Author Topic: iStock in the New Year (Read 69200 times)

Sean Locke Photography · « **on:** December 08, 2009, 15:57 »

A look ahead was just posted:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=1

Some interesting points and thoughts, some I agree with, some not. Just FYI.

LostOne · « **Reply #1 on:** December 08, 2009, 16:10 »

Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia. I see a lot of people getting frustrated on this one. I wonder how the prices are gonna affect the downloads. Maybe non exclusives will get more downloads now that exclusive prices will be higher (problably not, let's see if they'll tweak best match to show a bit more of exclusive files infront).

vonkara · « **Reply #2 on:** December 08, 2009, 16:17 »

Thanks for linking... Yes the new canisters will own me too. I was getting close to silver slowly. Now I just have to wait until I do something else of my life, for opening my silver canister wine bottle. I guess it will taste better in 3 years _Sigh_

Freedom · « **Reply #3 on:** December 08, 2009, 16:27 »

Yep, don't like the cannister change.

madelaide · « **Reply #4 on:** December 08, 2009, 16:42 »

Just like in FT, I have to give up any hopes of changing level in my lifetime.

dirkr · « **Reply #5 on:** December 08, 2009, 16:46 »

Who cares for cannister levels, it doesn't change anything for non-exclusives (yes, I know, upload limits... until they are "temporarily" lowered anyway

).

But lowering prices for non-exclusive files is what I don't like.

travelstock · « **Reply #6 on:** December 08, 2009, 16:58 »

So basically no good news for non-exclusives. Seems IS is keen to make the gap between exclusives and non-exclusives bigger. Its becoming pretty clear that the direction is to treat non-exclusives as cannon fodder.

The canister changes are bad for non-exclusives because they make it harder to reach higher upload limits.

FD · « **Reply #7 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:01 »

Suddenly silver is very far away. I don't know whether silver means higher yield or just higher upload limits.
"Holy cow! That's a lot of good stuff coming up. This place rocks!" - that's why avoid IS forums.

cathyslife · « **Reply #8 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:11 »

Quote

Base: 1 - 499
Bronze: 500 - 4,999
Silver: 5,000 - 19,000
Gold: 20,000 - 49,000
Diamond: 50,000 - 399,000
Black Diamond: 400,000 +

Current contributors will be grandfathered in to their existing levels. So if you have 15,000 downloads when the change happens, you will remain at your gold canister for the purposes of upload limits and Exclusive royalties. No contributor will drop a level. We are aiming to make these changes on February 24, 2010.

I am currently at a gold canister with 13024 downloads. I don't understand what he means when he says "So if you have 15,000 downloads when the change happens, you will remain at your gold canister for the purposes of upload limits and Exclusive royalties".

What about non-exclusives? Gold used to start at 10,000 downloads. so when he says no contributor will drop a level, I will still be a gold, correct? Little confusing, to me anyway.

Graffoto · « **Reply #9 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:12 »

Quote from: FD-amateur on December 08, 2009, 17:01

Suddenly silver is very far away. I don't know whether silver means higher yield or just higher upload limits.

Yup, same here... I was looking forward to probably hitting silver this year, but that does not look like a possibility now.
And for the record, as an exclusive it would have meant a slight royalty bump.

leaf · « **Reply #10 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:16 »

seems like some exciting changes. I hope the other sites take a hint and provide more tiered pricing. iStock has proven that buyers are willing to pay for more expensive content and they seem to be the only agency who is really making it work. Dreamstime's image levels work in a similar way however but i think they could have a premium collection too.

The cannister levels - yeah it is a bit of a hit, but like dirkr said - it doesn't really change anything. Fotolias change was bigger since it essentially just lowered everyone's commissions by 2%. That, and the fact that Fotolia's announcement was retro active while iStock is giving us 2.5 months notice.

I don't mind the extra pricing for exclusives. I can only think of good results.
A. Buyers will buy the cheaper images, which means non exclusives
B. For those who are exclusive or thinking of going exclusive - it will increase their income
C. Buyers will get used to paying higher prices and other agencies should be able to charge higher prices
D. Other agencies will perhaps start using more tiered pricing - giving us more income.

gostwyck · « **Reply #11 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:19 »

Wow __ this is HUGE news. Thanks for the heads-up Sean.

My average sale price on IS as an independent contributor is currently about $1.20 (ignoring EL's, etc for the time being) which means the average sale price is $6 or a little less than Medium size.

Under the new exclusive prices the average sale price should rise to about $10 which would be worth $4 commission. If over the last couple of months my IS sales had averaged $4 a pop then I'd have made 20-25% more money than I did from all the sites.

This has to be serious food for thought.

leaf · « **Reply #12 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:26 »

iStock may seriously increase their exclusive attractiveness with this move. I am curious about how other sites will respond.

