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Author Topic: To go exclusive or not?  (Read 14161 times)

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Reef

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« Reply #25 on: January 29, 2010, 05:48 »
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I'm only a small player in MS but it takes up a serious amount of time in my life - That has become the main reason to go exclusive - Hopefully I'll make back some of the 50% income I will lose, but my time is more important than money right now.

One question though - Do I have to completely remove my portfolios from DT and SS or can I simply make them inactive?
« Last Edit: January 29, 2010, 05:55 by Reef »


abimages

« Reply #26 on: January 29, 2010, 06:27 »
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At DT you can just disable the images, dont know if they stay there indefinately tho?
At SS you just have to 'opt out of SS' in your account settings.
No need to delete them.


« Reply #27 on: January 29, 2010, 06:44 »
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My concern about exclusivity is with cycles and copycats...  My experience this past year is that most times when sales are down on one site, they are up on another.  It's really kind of crazy...  If I was exclusive and a site experienced a slowdown with no other site to pick up the slack, I lose revenue by putting all of my eggs in one basket.  I'm sure it might be different if I had proven sellers that are fairly consistent each month, but I gotta believe that well will eventually dry up and stuff that us selling consistently now will eventually slow down and stop as the asset gets older.

Another problem I've run into are people who can't think for themselves and search the exclusives on sites for ideas, duplicate those and upload them to the other sites.  If you are hoping that you have something unique and that if buyers want it they WILL find you to buy your asset, that may not be the case.  They may find a copycat on the site they are already at and buy that instead.

I deal primarily in stock footage, not photos so the market and buyying patterns may be completely different.

« Reply #28 on: January 29, 2010, 07:35 »
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Well since someone bumped this topic, I suppose I'll update you on what I'm doing. It's a sad story really.

I decided to go exclusive and started deleting and disabling my images from the other agencies I submitted to. All is well until I get to Dreamstime. I was aware of the 6 month hold before hand but didn't think a whole lot of it since I hardly uploaded anything in the past year so surely I wouldn't have a problem. (hahahahaha)

So I have disabled 99% of my portfolio off Dreamstime, down to 7 images remaining and then bam, can't disable anymore. After looking at their 6 month policy more closely (I foolishly didn't do so before hand) I realized you could only disable 30% of the files you uploaded in the past 6 months. Turns out, I uploaded 9 images in the past month. I could only disable 2, leaving me with 7. The 2 I had already disabled were not the most recent uploaded files so I went ahead and enabled 1 of them so I could disable my most recent ones. HUGE mistake. The 6 months start over again when you enable a disabled file.

OK I thought, surely Dreamstime will understand my situation and disable them for me, after all it is only 7 files. (well 8 now  >:() As you can probably tell by now, the answer was a big fat no. I even specifically contacted Achilles and offered compensation with no luck.

Needless to say I was pretty pissed off at this point. I had already deleted my portfolio from Fotolia and Stockxpert so there was no going back. A day later I decided that it would be worth it if I just bought the "sell the rights" extended license for my 8 files. The lowest you can set the price for that is $250. So I would essentially be giving Dreamstime $1000 to remove 8 files. (50% commission back to me)

I tried to buy one. It went through fine, the image was disabled right away. 12 hours later I get this:
Quote
We noticed that you purchased one of your images with sell the rights
license. Regardless of the reasons for this purchase, we strictly
forbid contributors to buy their own images, especially with the sell
the rights license.
We have refunded you the transaction and cancelled the purchase. Feel
free to contact us should you need further details.

So now I'm just out of luck. I went ahead and filled out the paperwork with Istockphoto to secure my next canister rank for when I can go exclusive. Also re-enabled my portfolio on Shutterstock and the other sites that I could. I'm not going to bother re-uploading to any sites so I'm going to take a bit of a hit financially.

The way Dreamstime handled my departure is completely different than every other agency. I understand that they are just following the ToS that I agreed to, but that didn't stop other agencies from letting me go. Hell some of them even OFFERED to pay out the remaining balance on my account despite it being below the minimum payout.

I had initially thought this 6 month policy was in place to cover the cost of reviewing and hosting the images. Now I think it is to make it more difficult to go exclusive to another agency. Why else wouldn't they accept $1000 to let me go? If they want to combat Istock exclusivity perhaps they should make their exclusivity program more appealing.

