MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Artist on October 25, 2016, 12:08
-
Got this email today
iStock Royalties Changes
We’ve got some important and positive news to share with you about changes to your royalties including:
Redeemed Credits – retirement of the current system at the end of 2016.
Exclusive royalty rates – new tiered system based on downloads (including subscription downloads and downloads on GI.com), effective January 1, 2017.
Non-exclusive royalty rates – retirement of tiering in favor of flat rates per file type, scheduled to be effective November 25, 2016.
Flat subscription download rates – replacement with a percentage royalty based on the price per file, scheduled to be effective November 25, 2016.
All of the changes are designed to produce a simpler, more transparent system that accounts for the growth of subscription and sales across Getty Images and rewards Exclusivity.
Redeemed Credits
The Redeemed Credits (RC) system was intended to encourage contributors to submit fresh, high quality content and deliver increasing royalty rates as credit thresholds against the content were met. With the growth of subscription products and the expanded licensing from gettyimages.com, a credit-only system no longer reflects the wider performance of content.
Exclusive iStock Royalty Rates
The Redeemed Credit system will be retired at the end of 2016 and replaced with a ‘Download Target’ system to reward our Exclusive contributors, as follows:
Consistent with current rates, exclusive rates will start at 25% with the potential to reach 45%.
iStock.com rates will be determined based on the total annual downloads for each file type; across all iStock and Getty Images sales channels and products (excluding Thinkstock and API).
Every Signature+ file downloaded on iStock.com will count twice towards your Download Target.
We are creating a new Signature+ collection for Illustration files. These files will also count twice towards your Download Target.
Download Target royalty rates will be applied to all iStock downloads – credits and subscriptions.
Timeline for Download Targets
As in the past, you will begin 2017 at the rate at which you ended 2016.
Annual Download Targets for upcoming year will be announced in Q4 of each year, with the targets for 2017 being announced before the end of 2016.
Your earned rate, based on previous year targets, comes into effect on January 1st of each year.
Earned rate increases for those who reach a new target level within the year will begin at the start of the following month after that level has been attained.
The download rates for 2017 will be modeled on 2016 tier data, with the intention that the royalty rate tiers are comparable.
These changes will better reward Exclusive contributors for their performance in subscription products, and, in total, will result in iStock paying over a million dollars more in royalties during 2017.
Non-Exclusive iStock Royalty Rates
Scheduled to be effective November 25, 2016, we’re moving to flat rates for non-Exclusive content; 15% for Photo files and 20% for Video and Illustration. Due to system cutover constraints, we need to migrate to this rate in two stages, moving to the 15% flat rate for subscription downloads from November 25 and then moving to the 15% flat rate for credit downloads on December 1. As a result, you’ll continue to receive your current percentage for credit downloads up until November 30.
iStock Subscription Download Rates
For both Exclusive and Non-Exclusive artists, iStock.com flat subscription download rates will be replaced. Schedule to be effective November 25, 2016 a subscription ‘price per file’ (PPF) value will be calculated based on the price the customer paid for the subscription divided by the number of files downloaded against the subscription. Your royalty rate will be applied to the PPF.
For example, if a customer had a Signature 100 image subscription for which they paid $299 per month and they downloaded 50 images, we would divide $299 by 50 to give a $5.98 PPF. This would result in a contributor royalty of $1.50, assuming a 25% rate.
If a customer bought an Essentials 100 image subscription for $149 and they downloaded 50 images, the PPF would be $2.98 per file. Assuming a 15% royalty, you would receive $0.45.
This method means you will always earn your royalty percent against a subscription download regardless of the specific subscription a customer purchased or how many downloads they made. If a customer downloads fewer files from their subscription you will earn more due to the higher PPF, with no maximum payments established. We are also implementing a minimum PPF as a safety net for when customers fully utilize their subscription download caps. Those minimums are as follows:
Category Minimum PPF Example royalty % Example royalty payment
Non-Exclusive $0.10 15% $0.02
Exclusive: Essentials/Signature $0.75 35% $0.26
Exclusive: Signature+ $4.15 35% $1.45
Gettyimages.com Royalty Rates
Royalty rates for all iStock content sold on gettyimages.com (GI Sales and API) will continue to be paid as follows:
Exclusive Non-Exclusive
Photo 20% 15%
Illustration 20% 15%
Video 25% 20%
Summary
We’re sharing these changes with you well in advance and also announcing them together so that you can see them in context. As mentioned above, the changes will result in us paying over a million dollars of additional royalties, while reducing complexity, increasing transparency and rewarding those who contribute high-quality exclusive content.
We are working hard to meet all of the scheduled dates mentioned above, but as with any technology project, delays are possible. If anything changes, we’ll let you know as soon as we can.
We will update the Rate Card available on www.istockphoto.com/in/help/sell-stock/rate-schedule (http://www.istockphoto.com/in/help/sell-stock/rate-schedule) effective November 25, 2016 to reflect all of the changes above. To see the Rate Card that will be effective November 25, 2016, please click here.
Many thanks
The iStock team
-
Too busy at the work now, and also looking forward to some of the smartest on this forum to digest the news and share their prognosis, but a first glance on the example of PPFs given in Getty's email makes me tremble:
Category Minimum PPF Example royalty % Example royalty payment
Non-Exclusive $0.10 15% $0.02
2 cents? What?...
-
Probably time to stop uploading there
-
Too busy at the work now, and also looking forward to some of the smartest on this forum to digest the news and share their prognosis, but a first glance on the example of PPFs given in Getty's email makes me tremble:
Category Minimum PPF Example royalty % Example royalty payment
Non-Exclusive $0.10 15% $0.02
2 cents? What?...
If this is TRUE I will close my port there immediately! No words any more.
-
In short. So how much they cut this time? Is there anything for us?
-
Probably time to stop uploading there
I stopped uploading there 2 months ago.
-
Not seeing any incentive for non exclusives to upload new material, especially with the minimum payout set at $0.02 for a subscription download and percentages based on the mystery amounts paid by customers. 15% of some undisclosed purchase price.
-
Positive news ... Ah ah ah ... for Getty i suppose ...
-
I don`t care about istock. Hope they die soon.
-
Looks like Getty has continued on the path of making themselves less relevant.
-
Too busy at the work now, and also looking forward to some of the smartest on this forum to digest the news and share their prognosis, but a first glance on the example of PPFs given in Getty's email makes me tremble:
Category Minimum PPF Example royalty % Example royalty payment
Non-Exclusive $0.10 15% $0.02
2 cents? What?...
2 cents is the MINIMUM, folks. Let's not get all bent out of shape.
The maximum is probably at least double that. ::)
-
I got that email as well.
A million dollars worth of cakes to the hungry people (Maria Antoinette) is not much, and 15 % for the artist is still an abusive share.
And as usual istock is very good at making simple things complicated and counterproductive.
Istock dont deserve more than 50%. They are not good, they are not fun, they are irritating, arrogant and abusive and not a good business partner.
My port there consists of a picture of an appropriate dead cockroach. The rest has been deleted, but still earns money, despite deleted, because of their copyright violations.
-
Does anyone know what's current subscription minimal royalty for non-exclusives?
It will be 0.02 USD, but what is it now?
-
Does anyone know what's current subscription minimal royalty for non-exclusives?
It will be 0.02 USD, but what is it now?
I think 25c for the lowest band? I stand to be corrected
-
Does anyone know what's current subscription minimal royalty for non-exclusives?
It will be 0.02 USD, but what is it now?
I think I saw a 6c sale there once.
Curiously, my 'credit subscription' sales data stops abruptly two years ago.
-
I feel sick to my stomach.
The simple fact that a client can pay so little (10c) for an image through subscriptions sickens me.
Surely buyers can, and they will make use of the 'whole' allocation.
I need to process this. Cannot compute
-
Anyone that thinks we wont be seeing most sub downloads at or around the minimum hasn't been keeping an eye on how Getty operates.
-
Does anyone know what's current subscription minimal royalty for non-exclusives?
It will be 0.02 USD, but what is it now?
Yes. $ 0.02. Filth economy.
-
I feel sick to my stomach.
The simple fact that a client can pay so little (10c) for an image through subscriptions sickens me.
Surely buyers can, and they will make use of the 'whole' allocation.
I need to process this. Cannot compute
Seems they charge less than that as that price is a safety net minimum.
-
I wish they would stop annoying me by always claiming it's "positive news" when what they mean is that they are positively going to cut the commission rate and the earnings even further. Sure it's positive for them, but not for the people who supply the product that they market.
-
The simple fact that a client can pay so little (10c) for an image through subscriptions sickens me.
I think that's the flipside of having to wade through so much content in order to find stuff to use. I'm not singling out iStock. The stock sites are bogged down with content. (My own legacy stuff included).
It's really hard to find good content which has been properly keyworded and properly curated. And the more images there are, the less they are worth.
-
Unbelievable! its just getting worse and worse. Its obvious Getty wants to shut them down. Its been a thorn in the side from the word go. I think that moronic Lobo guy who was with IS now is with Getty as well. He has pissed off so many that many known old stock photographers are leaving.
How can they possibly expect independent photographers to keep uploading after this news. They can jolly well sit there with a few dizzy exclusives who probably earns nothing but pennies anyway.
-
Wait a bit and Shutterstock will set a new LOW)))) Greedy bustards)))
-
"Yearly targets" is the biggest nonsense ever. Since the image library continues to grow and I can never outshoot the flood, this means that ever year my visibility in the collecton becomes smaller and I have less and less chances of reaching my "target".
Only lifetime earnings based on all file types and mediums makes sense.