RT · « **Reply #13 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:35 »

Like them or hate them you have to admit that iStock are constantly trying to raise the bar, time will tell what effect this has on non-exclusives but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:

"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

You can read that two ways but I'm hoping they are going to (at long last and not before time) allow us independents to submit a selection of exclusive images (with perks) as appose to total exclusivity, if that were the case I would seriously consider making them the only 'microstock' agency I submit to.

lisafx · « **Reply #14 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:36 »

Very interesting news indeed. Some of the things that strike me on first reading:

1. Canister level changes. This is exactly what Fotolia did that angered contributors so much. Moving the goal posts in the middle of the game just seems wrong. Of course as a non-exclusive diamond my income won't be affected in any way. Still, I was looking forward to black diamond anyway. So now I have to get 30k DL's by February in order to qualify. Not likely to happen

2. Higher prices for exclusive images. As Tyler points out, this could be a double edge sword for exclusives. On the one hand, they will be making REALLY good money per sale. On the other hand, unless they produce extremely unique content - which many do not - they stand to lose sales to independents whose images will be lower priced. I hope you are right, Tyler, and that if this is successful the industry will resume the trend toward higher prices.

3. Credit price increase. Great for istock, great for contributors. At least on the face of it. For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS. But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers. Could backfire and send more to the competition.

4. Plans for JIU - Wonder if this means they will be dumping StockXpert content from JIU as they did Photos.com. I will be sorry to see that extra income go, but remain convinced that .25/sale is just not adequate compensation for sub sales at this point in the game. This is not 4 years ago and many of us are not doing this for giggles and grins anymore.

ShadySue · « **Reply #15 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:38 »

Quote from: LostOne on December 08, 2009, 16:10

Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia.

Oh, h*ll, it's a cartel.

ShadySue · « **Reply #16 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:40 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 08, 2009, 17:36

3. Credit price increase. Great for istock, great for contributors. At least on the face of it. For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS. But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers. Could backfire and send more to the competition.

And I guess they'll be hoping that they'll go to photos.com

lisafx · « **Reply #17 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:40 »

Quote from: RT on December 08, 2009, 17:35

... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:

"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.

dirkr · « **Reply #18 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:42 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 08, 2009, 17:36

3. Credit price increase. Great for istock, great for contributors. At least on the face of it. For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS. But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers. Could backfire and send more to the competition.

Not really an increase if it comes along with a decrease in the number of credits needed to buy non-exclusive files...

lisafx · « **Reply #19 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:46 »

Another thought...

In 2009 I don't recall getting any of the usual yearly raises we had been getting from the other micros. In fact we had to eat some royalty cuts.

With Istock making a major play to tempt independents into exclusivity with significantly more money, can we perhaps expect the other players to sweeten the pot to keep us?

I, for one, would not be very happy with a second year in a row without any raise in my royalties from the major micros. The only income gains I saw in 2009 have been due to increasing portfolio size, and for the last 6 months I have been at a virtual standstill incomewise, even with steady uploading.

gostwyck · « **Reply #20 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:46 »

Quote from: ShadySue on December 08, 2009, 17:38

Quote from: LostOne on December 08, 2009, 16:10
Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia.
Oh, h*ll, it's a cartel.

Not exactly. At least IS have given a couple of months notice and are open to helping out those on the verge. FT didn't even have the decency to make an announcement let alone negotiate on the issue.

Having said that IS's wailing that "the current canister levels are unsustainable" is patent nonsense as all it affects is how little commission they pay out (and only to some of their exclusive contributors) and much more profit they get to keep themselves. IS are already eye-wateringly profitable and still growing at a staggering rate. To say they can't continue to pay the same levels of commission is simply absurd and downright greedy.

leaf · « **Reply #21 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:51 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 08, 2009, 17:40

Quote from: RT on December 08, 2009, 17:35
... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:

"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.

yeah, interesting take on that sentence. I would find it hard to believe that iStock would let non-exclusives upload exclusive images but i would be very interested in seeing it happen. iStock seems very protective of their exclusives and is their trump card in a way. If they let people upload as partial exclusives it could feel like they are loosening their grip a little. If they did so however, it might encourage photographers to test the water before jumping all in.

lisafx · « **Reply #22 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:53 »

Quote from: dirkr on December 08, 2009, 17:42

Not really an increase if it comes along with a decrease in the number of credits needed to buy non-exclusive files...

Good point. Although with the very low volume of XL and larger sales, the only real affect will be the 2 credit reduction in L sizes.

Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.

If I were exclusive I would want to option to choose which of my exclusive images were put in the various collections. I might want to keep my more commonplace ones in the "main collection".

gostwyck · « **Reply #23 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:55 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 08, 2009, 17:40

Quote from: RT on December 08, 2009, 17:35
... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:

"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.

Not a chance __ all they are referring to is the opportunity to earn more via the higher prices for exclusive files. They know well enough that the people they are referring to generally report IS to be about 35-40% of their total earnings and this has been pitched perfectly to ensure they would get a fairly significant increase in revenue from exclusivity. My only surprise is that they didn't do it sooner.

Of course the 'strongest talent' they'd really like to snare would be a certain Mr Arcurs and his mighty portfolio.

dirkr · « **Reply #24 on:** December 08, 2009, 17:58 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 08, 2009, 17:53

Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.

Right, that might bring more sales to non-exclusives...

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Author Topic: iStock in the New Year (Read 69200 times)

Sean Locke Photography

LostOne

vonkara

Freedom

madelaide

dirkr

travelstock

FD

cathyslife

Graffoto

leaf

gostwyck

leaf

RT

lisafx

ShadySue

ShadySue

lisafx

dirkr

lisafx

gostwyck

leaf

lisafx

gostwyck

dirkr

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