In the end it seems I'm just going to have to wait the 6 months. If exclusivity to Istock ends up not working out for me, Dreamstime is one agency that I will absolutely NOT be going back to.

So let my experience be a lesson for you all:
1. Don't be an idiot like me.
2. Don't expect Dreamstime to be accommodating to your situation.
3. If you have any thoughts of going exclusive to Istock, stop uploading to Dreamstime ASAP.

If there is any silver lining to this story, it is that I am more motivated to upload new content to offset my loss of income.

« Last Edit: January 29, 2010, 07:41 by Kngkyle »

« Reply #29 on: January 29, 2010, 10:39 »
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Dude, you blew it! You just kept compounding the problem! You should have checked here first. There were numerous threads about the ins and outs of preparing for exclusivity. Bummer.

I have a feeling DT got hit with a bunch of paperwork from people wanting to secure canisters at IS in case of going exclusive, and that really made Achilles insecure. I would expect them to abide by their terms, just as I would expect contributors to abide by the terms. If other sites are being more generous, it's just a bonus and shouldn't be expected of everyone.

Glad it motivated you to shoot more...that's about the only way to look at it.

« Reply #30 on: January 29, 2010, 11:04 »
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That's not a happy story indeed and I feel for you.
The thing I can't understand is why did you upload 9 images in the past month?
Clearly you were aware of the 6 months lock, so why do it?

vonkara

« Reply #31 on: January 29, 2010, 12:08 »
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If you are the kind to upload quality instead of quantity, you might want to choose go exclusive with Istock for obvious reasons. The problem is that no one choose to go exclusive 6 months in advance. It just hit you one day and then you are owned.

What happen is, one day you discover that DT is encouraging massive upload of anything and give you often less sales than uploads. I see this in many portfolio at DT. Many of those sales are subs

I advice anyone to stop uploading at DT the first time you start having good sales at Istock, or just think more than 1 minute about going there. 


Reef

  • website ready 2026 :)
« Reply #32 on: January 29, 2010, 13:49 »
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The 2 I had already disabled were not the most recent uploaded files so I went ahead and enabled 1 of them so I could disable my most recent ones. HUGE mistake. The 6 months start over again when you enable a disabled file.

uh-oh   ....but can I ask how do you know the 6 months start again?

vonkara

« Reply #33 on: January 29, 2010, 13:53 »
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The 2 I had already disabled were not the most recent uploaded files so I went ahead and enabled 1 of them so I could disable my most recent ones. HUGE mistake. The 6 months start over again when you enable a disabled file.

uh-oh   ....but can I ask how do you know the 6 months start again?

It's written somewhere in the FAQ. But if you try to disable it again, you have the date that show when you can disable the file the next time

« Reply #34 on: January 29, 2010, 13:58 »
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This still doesn't answer my question Vonkara. It raises another one.

Last month, at the time of uploading the 9 files, the OP wasn't thinking about IS exclusivity.
Now he does. He wants to be an exclusive.
Files at DT have a 6 months lock in. The OP is aware of it.
His last uploaded files - a month ago.
Why then try to delete them all now? Isn't it a bit too soon?

I don't think DT is encouraging 'massive' uploads.
There is a daily limit there, it contradicts your point. Not to mention that for some  contributors the limit is a struggle.  

I'm not sure about the quality versus quantity theory either. I'm just going to leave it at that.

In any case the fact that the OP was willing to pay 1000 dollars to buy his own images amazes me.
This tells me that IS Exclusivity must be something else.

Sorry about the inconvenience Kngkyle, good luck,

vonkara

« Reply #35 on: January 29, 2010, 14:11 »
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This still doesn't answer my question Vonkara. It raises another one.

Last month, at the time of uploading the 9 files, the OP wasn't thinking about IS exclusivity.
Now he does. He wants to be an exclusive.
Files at DT have a 6 months lock in. The OP is aware of it.
His last uploaded files - a month ago.
Why then try to delete them all now? Isn't it a bit too soon?

Might be because he want his next silver canister to be hold at 2500 downloads. For that you need to become exclusive shortly. But I'll let him answer this as I'm not sure. As I said things are envolving quickly in microstock, I also choose to go exclusive quite fast. But I have been lucky I didn't uploaded for around 4 months at DT and I knew which mistakes I should not do.

Reef

  • website ready 2026 :)
« Reply #36 on: January 29, 2010, 14:22 »
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The 2 I had already disabled were not the most recent uploaded files so I went ahead and enabled 1 of them so I could disable my most recent ones. HUGE mistake. The 6 months start over again when you enable a disabled file.

uh-oh   ....but can I ask how do you know the 6 months start again?

It's written somewhere in the FAQ. But if you try to disable it again, you have the date that show when you can disable the file the next time

yep, You are right. Oh well, I'm in the same boat for doing almost the exact same thing the OP did - this whole thing is giving me a headache!
« Last Edit: January 29, 2010, 14:24 by Reef »

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #37 on: January 29, 2010, 14:27 »
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I'm just scared to put all my eggs in one basket. Of course my portfolio's aren't that large but even in the furture I would be afraid to do it. iStock is by far my best seller with the least amount of images, but still I can't help but think of the ones that keep selling on the other sites that aren't on iStock.

« Reply #38 on: January 29, 2010, 15:12 »
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Sorry about the problems. I think this was posted before in this thread:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/exclusive-preparations

It gives you a good idea of several agency's policies. I decided to stay independent, but I thought it might be helpful to others.

« Reply #39 on: January 29, 2010, 18:14 »
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It would be nice if the other sites offered us something for committing to stay with them.  I don't mind signing a contract to leave my images on SS, DT, FT etc. for a year or more, if they let me have a small commission raise or a bonus at the end of the year.  That might convince some of the people thinking about going exclusive to stay independent.

lisafx

« Reply #40 on: January 29, 2010, 18:43 »
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It would be nice if the other sites offered us something for committing to stay with them.  I don't mind signing a contract to leave my images on SS, DT, FT etc. for a year or more, if they let me have a small commission raise or a bonus at the end of the year.  That might convince some of the people thinking about going exclusive to stay independent.

Agreed.  For example - a commission raise or an added top tier over the .38 at SS might give some incentive to stay independent. 

« Reply #41 on: January 29, 2010, 22:33 »
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It would be nice if the other sites offered us something for committing to stay with them.  I don't mind signing a contract to leave my images on SS, DT, FT etc. for a year or more, if they let me have a small commission raise or a bonus at the end of the year.  That might convince some of the people thinking about going exclusive to stay independent.

Agreed.  For example - a commission raise or an added top tier over the .38 at SS might give some incentive to stay independent. 

+1

« Reply #42 on: January 29, 2010, 22:52 »
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Agreed.  For example - a commission raise or an added top tier over the .38 at SS might give some incentive to stay independent. 

The way things are going I think it's going to need a fairly hefty rise to keep many of us independent. Subscription packages are being hugely undersold by the agencies that represent us and they need to address that issue tout de suite to prevent a mass exodus of significant contributors..

« Reply #43 on: January 30, 2010, 13:45 »
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Agreed.  For example - a commission raise or an added top tier over the .38 at SS might give some incentive to stay independent. 
That would be nice. Personally, I'd love to see some kind of tiers for larger files and vectors. Maybe, they count as two or more downloads like FT does with vector subs.

« Reply #44 on: January 31, 2010, 12:11 »
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My concern about exclusivity is with cycles and copycats...  My experience this past year is that most times when sales are down on one site, they are up on another.  It's really kind of crazy...  If I was exclusive and a site experienced a slowdown with no other site to pick up the slack, I lose revenue by putting all of my eggs in one basket.  I'm sure it might be different if I had proven sellers that are fairly consistent each month, but I gotta believe that well will eventually dry up and stuff that us selling consistently now will eventually slow down and stop as the asset gets older.


the cycles aren't crazy -- it's just that most of us are tiny bubbles in the ocean of sales - with millions of images on each site, one month's sales aren't going to be definitive - and ELs will distort the monthly sales, since they're so spotty.  so a running average for each site and in total gives a better picture.  looked at this way, i have several sites that continue to grow, but most just stay flat


this is the main reason i won't consider exclusivity




 

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