They had the chance to reboot their system in a sensible way. But as usual they make it as complicated as never before.
The only interesting part is the share of the full subscription money. I have only heard mostphotos do that, so this might be a little light in a dark tunnel.
But overall it is not a reliable system and my income will always be unpredictable.
This is not the way to attract quality content, but it looks like they don´t really expect that from us.
And yearly targets is no incentive to go exclusive. I think they will see a new exodus of longtime exclusives with high quality content.
Also no option for exclusive images, only full artist exclusivity, that getty itself doesn´t have.
-
Just got the email..
Same old 'exciting news' about royalties.
Same old but it will increase sales and you will all be better off.
Same old it wont happen
Same old pay cut
but $ 0.02 an image is an all new level of taking the P!$$
-
Dreamstime's ahead of them for me this month even with all their PP add-ons. If you just want to look at iStock alone, then the earnings there are trailing Canstock. So there's not much left that they can claw back from me. Not much to get upset about, really.
-
Surely nobody is still actually producing microstock for the money? That ship definitely sailed.
:)
-
Like that their subscription royalty of $0.28 wasn't enough to be the lowest in the industry ..
Stopped uploading there awhile ago as uploading was always painful and they were never as big earner as the poll says for me.
-
I can't imagine why exclusives would submit new material when mostly it'll sell as subs which will mostly earn us a lot less.
And the indie rate is criminal.
-
My earnings there have been halved since they introduced subs...hardly ever make a non-sub sale there any more.
I'll have to close my account there. I hate to lose the money, but you better bet every other site is watching to see if we're willing to accept 2¢ royalties. It will suhck to lose the income from there, but if we don't leave everyone else will follow suit, which means a reduction from 38¢ to 2¢ at you-know-where, which would mean a YUGE drop in income.
Like we did with DPC, I think it's time for those of us who can to take a stand and bow out. Let them lose a million files overnight.
You knew there was gonna be "exciting news" to follow when they took away our ability to delete files.
-
Very bad news even with this 10 cents minimum royalty, dont need to overreact with those 2 cents. People here didnt get this right. It was example royalty, minimum is 10 cents. And yes, it is already too low to be truth. So, ill wait to see my next earnings after this change, if it goes too low, i am deleting my entire portfolio as well as account.
modified: Looks like I got it wrong.
-
their site should be DOSsed till they drop:)
-
The biggest pile of substandard bollox I have ever read from Gty/iS
I'm so glad I stopped uploading there in June when their first load of positive BS arrived about not being able to delete content.
Now we know why they did it. >:(
-
My earnings there have been halved since they introduced subs...hardly ever make a non-sub sale there any more.
My earning are down by something like $1000 per month since the market peak. I also stopped uploading which obviously also doesn't help.
But I don't blame iStock or Getty (or Shutterstock) for that. The price has collapsed because of the proliferation of content (and because we are no longer in a booming start-up economy or bloggers and new websites). Image is cheap because there is so much of it available. There is no shortage of people who want to be photographers and artists. And today everyone has a a camera in their pocket.
That said - as someone who uses content - it's really hard to find great stuff.
-
Wow...!! i dont like this...!!
What exclusives think about??
Run to Getty forum with Pop Corn...!!
-
Stopped uploading there long ago and never looked back. Just my 2 cents.
-
their announcement was like "hey slaves, wanna have fun? Here you go losers!"
-
The biggest pile of substandard bollox I have ever read from Gty/iS
I'm so glad I stopped uploading there in June when their first load of positive BS arrived about not being able to delete content.
Now we know why they did it. >:(
Why delete content?! Why not close account?
-
The biggest pile of substandard bollox I have ever read from Gty/iS
I'm so glad I stopped uploading there in June when their first load of positive BS arrived about not being able to delete content.
Now we know why they did it. >:(
So i cant delete my files from iS?
-
My earnings there have been halved since they introduced subs...hardly ever make a non-sub sale there any more.
My earning are down by something like $1000 per month since the market peak. I also stopped uploading which obviously also doesn't help.
But I don't blame iStock or Getty (or Shutterstock) for that. The price has collapsed because of the proliferation of content. Image is cheap because there is so much of it available. There is no shortage of people who want to be photographers and artists.
That said - as someone who uses content - it's really hard to find great stuff.
RPD has remained constant or increased for all sites for 7 years with the exception of IS and DP. Price hasn't collapsed at all. Some people's earnings may have gone down due to the proliferation of content but not prices and not RPD.
So in other words the only (major) price collapse goes hand in hand with the general collapse of IStock, not because of proliferation but because they are a bunch of * *s
-
Very bad news even with this 10 cents minimum royalty, dont need to overreact with those 2 cents. People here didnt get this right. It was example royalty, minimum is 10 cents. And yes, it is already too low to be truth. So, ill wait to see my next earnings after this change, if it goes too low, i am deleting my entire portfolio as well as account.
I read the email again. The minimum PPF (Price Per File) is 10¢. The minimum royalty is 2¢.
-
The biggest pile of substandard bollox I have ever read from Gty/iS
I'm so glad I stopped uploading there in June when their first load of positive BS arrived about not being able to delete content.
Now we know why they did it. >:(
So i cant delete my files from iS?
Nope, not without giving CR a good reason, then they might deign to remove it for you.
You can't change keywords either, and if iS adds irrelevant keywords to your file, CR seem not to have the ability to remove them (at least that's the CR reply I got).
-
The biggest pile of substandard bollox I have ever read from Gty/iS
I'm so glad I stopped uploading there in June when their first load of positive BS arrived about not being able to delete content.
Now we know why they did it. >:(
So i cant delete my files from iS?
You have to write to their none existent support and request deletion of images giving a valid "legal" reason >:(
-
Price hasn't collapsed at all.
Of course it has, across the image market. Today there is a huge and ever growing quantity of free content available to use - especially content which is shared by the users. That inevitably brings down the average cost.
Today everyone has a camera in their pocket. In 2006 relatively few had a digital camera or adequate bandwidth. And back then there was a significantly greater demand for paid content because we were in a boom economy - often built around blogs and websites. Today much of that web activity has been dropped in favour of Facebook.
-
So what are non-exclusive video files going to earn??
-
Price hasn't collapsed at all.
Of course it has, across the image market. Today there is a huge and ever growing quantity of free content available to use - especially content which is shared by the users. That inevitably brings down the average cost.
Today everyone has a camera in their pocket. In 2006 relatively few had a digital camera or adequate bandwidth. And back then there was a significantly greater demand for paid content because we were in a boom economy - often built around blogs and websites. Today much of that web activity has been dropped in favour of Facebook.
I am going directly from my numbers, my average RPD has increased or remained constant across all the micros except for IS and DP for the last seven years.
I am going by the numbers, not by what I think has happened based on my interpretation of the market. As they say you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.
-
Very bad news even with this 10 cents minimum royalty, dont need to overreact with those 2 cents. People here didnt get this right. It was example royalty, minimum is 10 cents. And yes, it is already too low to be truth. So, ill wait to see my next earnings after this change, if it goes too low, i am deleting my entire portfolio as well as account.
I read the email again. The minimum PPF (Price Per File) is 10¢. The minimum royalty is 2¢.
yes, looks like I was wrong, i was in hurry.
dont know what to say...
unbelievable
-
So I figured it out. You will get a whopping $12.00 for a HD & 4k Download on iStock. I will not be loading my content there! Now you can find my video exclusively at
others sites that treat me well!
-
I am going by the numbers, not by what I think has happened based on my interpretation of the market.
I am going by how much the content I use costs to use vs what it used to cost.
-
if we do nothing, every other agency will follow soon.
-
Looks like Getty has continued on the path of making themselves less relevant.
Even If I'm not really a "BIG" it represents 1/3 of my income: it IS relevant.
-
My simple take when skimming the email (couldn't be arsed to really read it) is: Confusing as fu*k and meant to be that way so it's hard for anyone to see how much deeper and harder they will be bent over in the future.
Also, in essence nothing seems to have changed. They have done away with the redeemed credit system yet you need to re qualify for your royalty rate again each year. It wouldn't take a child prodigy that excels in maths to see through that one. Sheesh!
-
I am going by the numbers, not by what I think has happened based on my interpretation of the market.
I am going by how much the content I use costs to use vs what it used to cost.
Sorry, I was going by what I make as a contributor rather than what the end buyer pays.
-
I made $.05 per download as an independent in 2005. Lol.
-
Why do I feel someone is jumping on my back side with a pogo stick, oh never mind it's just istock :-)
-
I'm trying to do the maths... but I only get access to the Euro prices. If someone from the US would be so kind to make some screen shots of the US Dollar prices of iStock's subscription packages, I would really appreciate your help.
Easiest way would be to post them as screen shots to my FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelJayFotograf/posts/955359601235001 (https://www.facebook.com/MichaelJayFotograf/posts/955359601235001)
Or contact me via direct message here.
-
My simple take when skimming the email (couldn't be arsed to really read it) is: Confusing as fu*k and meant to be that way so it's hard for anyone to see how much deeper and harder they will be bent over in the future.
They have always favoured obfuscatory language to Plain English.
It's Mushroom Management.
-
I'm not even going to waste more than 15 seconds reading this crap; because I could care less about stuff we cannot control... but basically this structure reminds me a lot of how Photospin does things.
-
I'm not even going to waste more than 15 seconds reading this crap; because I could care less about stuff we cannot control... but basically this structure reminds me a lot of how Photospin does things.
Agreed 2nd Photospin.
They are pretty dumb and don't look into the future: cutting the branch on which they are sitting with more then comfortable position doing almost nothing and receiving huge profits. We shall see:)
-
Serious question, can anyone afford to spend their time creating a product of any kind at all that sells for $0.10 and pays you as little as $0.02 in profit on it?
Personally I can't think of any business in the world that I would be willing to enter into which earns so little, talk less of putting the time and personal creativity into making something artistic just so that big corporates could have unlimited commercial usage rights to my artistic creation practically for free.
Hey Getty, really? You just can't make this sh*t up.
-
I was starting to wonder if I made the right decision deleting my port and was even considering uploading there again-so glad I read this first!
-
once again they are telling non-exclusives that they don't want you.
-
old istock - we have this really arcane and basically impossible way to keep your earnings percentage above the industry low 15% base
New istock - never mind - you all just get 15%
I deleted my port down to almost nothing years ago - and my earnings reflect that. At least this new exciting news won't hurt me much.
-
Very funny! "We’ve got some important and positive news to share with you about changes to your royalties"
-
I deleted my port down to almost nothing years ago - and my earnings reflect that. At least this new exciting news won't hurt me much.
You could've just posted one of your remaining pictures on IS to describe your attitude to the news: cactus (http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/saguaro-cactus-penis-gm147258293-6479484?st=9eb9a99)
-
Very funny! "We’ve got some important and positive news to share with you about changes to your royalties"
Could someone better than me at writing jokes please clarify the relationship between "positive" and "exciting"?
-
Good old iStock. There are few things in like on which you can rely, but they're certainly one. And they make me feel so good about the decisions I make. Before they gouged . out of our royalties in 2010 I had around 3000 images there, a lot less than at Shutterstock but still impressive given the technical impediments to uploading. Once they cut me from 20% to 16% I slowly started deleting, slowly out of some faint hope they might realize their mistake. By the day they disabled deletions I was down to fewer than 173. Now I just have to decide whether any of those remaining few are worth the hassle of closing my account. Tough decision.
-
Stopped uploading there long ago and never looked back. Just my 2 cents.
Ditto.
-
can say it enough our only chance to fight against this monopolys is a contributor union.
-
I think there is still room for "improvement". How about -2 cents? Charge contributors when you sell their stuff.
-
They changed the rules a few months ago so people can't easily delete their portfolio anymore and now they decreased the royalty to 15% (as an exciting news :) :) :). This is so funny:) And do you know why is this funny for me and why do I laugh? Because I do not upload my stuff since years now. So good luck for selling my outdated old images. New images? No way for them to get any of it. 19% or 15% I really do not care.
Regarding to Getty there is only one thing I care now: which song will I sing when they will be closed. They are a pathetic robber company. You know I dam not worry to insult them cuz what can they do: close my account? Ok, just do it! As soon as possible! :)
-
cant say it enough our only chance to fight against this monopolys is a contributor union.
Totally agree. A website created by photographers that is only available to professionals who use the site exclusively to sell their images/videos/illustrations. A small yearly fee and the photographer/videographer gets 90-95% of the commission per sale.
Let's do it.
-
My earnings there have been halved since they introduced subs...hardly ever make a non-sub sale there any more.
I'll have to close my account there. I hate to lose the money, but you better bet every other site is watching to see if we're willing to accept 2¢ royalties. It will suhck to lose the income from there, but if we don't leave everyone else will follow suit, which means a reduction from 38¢ to 2¢ at you-know-where, which would mean a YUGE drop in income.
Like we did with DPC, I think it's time for those of us who can to take a stand and bow out. Let them lose a million files overnight.
You knew there was gonna be "exciting news" to follow when they took away our ability to delete files.
This is exactly why I brought up the point in another thread regarding whether closing your account has the same rules....it doesn't so closing your account only requires a 30 day notice. Great post, shelma.
-
There were times when iStock gave me about 40% of my income. Now they give me 5% of it. My income at IS decreased by 90% during the years. I can EASILY disregard this 5% so I am going to their website and I will try to delete my account. NOW. Why not, it doesn't really matter. No one can be so stupid to sell images for a 15% royalty. Follow me guys!
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Got one (my very first in 2 years) refund email, too. A coincidence?
-
Got one too. What kind of shite are they pulling?
-
Member since: March 2006
How to delete account? Does anyone know? It's time to do it.
-
Member since: March 2006
How to delete account? Does anyone know? It's time to do it.
https://secure.istockphoto.com/contact_ticket.php
-
What a nasty company. >:(
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Got one (my very first in 2 years) refund email, too. A coincidence?
Me too.
-
Member since: March 2006
How to delete account? Does anyone know? It's time to do it.
https://secure.istockphoto.com/contact_ticket.php
thx. done.
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Got one (my very first in 2 years) refund email, too. A coincidence?
Me too.
Got my 6th one today.
Update...now 10
-
Member since November 2004. I think I'll leave them one photo. If I can get my neighbors dog to cooperate.
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Funny, I also got one refund e-mail. My first at IS.
-
Looks like they're collecting money from contributors by non-existen refunds...
-
Member since November 2004. I think I'll leave them one photo. If I can get my neighbors dog to cooperate.
Unfortunately that will be tough. You can't delete images any longer, I think it takes a year. The only way is to close your account and that requires a 30 day notice. This is why Istock sent out that lousy notice a few months back telling us we had until such and such date before images would be locked in for a year. Sad but true. If you can tell them that all of your images except that ONE are going exclusive elsewhere......that would be fun to see if they buy it. :P
-
Very funny! "We’ve got some important and positive news to share with you about changes to your royalties"
Could someone better than me at writing jokes please clarify the relationship between "positive" and "exciting"?
No one? Okay I'll give it a shot.
A boy says to his dad "when is an announcement from istock "exciting" and when is it "positive"?"
The dad has a think and says "Well son when I started reading the email it was "exciting" to think I could be getting a pay rise. When I'd sat down with a calculator I was "positive" I'd been f****d up the a**e"
-
Good old iStock. There are few things in like on which you can rely, but they're certainly one. And they make me feel so good about the decisions I make. Before they gouged . out of our royalties in 2010 I had around 3000 images there, a lot less than at Shutterstock but still impressive given the technical impediments to uploading. Once they cut me from 20% to 16% I slowly started deleting, slowly out of some faint hope they might realize their mistake. By the day they disabled deletions I was down to fewer than 173. Now I just have to decide whether any of those remaining few are worth the hassle of closing my account. Tough decision.
The deactivate function is still there and working as of a couple hours ago.
-
Unfortunately that will be tough. You can't delete images any longer, I think it takes a year. The only way is to close your account and that requires a 30 day notice. This is why Istock sent out that lousy notice a few months back telling us we had until such and such date before images would be locked in for a year. Sad but true. If you can tell them that all of your images except that ONE are going exclusive elsewhere......that would be fun to see if they buy it. :P
My "delete" function in "manage file" is still working for some reason. I just deleted a few of my SS popular ones.
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Got one (my very first in 2 years) refund email, too. A coincidence?
Me too.
And here we go - me too :-(
-
My current video royalty as a non-exclusive is 17% the new increase will give me 20% or 3% extra. This would be good if the actual commission was competitive i.e. $22 USD for HD and $46 USD for 4k but no we get $12 USD for HD or 4k like jjneff has stated. It is some improvement but far from being competitive. I will continue to avoid uploading new footage until we get competitive revenue as non exclusives in video, it is simply not viable as a single Video Blocks HD sale is worth 4x an iStock HD as non exclusive.
It will be some time before the other royalties in Photo and Vector and their subs start to trickle and impact the graph and see how we have fared there. The whole point of Subs is that owners of the plan squander a big percentage of their daily download allotment so that makes it viable for the companies and us contributors. However it could go terribly wrong with these adjustments. I will wait and see how it evolves before condemning the new breakdown.
Thanks to sites like Video Blocks and the new Adobe Stock which mirrors Fotolia, I am having an uptick in sales this year compared to the downward slide the last 5 years. I am close to increasing my revenue by 18% this year which is encouraging. :o
-
15 refund mails! Somethings rotten!
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Got one (my very first in 2 years) refund email, too. A coincidence?
Me too... And it was my first ever!
Me too.
And here we go - me too :-(
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Same here! 15 refund emails, so far, and it doesn't look that it is over. >:(
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
Got one (my very first in 2 years) refund email, too. A coincidence?
Me too.
Same here. I have received 10 refund emails in a row...
-
We regret to inform you that a refund of $0.09 has been issued for the purchase of your file #85720095. This transaction has now been voided from your GI or Partner Program sales. The client has complied with all policies surrounding the refund and destruction of this file.
Regards,
The iStock Team
Looks like crash and burn to me. They must be really hurting to go to these lengths.
-
Refunds here too. Maybe I will owe them money at the end. More refunds than sales.
-
Six refunds so far, and they keep coming. This cannot be legit. We should sue them, and I mean really.
-
I would like to take a moment and thank sites like Pond5, Adobe and VideoBlocks and there are others. I dropped my video exclusivity at iStock and have seen my income go up 2k per month! Adobe and Pond5 has really worked hard to get my port online. I will not load to Getty/iStock because it is them who are driving down prices especially in the 4k market. I dropped my photo exclusive as well now as I never made much on it anyways there. I can say from my experience that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Lets talk about, link too and support the sites that treat us fair! That is the best way to drive traffic to the sites we want to sell on.
-
Refund here too. 18 cts. Istock in a nutshell: send out some horrible news and just when contributors think it couldn't get worse, throw in some refunds to make sure there's no goodwill left.
-
The idea that this announcement is in any way positive (for anyone other than Getty, although I believe in the long run they're not helping themselves either) is a joke.
Beyond all the comments covered already, I didn't see anyone mention that iStock subscriptions have a rollover (http://www.istockphoto.com/plans-and-pricing), so the idea that payouts will be above the minimums is not realistic. Buyers will generally be using all their downloads.
"*Up to 250 unused downloads can be rolled over month to month for annual subscriptions or any other auto-renewed subscriptions. If you don't auto-renew your subscription, you will lose any unused downloads when your subscription term ends (including accrued rollover downloads, if any)."
The minimum prices per file of 10 cents for indies and 75 cents or $4.15 for exclusives are low. What I keep hearing is that an increasing proportion of sales are subscriptions, so offering the small sweetener to exclusives of including subs downloads in the RC-replacement scheme doesn't amount to much.
There is clearly no good news of any kind for indies. And the point is well taken that the other agencies will certainly claim that they need to cut royalties to stay competitive if iStock just keeps on * (forum zapped what I wrote. t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g, isn't a swear word, but apparently "keeps on t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g" is on the no-no list?) after this nuclear detonation.
I already all but left iStock over the Google-Getty deal in 2013, but if I hadn't, I'd be gone November 25th.
For anyone who thinks Shutterstock's 38 cents for a subscription download is a travesty, what does 2 cents from iStock say (with no chance of that ever going up if you remain an independent)?
Getty clearly wants the freedom to discount subscriptions heavily to try and goose sales. They can't do that with a flat rate royalty (without spending money on the promotions).
Today: buyer pays $149 for Essentials 100 and iStock keeps up to $121 of the cash. December: iStock keeps up to $147 of the cash. Why wouldn't they love this deal?
I guess exclusives will know just how much of a mess they're in once they see their 2017 royalty rates. One detail I didn't think was clear in the e-mail was whether the double count for Signature+ downloads applied if they were subscription downloads or only credit. Quite why Thinkstock and the API downloads were excluded (other than to try and keep exclusive rates down) isn't clear.
I think there's a very real potential for Getty's last ditch effort to revitalize themselves may end up dragging us all down the royalty sinkhole - unless iStock loses a significant amount of indie content as a result of this change
-
I will not load to Getty/iStock because it is them who are driving down prices especially in the 4k market.
I hate to contradict you, but it is not them driving the video price down and not even Envato.
Have you heard of an agency with a membership plan that gives away excellent clips (with a choice of 200.000) for next to nothing, without paying any royalties on them?
By the way I am glad I never decided to upload any footage at this lousy istock
-
Enough is enough! It was very hard for me to swallow $0.28/subs sales, but I was afraid to lose 20% of my income! With today's "positive" news I've reached my breaking point! I'm out of there!
On top of everything else I recieved 8 refunds (so far) today for $0.15; $0.18; $0.24; $0.59 (at 17%)! I don't even knew they are paying me so small commissions!
I just started to delete my files (it's working)! I'll leave my empty account just in case some real professionals buy IS and I decide to work with them!
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
These are the positive news: the next refunds will only be for 2 cents.
-
Envato sells at a cheap price from the start. Getty/iStock makes money off the backs of their workers and has accounting make new schemes to make the company more money. when I sell my work on Adobe or P5 or other places I know exactly what I am getting per sale. No games.
-
They have removed any reason to upload content... ever again. Will remove my portfolio if 2¢ sales become common.
-
Seeing as they were stupid enough to leave the De-activation function active (couldn't even get that right ::) )
I'm de-activating my images
-
I also have gotten a refund announcement- never ever had one before. Why are they all coming at once?
Indies could always upload images there not accepted at other agencies....
-
The mood over in the Getty forums isn't too good, either. Lobo made a post about "clarifying"royalties but conveniently left out the rollover strategy. And his calculations do not amount to 2 cents. Pure block & tackle. I would post what he said but I am not allowed, so I encourage you to go over to the forums.
-
Best way to delete account on iStock is to become exclusive with same files across all sites! It will take some time until....
-
Best way to delete account on iStock is to become exclusive with same files across all sites! It will take some time until....
HA...I was going to suggest that but you beat me to it!! :)
-
People deactivating indie content doesn´t matter much, they factored that in.
But there is going to be a new wave of hardcore exclusives leaving. The people who really focus on istock/getty with truly interesting stuff.
istock is being killed off, my tiny ports at fotolia, pond5 and of course SS are way ahead of my income from istock, very sad.
Perhaps 2017 will be the year that dreamstime overtakes them.
Anyway, it is no real surprise, when they announced we can´t deactivate, we all knew that what was coming would be very bad.
-
Just deleted Deep Meta. Won't be needing that. Talk about discouraging. Would deleting my port even work or would they just continue to sell it on all their other sites? :(
-
I guess this is how they are going to pay that 1 billion dollar lawsuit. Well I stopped uploading a while ago because their painful key wording tool was not worth the $0.28 sub sales...now with $0.02 I don't know why someone would even bother with them. I will leave the last 218 photo's just to see how common $0.02 sales are.
-
So are exclusive subscription percentage rates the same as whatever credit rates they are currently on? I think that is what I'm reading?
Does anyone know how many exclusives are left on iStock?
-
So are exclusive subscription percentage rates the same as whatever credit rates they are currently on? I think that is what I'm reading?
Yes, that seems to be correct.
Does anyone know how many exclusives are left on iStock?
I know of at least two (counting myself).
Will the last iStock exclusive please remember to turn off the lights?
-
is Partner Program royalty changes too?
because my biggest earning come from Partner Program
-
And now the b@stards are up to their usual trick of cancelling all my GI sales for last month, chopping off half my revenue - without, of course, correcting the royalties graph, so it looks as if I'm being paid twice as much as I am. This happens so frequently that I'm really starting to have doubts about the legitimacy of their accounting (which I never had before). At a guess, somewhere between a quarter and a half of my Getty EL sales are subsequently cancelled, and they're now starting to scrap $1 ones, too.
Edit - I see I'm not the only one. It now looks as if DT will beat iS and PP and GI combined for September and October. Well done GettyImages! I hope all your debts drive you out of business.
-
this is really sickening!
4 refunds too - so are the buyers returning images, and they waiting to buy at the new rate???
I smell a fish?
-
I also got two refunds.. I stop uploading couple of months ago. I wonder what is the attitude of the biggest contributor of iStock regarding the "positive news".. They will do something about that considering that they have thousands of files there ?
:-\
-
This announcement closely followed by a flurry of refund emails. I hate IStock.
I have just get my first this morning… in 5 years
-
Best way to delete account on iStock is to become exclusive with same files across all sites! It will take some time until....
Ah ah, I will do that!!
-
The idea that this announcement is in any way positive (for anyone other than Getty, although I believe in the long run they're not helping themselves either) is a joke.
Beyond all the comments covered already, I didn't see anyone mention that iStock subscriptions have a rollover ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/plans-and-pricing[/url]), so the idea that payouts will be above the minimums is not realistic. Buyers will generally be using all their downloads.
"*Up to 250 unused downloads can be rolled over month to month for annual subscriptions or any other auto-renewed subscriptions. If you don't auto-renew your subscription, you will lose any unused downloads when your subscription term ends (including accrued rollover downloads, if any)."
The minimum prices per file of 10 cents for indies and 75 cents or $4.15 for exclusives are low. What I keep hearing is that an increasing proportion of sales are subscriptions, so offering the small sweetener to exclusives of including subs downloads in the RC-replacement scheme doesn't amount to much.
There is clearly no good news of any kind for indies. And the point is well taken that the other agencies will certainly claim that they need to cut royalties to stay competitive if iStock just keeps on * (forum zapped what I wrote. t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g, isn't a swear word, but apparently "keeps on t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g" is on the no-no list?) after this nuclear detonation.
I already all but left iStock over the Google-Getty deal in 2013, but if I hadn't, I'd be gone November 25th.
For anyone who thinks Shutterstock's 38 cents for a subscription download is a travesty, what does 2 cents from iStock say (with no chance of that ever going up if you remain an independent)?
Getty clearly wants the freedom to discount subscriptions heavily to try and goose sales. They can't do that with a flat rate royalty (without spending money on the promotions).
Today: buyer pays $149 for Essentials 100 and iStock keeps up to $121 of the cash. December: iStock keeps up to $147 of the cash. Why wouldn't they love this deal?
I guess exclusives will know just how much of a mess they're in once they see their 2017 royalty rates. One detail I didn't think was clear in the e-mail was whether the double count for Signature+ downloads applied if they were subscription downloads or only credit. Quite why Thinkstock and the API downloads were excluded (other than to try and keep exclusive rates down) isn't clear.
I think there's a very real potential for Getty's last ditch effort to revitalize themselves may end up dragging us all down the royalty sinkhole - unless iStock loses a significant amount of indie content as a result of this change
Very well stated Jo Ann
And sorry for the over active langugae filter. I'm pretty sure there is a catch all on that word. l-u-cking would have the same problem. ;)
-
I don't necessarily think other agencies will rush to adopt this approach as they don't have "Exclusives" to safeguard their supply of new work..... and they'll see plenty of people (like myself) deleting their ports at iStock. It would be a massive risk.
-
Today: buyer pays $149 for Essentials 100 and iStock keeps up to $121 of the cash. December: iStock keeps up to $147 of the cash.
But I don't think that can be right, not if they are paying the 15% they talk about. The Essentials subscription would have to be massively discounted for 15% of a sale to equal 2c. You'd have to be getting 100 downloads for a subscription costing $13, and using them all, for 15% commission to come to 2c. I wonder if its a mis-type for 20c in their original e-mail.
-
Today: buyer pays $149 for Essentials 100 and iStock keeps up to $121 of the cash. December: iStock keeps up to $147 of the cash.
But I don't think that can be right, not if they are paying the 15% they talk about. The Essentials subscription would have to be massively discounted for 15% of a sale to equal 2c. You'd have to be getting 100 downloads for a subscription costing $13, and using them all, for 15% commission to come to 2c. I wonder if its a mis-type for 20c in their original e-mail.
Either way 20 cents is still less than the measly 28 cents they currently pay :'( and the lowest I've come across from any agency
Jonathon Klein is not only milking the cow stealing the yoghurt and cream his company is also slicing pieces off the poor animal and draining it's blood too >:(
-
And this is why I will never defend Getty in any situation. They are predatory and completely unethical. If the company goes bankrupt, I doubt many will shed a tear.
-
Refund for me too.......I can only conclude they are trying to encourage Exclusivity by making non Exclusive less attractive. Leaving the morals and fairness issues aside it wont work as I doubt many people see any prospect of making more overall by going exclusive and less customers will go there if contributors "follow through" and remove their content.
-
Deleted. Misread something. I think the yearly subscription for 750 images would leave a non-exclusive around a few cents though. One year for $166.58 a month for 750 images.
-
I also had a load of refunds. My guess is it's not a coincidence. Contacting buyers offering refunds if the buyer takes up a discounted subscription maybe? Maybe with a few months free? That way the client starts paying under the new scheme.
-
Today: buyer pays $149 for Essentials 100 and iStock keeps up to $121 of the cash. December: iStock keeps up to $147 of the cash.
But I don't think that can be right, not if they are paying the 15% they talk about. The Essentials subscription would have to be massively discounted for 15% of a sale to equal 2c. You'd have to be getting 100 downloads for a subscription costing $13, and using them all, for 15% commission to come to 2c. I wonder if its a mis-type for 20c in their original e-mail.
Maybe, you can always rely on I-Stock to bungle these things maybe an even more confusing "clarification" email to follow....meanwhile adobe go from strength to strength. I don't really understand how they derive some of their payments but I do know I'm getting more and more for a respectable amount :-)
-
I think the yearly subscription for 750 images would leave a non-exclusive around a few cents though. One year for $166.58 a month for 750 images.
Just wanted to make sure people were looking at the yearly subscriptions, not just the monthly. I think this is where the minimum of only a few cents is coming from.
-
refunds and no payment for last month!
First they make it impossible to delete images months a go.
Than refunds, no payment and 0.2$ commisions.
Why only ever be victim? Lets fight back.
Suggestions:
1. Flood there support and socialmedia with requests.
2. If possible delete account.
3. Make them invisible by clicking away there adwords advertisement on google (they have to pay for every click and if there budget ends there advertisement is away).
We are many this is our advantage.
Lets give Getty a 24/7 "contributor service" around the planet.
-
refunds and no payment for last month!
First they make it impossible to delete images months a go.
Than refunds, no payment and 0.2$ commisions.
Why only ever be victim? Lets fight back.
Suggestions:
1. Flood there support and socialmedia with requests.
2. If possible delete account.
3. Make them invisible by clicking away there adwords advertisement on google (they have to pay for every click and if there budget ends there advertisement is away).
We are many this is our advantage.
Lets give Getty a 24/7 "contributor service" around the planet.
Haha.... like it. Even if it doesn't stop from showing up, you could rack up a massive advertising bill for them...... more than the money they are saving by skimping on our commission if everyone does this.
-
refunds and no payment for last month!
First they make it impossible to delete images months a go.
Than refunds, no payment and 0.2$ commisions.
Why only ever be victim? Lets fight back.
Suggestions:
1. Flood there support and socialmedia with requests.
2. If possible delete account.
3. Make them invisible by clicking away there adwords advertisement on google (they have to pay for every click and if there budget ends there advertisement is away).
We are many this is our advantage.
Lets give Getty a 24/7 "contributor service" around the planet.
Where is the official Facebook page?
-
I'm also out. >:( It was my best agency I've dealt with. For the past months I've seen a decrease in sales and I was already pretty upset. With the new payment algorithm, I have reached my breaking point.
I hope there are many as us, so we can give them a lesson and in the future to not have the same surprise with other agencies. I am sick and tired of stupid people who think they are well prepared to say how much my work worth. Most of them have no clue how much time you need to create something, but they can very well evaluate others work. The only thing they are doing well is negotiating a very big salary. Then they take bad decision and destroy big businesses (see yahoo :) ). I hope Istock goes really really down.
-
refunds and no payment for last month!
First they make it impossible to delete images months a go.
Than refunds, no payment and 0.2$ commisions.
Why only ever be victim? Lets fight back.
Suggestions:
1. Flood there support and socialmedia with requests.
2. If possible delete account.
3. Make them invisible by clicking away there adwords advertisement on google (they have to pay for every click and if there budget ends there advertisement is away).
We are many this is our advantage.
Lets give Getty a 24/7 "contributor service" around the planet.
Where is the official Facebook page?
Here https://www.facebook.com/istock/?fref=ts (https://www.facebook.com/istock/?fref=ts)
Sad to see no one is really complaining here when they should
And for that matter
Twitter https://twitter.com/iStock?lang=en (https://twitter.com/iStock?lang=en)
-
Oh i see there are some contributor comments on Istock-Facebook page. :o
If you google from germany "stockfoto" than the istpockphoto advertisement appears as second result on top.
If you click at this advertisment istock has to pay for every click to google.
When there budget is empty this advertise will disappear.
If you click this it is important to stay a while on the clicked site or do somthing there (search an image). Because otherwise it is possible that google do not accept this click for payment.
-
These changes and then 7 refunds in a row - that's too much.
In stead of having breakfast this morning and starting to work I manually cancelled more than 100 recent uploads and started deactivating files (170 already and counting).
-
These changes and then 7 refunds in a row - that's too much.
In stead of having breakfast this morning and starting to work I manually cancelled more than 100 recent uploads and started deactivating files (170 already and counting).
You have some great work.
As predicted with them preventing deletions, some people will be brave enough to make a stand and delete content/ shut down portfolios. Most will just stop uploading new content, IStock will become ever less relevant and in more financial difficulty. Buyers will continue to migrate to FL, SS and other sites with stronger collections and better websites.
I bet in a years time they will be sitting around scratching their heads again wondering where it all went wrong. They will conclude that it is all someone else's fault no doubt (google, the internet their competitors) and come up with the solution of cutting royalties to remain competitive.
If my income wasn't involved I would be laughing.
-
These changes and then 7 refunds in a row - that's too much.
In stead of having breakfast this morning and starting to work I manually cancelled more than 100 recent uploads and started deactivating files (170 already and counting).
Also have got 5 refunds after years without even single one.
There must be thousands of refunds reported to all the contributors!
All these sudden refunds reported by Getty are very fishy >:(
Who are all those buyers? And why are all of them decided to cancel all these purchases in one day?
-
No ones talk about that on twitter. Or ... maybe getty have block all the hashtag about that ? mmmm !
I just wish that buyers goes on shutter or fotolia instead.
-
It´s a pity they don´t sell istock to SS or Fotolia. Then the artists would have professional management with longterm vision.
Getty is good at selling macrostock, they should just get out of microstock altogether. That whole social media/internet culture/community thing, they just don´t get it. And all this online transparency...it just isn´t them.
Just focus on macrostock and take in files from partners that are stock houses and distribute. Their own house artist are a permanently unhappy bunch, there are many other places that would take good care of them.
But Getty has great editors and they put together lovely collections with completly different styles and they have an active macrostock sales team.
But all that online thing, just ditch it and stick to what you understand. Sell istock to a competitor who would know how to grow the business.
-
We need to get the message out to the deign community too. Getty treats creatives like s**t. Designers actually care about this!
-
We need to get the message out to the deign community too. Getty treats creatives like s**t. Designers actually care about this!
This is most important!
-
We need to get the message out to the deign community too. Getty treats creatives like s**t. Designers actually care about this!
why not start posting it here on Istock facebook?
https://www.facebook.com/istock (https://www.facebook.com/istock)
-
I plan to leave my existing portfolio at iStock for the timebeing - after all the pain of uploading there it hurts me to delete all that effort. However, I will review the earnings in three months or so. If I begin to see those 2c royalties rolling in then it is without doubt time to leave them for good.
-
" Royalties based on Subscription usage
There also seems to be some confusion related to how your royalties will differ depending on the number of downloads a customer has made against a subscription. We've prepared a few examples to demonstrate how things are going to work. For the purpose of this demonstration, we will use the Essentials 10 Subscription, which has a list price of $40 USD.
Low Utilization (20%)
# of downloads made: 2
PPF: $20 ($40/2 downloads)
Non Exclusive Royalty: $3 ($20*0.15)
Medium Utilization (50%)
# of downloads made: 5
PPF: $8 ($40/5 downloads)
Non Exclusive Royalty: $1.20
Full Utilization (100%)
# of downloads made: 10
PPF: $4 ($40/10 downloads)
Non Exclusive Royalty: $0.60
This examples illustrates your royalty for this subscription can range from 60 cents to $3 based on the number of downloads, and how for this subscription, the minimum royalty is not applied"
Yeh, like I always go to supermarket to buy one milk pack and pay for 10. I do this all the time, 'couse I'm a philantropist, but I don't want people to see it. Or maybe I'm not and I never do it.
I don't see how someone who pays for a big subscription pack, would take only a few of the images. That's why we stay to chase our images on so many illegal sites. This is also a part of the deal that they do not respect it: we create and take 20%, they sell, advertise and PROTECT our work and take 80%. >:(
I am already tired of deactivating images on Istock, but I will do it until my last one. I don't want yet to delete my account, because you never know: maybe they fire the idiot who took this smart decision and I might change my mind.
-
As Jo Anne said, they conveniently completely forgot to highlight that subs roll over, therefore there won't be many subs buyers who don't use up their quota, therefore by far the majority of sales will yield the minimum possible royalty.
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Hahahaha, you have raised a very good point"
You could ask over on their forum, but they have a nasty habit of totally ignoring awkward questions.
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Hahahaha, you have raised a very good point"
You could ask over on their forum, but they have a nasty habit of totally ignoring awkward questions.
Let's be serious. Nobody is paying 133,25 Euro for downloading 750 images / month and actually get only 200. Those who buy such a big pack of images are big agencies or Chinese / Russians who re-sale our work. And they will never download less images.
And even somebody that needs let's say 3 images and pays for 10. He always think what he will be needing in the future and take all 10 images. Let's don't try to fool ourselves :)
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Hahahaha, you have raised a very good point"
You could ask over on their forum, but they have a nasty habit of totally ignoring awkward questions.
Let's be serious. Nobody is paying 133,25 Euro for downloading 750 images / month and actually get only 200. Those who buy such a big pack of images are big agencies or Chinese / Russians who re-sale our work. And they will never download less images.
And even somebody that needs let's say 3 images and pays for 10. He always think what he will be needing in the future and take all 10 images. Let's don't try to fool ourselves :)
It's not an issue anyway as subs roll over.
The point obj-owl was making is that it will take much longer now for us to get our payments, as no doubt iS will wait until all the subs are used up before paying us our minimum. That could be months.
-
Or maybe they'll suddenly start issuing a series of small refunds because they paid us too much the month before. ;)
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Hahahaha, you have raised a very good point"
You could ask over on their forum, but they have a nasty habit of totally ignoring awkward questions.
Let's be serious. Nobody is paying 133,25 Euro for downloading 750 images / month and actually get only 200. Those who buy such a big pack of images are big agencies or Chinese / Russians who re-sale our work. And they will never download less images.
And even somebody that needs let's say 3 images and pays for 10. He always think what he will be needing in the future and take all 10 images. Let's don't try to fool ourselves :)
It's not an issue anyway as subs roll over.
The point obj-owl was making is that it will take much longer now for us to get our payments, as no doubt iS will wait until all the subs are used up before paying us our minimum. That could be months.
That is true, but my question is: will they have what to pay to you? Probably will be at the end of every month. As I can see, no matter what kind of subscription plan do you take, you have to download a number of images during a month - depending on what pack you choose.
Sorry If I do not express myself clearly. I'm not native, as you can assume :)
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Hahahaha, you have raised a very good point"
You could ask over on their forum, but they have a nasty habit of totally ignoring awkward questions.
Let's be serious. Nobody is paying 133,25 Euro for downloading 750 images / month and actually get only 200. Those who buy such a big pack of images are big agencies or Chinese / Russians who re-sale our work. And they will never download less images.
And even somebody that needs let's say 3 images and pays for 10. He always think what he will be needing in the future and take all 10 images. Let's don't try to fool ourselves :)
It's not an issue anyway as subs roll over.
The point obj-owl was making is that it will take much longer now for us to get our payments, as no doubt iS will wait until all the subs are used up before paying us our minimum. That could be months.
Or never? is there a limit to how many times they can roll over images?
I guess now we know the thinking behind the rollover, even though we know through SS that the download limit is enough for most people's usage.
If someone's subscription is ongoing and unused downloads are rolling over from month to month how do they calculate what percentage of a customer's downloads have been used for the purposes of calculating our cut? There seems to be a lot of leeway and opportunity for making sure we get either the minimum possible return or endlessly have to wait to be paid.
-
@Luka: no problems with your language. I couldn't write in any other language.
The point is that as subs at iStock roll over indefinitely, they will have to wait until all the subs are used up before they pay us, which would obviously be the minimum possible.
"Your subscription gives you access to a set number of downloads each month. You can rollover up to 250 unused downloads month to month if you’ve got an annual subscription or a subscription with auto-renew enabled. If auto-renew is disabled when your subscription term ends, you will lose all rollover downloads that you’ve accrued."
-
They need to clarify this right away. If they were any other company one would assume they calculate it on the same day every month based on how many dls were used in preceding one month period, anything else would be unscrupulous in the extreme.
-
I think we must pay Istock $100 every time they sold our images for $0.x etc. Even that plan could not save them from bankrupt since their CEO no idea what she is doing.
By the way, it is funny we discuss their new pricing plan for pages. They simply telling us "go another place" we want to close down Istock and continue only with Getty.
I am sure that in 2018 they will pay $0.001 etc. at most (0.001 because I don't think their talented IT department can handle smaller floating points).
They love free money, they get the huge percentage, and they can't even report the sales correctly (forget about real-time statistics, which is very easy for any programmer team* these days) or build a solid app for contributors, they just don't care.
*Supposing they are using their hand for writing code
(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lztdx7rE5h1qkej80o1_500.jpg)
-
I think we must pay Istock $100 every time they sold our images for $0.x etc. Even that plan could not save them from bankrupt since their CEO no idea what she is doing.
By the way, it is funny we discuss their new pricing plan for pages. They simply telling us "go another place" we want to close down Istock and continue only with Getty.
I am sure that in 2018 they will pay $0.001 etc. at most (0.001 because I don't think their talented IT department can handle smaller floating points).
They love free money, they get the huge percentage, and they can't even report the sales correctly (forget about real-time statistics, which is very easy for any programmer team* these days) or build a solid app for contributors, they just don't care.
*Supposing they are using their hand for writing code
([url]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lztdx7rE5h1qkej80o1_500.jpg[/url])
They have our money like Bank. They have all our money more than one month every month.
Btw excellent picture, it's time to step down from this old cracked plank!
-
If the exclusives will leave istock, there will be another flood of new, awesome images coming into SS ...
So, so many images ....
-
someone at istock forum made this chart:
http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg (http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg)
one problem is because this is for current prices, if they go down we get even lower, and sure, there is that rollover.
-
Or maybe they'll suddenly start issuing a series of small refunds because they paid us too much the month before. ;)
I woke up to see more refunds. I have now over 18 refunds. Never have had that since 2007 with these clowns.
-
It's just me, or for everyone trying to disable their files isn't working anymore? I get Error 505 (Sorry, but we're having trouble processing your request.) ?
-
It's just me, or for everyone trying to disable their files isn't working anymore? I get Error 505 (Sorry, but we're having trouble processing your request.) ?
Would you mind posting the deactivation link?
-
If the exclusives will leave istock, there will be another flood of new, awesome images coming into SS ...
I doubt it. On the contributor side, I am fairly certain that I was a more or less typical gold 'exclusive'. But after a while I just gave up. I no longer felt any incentive and there is no point running to stand still when money is involved. RF Microstock is never going to be relatively lucrative again like it was roughly 2006 - 2011. There certainly wouldn't be much point me uploading my old content to SS - and I suspect it would be the same for most other people.
I would still potentially use microstock as a customer - but I don't think it has adapted to current trends and I find it very difficult to find the sort of content I would want to use at either iS or SS. People with iPhones are often making much more natural looking images today.
-
It's just me, or for everyone trying to disable their files isn't working anymore? I get Error 505 (Sorry, but we're having trouble processing your request.) ?
Would you mind posting the deactivation link?
It's ok. It started again. Thanks anyway. ;)
-
It's just me, or for everyone trying to disable their files isn't working anymore? I get Error 505 (Sorry, but we're having trouble processing your request.) ?
Would you mind posting the deactivation link?
From your 'My Uploads' Page click on an image - not edit.
Got to 'Maintenance'
Click 'Deactivate File'
New page opens to deactivate.
-
It's just me, or for everyone trying to disable their files isn't working anymore? I get Error 505 (Sorry, but we're having trouble processing your request.) ?
Would you mind posting the deactivation link?
From your 'My Uploads' Page click on an image - not edit.
Got to 'Maintenance'
Click 'Deactivate File'
New page opens to deactivate.
Thanks. This is what I was doing. Somehow didn't want to work anymore. Now it is working again, but I have already a few hours since I'm doing this and I think I will take a brake.
-
someone at istock forum made this chart:
[url]http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg[/url] ([url]http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg[/url])
one problem is because this is for current prices, if they go down we get even lower, and sure, there is that rollover.
Heavy discounting will also bring those numbers tumbling down (remember they have no asserts of their own, discounting costs them nothing) if they go chasing market share. That is were the $0.02 safety net comes in. Such a strategy could well effect sales elsewhere, so leaving content for sale at Istock to scrape every cent, or two, out of the business could well be counterproductive.
-
someone at istock forum made this chart:
[url]http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg[/url] ([url]http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg[/url])
one problem is because this is for current prices, if they go down we get even lower, and sure, there is that rollover.
Heavy discounting will also bring those numbers tumbling down (remember they have no asserts of their own, discounting costs them nothing) if they go chasing market share. That is were the $0.02 safety net comes in. Such a strategy could well effect sales elsewhere, so leaving content for sale at Istock to scrape every cent, or two, out of the business could well be counterproductive.
I think this is main reason they have changed the payment schedule. You can bet they will be heavily discounting their sub packages now. I expect this to have the biggest impact on our income, directly by bringing in lots of those 2c downloads driving RPD through the floor and indirectly by taking sales away from the better paying agencies.
ETA of course this means the tables of royalties being put together are potentially wildly optimistic.
-
Too busy at the work now, and also looking forward to some of the smartest on this forum to digest the news and share their prognosis, but a first glance on the example of PPFs given in Getty's email makes me tremble:
Category Minimum PPF Example royalty % Example royalty payment
Non-Exclusive $0.10 15% $0.02
2 cents? What?...
Jumped right off the page, didn't that.
Category Minimum PPF Example royalty % Example royalty payment
Non-Exclusive $0.10 15% $0.02
Doesn't take the smartest to see what this means for non-exclusive.
-
It's just me, or for everyone trying to disable their files isn't working anymore? I get Error 505 (Sorry, but we're having trouble processing your request.) ?
Would you mind posting the deactivation link?
From your 'My Uploads' Page click on an image - not edit.
Got to 'Maintenance'
Click 'Deactivate File'
New page opens to deactivate.
Thank you.
-
I can't imagine why exclusives would submit new material when mostly it'll sell as subs which will mostly earn us a lot less.
And the indie rate is criminal.
I know you are an exclusive, thank you for the frank and honest view of the situation. You are 100% correct. No positive news for anybody.
-
When we deactivating file on istock by click on the site is it gone from partners site ? Or what to do to delete them from partners???
-
On a "Positive" note, noone mentioned that they didn't send the message on a Friday of a long weekend at 5:00 Calgary time. Cocky SOB's
-
I deleted my port down to almost nothing years ago - and my earnings reflect that. At least this new exciting news won't hurt me much.
You could've just posted one of your remaining pictures on IS to describe your attitude to the news: cactus ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/saguaro-cactus-penis-gm147258293-6479484?st=9eb9a99[/url])
Thanks for a good laugh after this ridiculous news. Between our elections and one of the largest photo libraries in the world expecting photographers to earn as little as 2 cents a photo, I am ready to believe anything can happen. You can't make this stuff up. I'm less than $15 from my next payout but may just close my account now anyway. Really disgusted.
-
When we deactivating file on istock by click on the site is it gone from partners site ? Or what to do to delete them from partners???
It's going from partner program, also.
-
Getty's Actions Threaten Creative Livelihoods :) :) :) :) remember this email ?
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Lobo answer that doesn't answer your question.
Originally Posted by: cmcburney Go to Quoted Post
UPDATE: TUESDAY OCT 25 UPDATE: 4:30pm MST
Thank you for your patience, everyone. We know everyone has questions and we hope to be able to address as many of your concerns as possible. We have a few things we'd like provide some clarity on a few of the initial queries that came up:
2017 Royalty Rates
As an Exclusive artist, you will start 2017 at the rate at which you ended 2016. For example, if you are at 30% on December 31, 2016, you will start 2017 at 30%. If you do not achieve a higher rate throughout 2017, your 2018 rate will be determined by the tier you fall into at the end of 2017. No Exclusive contributors will see their royalty rate decrease for 2017. If you are a non-exclusive artist, the flat rate that was applied on November 25th will carry forward to 2017.
Royalties based on Subscription usage
There also seems to be some confusion related to how your royalties will differ depending on the number of downloads a customer has made against a subscription. We've prepared a few examples to demonstrate how things are going to work. For the purpose of this demonstration, we will use the Essentials 10 Subscription, which has a list price of $40 USD.
Low Utilization (20%)
# of downloads made: 2
PPF: $20 ($40/2 downloads)
Non Exclusive Royalty: $3 ($20*0.15)
Medium Utilization (50%)
# of downloads made: 5
PPF: $8 ($40/5 downloads)
Non Exclusive Royalty: $1.20
Full Utilization (100%)
# of downloads made: 10
PPF: $4 ($40/10 downloads)
Non Exclusive Royalty: $0.60
This examples illustrates your royalty for this subscription can range from 60 cents to $3 based on the number of downloads, and how for this subscription, the minimum royalty is not applied
Thank you again for the feedback
We know we haven't answered all your questions. We are working on some responses that we hope to share shortly. We appreciate your patience while we work to provide as much clarity as we can.
-
Last month was so good for me on istock, I earned almost as much as on shutterstock. Everytime I shout WOO-HOO!, something really bad happens next. True story.
-
Lobo answer that doesn't answer your question.
Originally Posted by: cmcburney Go to Quoted Post
...
We know we haven't answered all your questions. We are working on some responses that we hope to share shortly. We appreciate your patience while we work to provide as much clarity as we can.
Isn't it weird that they've never been able to communicate in a way that people can actually understand. Even when RogerMexico (IIRC) was their spindoctor, he'd make announcements, then there would be loads of questions and explanations.
If they'd only really simplify their uber-complicated system and work with the Plain English Society.
But they really, really don't want us to understand how much we're being ripped off, as though we can't read between the lines.
Ironically, even today, they put out a request images to set up and shoot. ::) Just go for it, suckers!
-
So as usual, there is a "Trick" in the details.
Customers can roll over unused downloads, so artist will mostly get the lowest possible payment..and...those payments might be delayed by several months, if the customer needs longer to use up the rollover subs.
Why do they even bother to come up with such a complex system?
Why not drop the offical royalty to 5% and be done with it?
After all the confusion cannot change reality. Artist always compare their results in the real world, so how much you can earn on getty or istock is no secret.
Offset, Stocksy and Adobe will be swamped by artist begging to join their macro collections.
And many people will write their Ph.D.ˋs about the self created destruction of Gettyimages.
-
With a roll over subscription package, calculation of your cut will have to wait until the subs have been used up or expired, so you could be waiting a while before payout, is that the case? Or would a cut off point at the end of each month be used. In which case if only 50% is used one month you are on a winner, but if 150% was use in the second month you lose? Nice to have a simpler, more transparent system.
Lobo answer that doesn't answer your question.
No, to be honest it was a rhetorical question given that they think that they have come up with a simpler system means that they have not asked themselves the difficult questions, not that it is that difficult, well not until they try to put it into practice. With the addition of discounts no one will know what they are being payed for what, but payout at $0.02 per download may be a long time coming and the question will be long forgotten by then.
-
On FB iStock page all "bad" comments about Royalty Change were removed from admin. :-X
-
And many people will write their Ph.D.ˋs about the self created destruction of Gettyimages.
It really depends how you look at it though, doesn't it? It has made a lot of people very wealthy - even whilst sometimes seemingly lurching from crisis to crisis over the past 30 or so years (which is true of almost all agencies - as a result of technology and the ever evolving markets). And it has earned lots of other people very good money - whether as investors or as contributors. Even insignificant plebs like me have done ok out of it.
So it's hardly been a disaster. Granted, today smaller privately owned companies which are closer to their customers and suppliers seem to have the advantage.
Even when RogerMexico (IIRC) was their spindoctor, he'd make announcements, then there would be loads of questions and explanations.
There was never a time when they communicated particularly well or seemed certain where the bus was going. I think that was understandable during the boom years. It was a completely new thing so there wasn't really an obvious route map.
--
It's not just about iStock. There are far too many people supplying stock images (and hoping to still get paid). Today most will struggle to earn back what they 'invest' in equipment. And most could probably earn more per hour at McDonalds.
-
$0.02 does not even cover the usage of a shutter actuation (based on cost of shutter repair when one has to repair a broken shutter which inevitably happens after lots of shutter actuations).
-
"We appreciate your patience while we work to provide as much clarity as we can." What a pity they didn't think of doing this sooner.......I know the minimum 2 c has grabbed the headlines but actually I think no one outside I-stock has any clue how much images will earn and I doubt they know either. But I'm willing to bet it won't be good news.
-
On the contrary I think they know full well how much they'll be paying us per download because they know how many dls the average user uses and how much they plan to discount packages in future.
What they don't know is how much they will profit. That depends on how much they succeed in stealing custom from other agencies with their discounts and how much abuse we are prepared to put up with. I am hoping they are in for a nasty suprise.
-
I think no one outside I-stock has any clue how much images will earn and I doubt they know either. But I'm willing to bet it won't be good news.
We have already moved into an era when the majority of images used as content will earn nothing.
-
On the contrary I think they know full well how much they'll be paying us per download because they know how many dls the average user uses and how much they plan to discount packages in future.
What they don't know is how much they will profit. That depends on how much they succeed in stealing custom from other agencies with their discounts and how much abuse we are prepared to put up with. I am hoping they are in for a nasty suprise.
In a rational world you would think that but this is the I-Stock "universe". I doubt they have much idea what they are doing...I could be wrong of course.
-
How they count in iStocks?
15% of $0.10 is $0.015, not $0.02!!
(Are they so generous?)
-
How they count in iStocks?
15% of $0.10 is $0.015, not $0.02!!
(Are they so generous?)
Yes, that's your safety net they so generously provided. Presumably, because when discounts are factored in less than a cent would not look good.
-
My fingers hurt. Deleting 1.600 files by hand is a pain in the a... I've been with iStock exactly for about 10 years now. Started in november 2006. But now the bow has been overdrawn. Enough is enough. I can only but appeal to all those fellow contributors to withdraw respectively delete their portfolios. If there are no files to sell may be iStock management will come to grips. Yes, it is a sad and memorable day. I am done with them :( Goodbye Getty.
-
Many contributors are probably kidding themselves that the gear they buy is still an investment.
-
I want to delete my port too. Don't want to give those greedy shitheads more profit.
But problem is that they already spread our files via partner sites...
-
I am just waiting for the point where photographers pay THEM a percentage for the privilege of selling their work. This is scraping so close to zero that it is insane. How can anyone produce reasonable work for these rates. They have effectively priced photographers out of the equation.
-
i see i am late to the party, everything has been said already. though not sure who's running that joint but i am the sure the whole istock management staff is suffering from delusions of grandeur,. on the other hand, its quite an achievement to come up with that indecipherable complicated horse manure and twist it into a false positive. would love to be a fly on the wall. probably would see something like this
(https://s3.drafthouse.com/images/made/cuckoos-nest-1_758_426_81_s_c1.jpg)
self-pleasuring egotistical self-absorbed irritating little shits
-
i think this wraps the intention up nicely:
http://www.istockphoto.com/ca/photo/pinching-a-penny-gm182147500-108586?st=_p_squeezing%20the%20last%20cent (http://www.istockphoto.com/ca/photo/pinching-a-penny-gm182147500-108586?st=_p_squeezing%20the%20last%20cent)
-
Just requested deactivation of my profile. Was done in a seconds without any hassles.
Bye-bye greedy dumb heads.
-
Best way to delete account on iStock is to become exclusive with same files across all sites! It will take some time until....
Hahahaha... nice ;D
-
I deactivated large part of my folio before august 20th. Just 194 files left. Today I checked my IS account and I see 251 active files?! Anyone else have same experience?
P.S. I don't drink or using drugs.
-
Just requested deactivation of my profile. Was done in a seconds without any hassles.
Bye-bye greedy dumb heads.
do they make a payout if the amount is not at 100 USD? I will also close my account, now I`m 30$ away from next payout, it would be perfect to close it after payout + 0.02 cents and give those to getty for free
-
For clarity, if there's anyone who cares, there's an update about the rollover subs thing over on their forum.
-
I can't imagine why exclusives would submit new material when mostly it'll sell as subs which will mostly earn us a lot less.
And the indie rate is criminal.
I know you are an exclusive, thank you for the frank and honest view of the situation. You are 100% correct. No positive news for anybody.
I agree. There are no good news for anyone. With these new changes to royalties, there are many possibilities that exclusives will also make even less than now.
Uploading new material to iStock stopped making sense long ago. New material mostly sells as subs and volume of downloads is too low. And now, these new changes will make things even worst for everyone.
-
For clarity, if there's anyone who cares, there's an update about the rollover subs thing over on their forum.
Thanks. I went to see what they said. Bottom line is that there won't be any waiting around for the rollovers to get used up before royalties are calculated and paid.
I understand the approach, but the sheer complexity of calculating both royalties and any refunds means that (a) contributors won't be able to figure out whether or not payments are correct and (b) iStock's long track record of miscalculating royalty amounts better not continue (I gather they've moved to new internals over the last year).
Effectively, the new subscription approach means not only will varying buyer prices vary royalties, but also, the timing of downloads will too, even if a buyer ends up using their entire allowance. A buyer who uses just a small percentage of their allowed downloads for a few months will generate oversize royalties and then when they use up their rollovers at some point, that month will deliver much smaller royalties. To calculate a refund you'll need to be able to backtrack to compute how much because you can't use the current month's rate.
It also means for contributors that you'd much rather get downloads from a given customer on their slack months than on their catch-up months. I guess time will tell if there's any seasonal pattern to the under-over usage.
-
I'm only on one site where they do video subscriptions, and rollovers, Artbeats Express... but I think the way they do it is pretty standard:
They take the total amount of money they have from subscriptions, dividend by two to get their cut and the cut for the contributors. Then they divide that cut between how many files are downloaded and distribute that to each contributor based on their number of sales. So if there's a lot of rollovers from one month to the next, you just get paid more one month and less the next.
But the most important thing is that they know exactly how much money they are getting through the door every month. And I'm assuming you lose your rollover if you don't carry on your subscription, so that's more money for iStock!
However, it's a fixed subscription there... there's no discounts for buying more credits, so that makes things a bit more complicated. But knowing iStock, you probably get paid out on the amount they'd get from the most discounted subscription tier, so any buyers getting smaller subscriptions that allow them less discount... iStock just pocket the extra.
I could be wrong!
-
aah, another great news from getty
-
I deactivated large part of my folio before august 20th. Just 194 files left. Today I checked my IS account and I see 251 active files?! Anyone else have same experience?
P.S. I don't drink or using drugs.
Why bother with deactivation of files (i had plenty of them - thousands), just request deletion of profile, they will do it without any regrets without any pity. They await you and just want to earn money before their dismiss.
ps for now i focus my efforts on ss and fotolia
-
Just requested deactivation of my profile. Was done in a seconds without any hassles.
Bye-bye greedy dumb heads.
do they make a payout if the amount is not at 100 USD? I will also closed my account, now I`m 30$ away from next payout, it would be perfect to close it after payout + 0.02 cents and give those to getty for free
As far as i know official payout quantity is 100$. When i close my account i have more than 100$ so i don't know precisely. But it looks like they can do you a favor:) Considering the fact how lightning fast they suspended my account: simply put, they don't care much. Me either. I am done with this slavery.
-
I deactivated large part of my folio before august 20th. Just 194 files left. Today I checked my IS account and I see 251 active files?! Anyone else have same experience?
P.S. I don't drink or using drugs.
Me either, but this sh*t has me ready to start. .02 for an image sale?!! I haven't uploaded to IS in about 2 years, but I am not gonna accept such low rates. I make 20% of what I used to there now. That's my floor. They may not miss me, but they will have one less Diamond with over 200k sales real soon when this hits the fan. I'm not going to waste time deleting many thousands of files. Just pull up stakes, and move on to protect my income at the better sites.
-
so it wasn't even a typo for 20c which would be bad enough....
:(((((
-
$ 0.02 is nothing but giving us a s**t, I will never support such companies, deactivating my files now.
-
so it wasn't even a typo for 20c which would be bad enough....
:(((((
Not a typo, but a big mistake by Istock. Theoretically, the lowest possible minimum is $0.03 according to the tables I've seen. Setting a safety cap at $0.02 tells us to expect heavy discounting of at least 33% for a long hard twelve months. Seems they want their market share back, but they can only do that with your help and your asserts and they are confident that $0.02 will keep you on board.
-
I never dreamt about being accepted one day to Stocksy as bad as now ;D
-
Istock is my second earner so its difficult to me to make a radical decision, but its enough, i will not upload new content there anymore. In the next months ill concentrate my effords in Ft and Ss (which sadly seems to be dying). As soon as i earn from them what i am earning now from istock i will close my account. Anyway, if any time soon, i see my work sold for 0,02 ill close my account and will not look back.
-
i'm in the same position. Istock sadly is still my main source of income (in microstock of coarse) ...my pictures there are selling good, i will see in the next months this philosophy what will lead to ... is just a little bit crazy to opt out....anyway septeber was one of the worst month ever for both Istock and Ss i should start to consider more "real" works
-
$0.02 does not even cover the usage of a shutter actuation (based on cost of shutter repair when one has to repair a broken shutter which inevitably happens after lots of shutter actuations).
Nice math.....
an average/good camera should resist 250.000 actuations and it costs around 1000$:
it means 0,004$ per actuation. You need to make one photo (that sells at least once) every five actuations just to pay for the camera
-
Istock is my second earner so its difficul to me to make a radical decision, but its enough, i will not upload new content there anymore. In the next months ill concentrate my effords in Ft and Ss (which sadly seems to be dying). As soon as i earn from them what i am earning now from istock i will close my account. Anyway, if any time soon, i see my work sold for 0,02 ill close my account and will not look back.
I was in the same situation. But trust me, if they set new low, they lower it again, it is a matter of time, I predict that it will be in a year or two. Things speed up these days. Changes rushing all around us, I am talking about every aspect of life, not just the plain stocks. I don't regret about what I've done.
-
$0.02 does not even cover the usage of a shutter actuation (based on cost of shutter repair when one has to repair a broken shutter which inevitably happens after lots of shutter actuations).
Nice math.....
an average/good camera should resist 250.000 actuations and it costs around 1000$:
it means 0,004$ per actuation. You need to make one photo (that sells at least once) every five actuations just to pay for the camera
Yes, but recharging your battery will blow your budget ;-)
-
Of course the elephant in the room is that Getty with their free hand to discount and effectively pocket the cash will try and steam roller the competition.
The worst thing that could happen is they suck sales from other better paying agencies and contributors will end up with poor revenues across all sites.
It also doesn't help that Getty's #1 competitor SS is currently making a real mess of things for contributors and has done since May.
-
Of course the elephant in the room is that Getty with their free hand to discount and effectively pocket the cash will try and steam roller the competition.
The worst thing that could happen is they suck sales from other better paying agencies and contributors will end up with poor revenues across all sites.
It also doesn't help that Getty's #1 competitor SS is currently making a real mess of things for contributors and has done since May.
That and the competition could see what IStock is getting away with and cut our rates too. I mean Shutterstock is paying 1900% more than IStock will be for subscription downloads (38c vs 2c). Again anyone who thinks we wont mostly be seeing 2c only needs to look at the history of these people.
If you said this on their forum a moderator would come on to say it is all pointless speculation and we are being crazy. Then six months down the line that or worse will happen. Just like what happened when they said we wouldn't be able to delete files, and look at what that was for. How much worse is this than even the most paranoid of us would have predicted?!
-
Twas the calm before the storm, approximately 3.5 months ago, on July 14th, we all received that disturbing (but not so unexpected) email from Getty which violated our first amendment rights with the following words:
"You will no longer be able to edit your keywords via iStock.com or other third-party applications once submitted. