don't like it).

If you find more and more of the sales of your content uploaded at iStock is sold through other outlets that don't give you RCs to maintain your royalty percentage, how fair will you feel that is? without opting out of Vetta/Agency completely, you can't control where they sell your Vetta/Agency content which is increasingly going to be a major avenue for iStock contributors to keep their earnings up in an era of decreasing downloads.

Look at Sean Locke's last two monthly reports. Downloads down about 20% over the prior year in spite of an increase of about 2K images in his portfolio. You can dismiss the rest of us as lazy idiots if you wish, but Sean is the model microstocker.

It's easy to be very optimistic when you're benefitting from the current system, but for heavens' sake, keep your eyes and ears open.

Quote from: aeonf on June 01, 2011, 12:57

The previous royalty system was idiotic and indeed unsustainable!
It will never return. (And that's a good thing!)
If the targets and percentages are reasonably set (what is "reasonable" is, is open for debate) it is a perfect system.
The only flaw I see in it is that different media types have different targets instead of only one.

The old system was completely sustainable. iStock had a guarantee that it would get no less than 60% of the gross. In reality, given what a small portion of the large pool of contributors ever really get serious about building a saleable portfolio, their take wouldn't ever get that low.

The new system is clearly much more profitable for them - a grading on a curve scheme where they can guarantee no more than a certain number of people get each percentage. The assumption was that they want the overall payout to be 20% to contributors and 80% to them.

What you should be alert to is that (a) any system they put in place today they can change completely tomorrow and (b) the clear indication of intent to minimize payouts to contributors wherever possible makes for a challenging business relationship. Look at what they've just done to Getty contributors, forcing their content onto Thinkstock whether they like it or not (they can drop selling via Getty if they don't like it).

If you find more and more of the sales of your content uploaded at iStock is sold through other outlets that don't give you RCs to maintain your royalty percentage, how fair will you feel that is? without opting out of Vetta/Agency completely, you can't control where they sell your Vetta/Agency content which is increasingly going to be a major avenue for iStock contributors to keep their earnings up in an era of decreasing downloads.

Look at Sean Locke's last two monthly reports. Downloads down about 20% over the prior year in spite of an increase of about 2K images in his portfolio. You can dismiss the rest of us as lazy idiots if you wish, but Sean is the model microstocker.

It's easy to be very optimistic when you're benefitting from the current system, but for heavens' sake, keep your eyes and ears open.

No it was not. It essentially meant the longer they wait, the less percentage IS gets, Which means IS's keep paying out an ever growing percentage of their income as time goes bye. That is what is unsustainable with it. It was a stupid system to begin with and it is a good thing it has been fixed.
The second biggest problem with the previous system is that it does not award those who deserve it.  If for instance I am the next SJLOCKE, I have a good and growing portfolio it will still take me a whole lot of time to reach 25K d/l's in order to get to the 40% mark, it will take me much less to get to the 120K RC's mark.
The 3rd problem is motivation.
1. I know if I will work harder and give IS my best work it will greatly reduce the time it will take me to reach the higher RC levels. In the older system, it was more of how long you have been a member of IS.
2. If (for example) I am a professional photographer with high-end gear decide to contribute to IS, start building my portfolio and sell a few hundreds of files a month. You OTOH (again just for example) are an amateur weekend snap shooter but who was lucky enough to know of IS 5 or 6 years ago and now have over 25K downloads, but today, well you are way out of your league, you still sale here and there maybe a few dozens a month but you still earn your 40% just because you are an old timer .
Please explain to me why on earth shoud the Pro make 25% or 30 % and the amateur deservers 40%

Sean is actually doing great! He should be great full! Why ? easy:
IS's total portfolio grew MUCH more then 20% over this year, right? (Correct me if I am wrong!)
But Sean's portfolio grew by "only" 20% !  that means his total portfolio market share went DOWN and but his earning remained the same� lucky guy!

Regarding your comments on Getty and the partner program, I completely agree.
Don't get me wrong, I ain't no IS fanboy, I promise you I curse them every day, but I also don't think everything is doom and gloom nor do I think everything is one great conspiracy to suck up more $$$ for contributors.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't call anyone lazy or any other name calling, I am just giving out my honest opinion, even though I know it will not win the popularity vote.

I apologize for my (many) spelling mistakes, and am well out of energy after this long post.

Please explain to me why on earth shoud the Pro make 25% or 30 % and the amateur deservers 40%

I actually can't figure out why everyone doesn't get 40%.

Nor agreeing at all with this  aeonf idea that, althoungh no expressed in this way, seem to suggest: "old timers are bad, amateur  and lazy, new ones are great and professional". Nothing more wrong, it can be easily seen looking at the different portfolios.

Quite silly realy, most if not all of the top dogs are old timers! I don't think anyone could say anthing bad about them!
All I am sating is JUST because you are an old timer DOESN'T mean you should earn more then a talented new comer.

The real old-timers, well before my time, supported the site when they were exchanging files for free (2 for 1 or something like that?) then for 10c. It could be argued that they deserve to be paid more than the johnny come latelys who just jumped in when the model was more viable for them.

Quite silly realy, most if not all of the top dogs are old timers! I don't think anyone could say anthing bad about them!

This just isn't true. As but one example, see CEFutcher who joined in April 2008 was diamond just over 2 years later. Or see laflor who started in early 2009 and became diamond a year later in 2010. There are many other examples of recent successes.

There are many  (largely invisible) old timers who are stuck at bronze or silver and are unlikely to live long enough to reach diamond. The difference between those folks and those who did reach diamond was the quality and quantity of their uploads. The idea that the iStock ship was sinking under the weight of masses of old timer diamonds collecting large percentages without contributing actively is, I think, just a myth. I don't have any way to gather the statistics to back that up, but I think you probably don't either.

You keep repeating that the old system meant an ever-decreasing profit for iStock and that isn't true. No one under the old system could earn more than 40% royalty no matter how long they hung around.

60% of the gross should have been very sustainable for iStock - it just wasn't enough to feed Getty whose other businesses were in decline or H&Fs need for a return on their investment in buying Getty.

The one thing that was missing from the old system was some notion of compensation levels being based on the income you brought in - with multiple collections at varying prices, it would have been wrong to count a 150 credit download as the same as a 1 credit download. So they could have blended the models to use credits not downloads and made something sustainable and fair.

There's no arguing with you that the old system is gone, but it's gone because of greed, not because of a lack of sustainability.

the flaw in the motivation argument is I don't think you will reach the top RC ranks. It looks to me (and I haven't gone into it heavily - so maybe mistaken) the best match is skewed towards those on lower commission, so as your commission increases you will get worse best match placement, less sales and drop back down.

Huh? The best match is heavily skewed towards vetta and agency files, which are limited to exclusives, so higher commissions.

Quote from: Phil on June 01, 2011, 19:08

the flaw in the motivation argument is I don't think you will reach the top RC ranks. It looks to me (and I haven't gone into it heavily - so maybe mistaken) the best match is skewed towards those on lower commission, so as your commission increases you will get worse best match placement, less sales and drop back down.

Huh? The best match is heavily skewed towards vetta and agency files, which are limited to exclusives, so higher commissions.

ok sorry I totally ignored vetta and agency.
It seems though diamond and black diamond people have taken drops (or perhaps it is only a few us being vocal , while bronze etc are saying it's now great. Searches based around the stuff that I do seem to be bigger port people have their best sellers at the back, with low selling images at the front, while it is reverse for people with smaller ports / bronze etc. (like I said though I haven't gone into it heavily - just impressions)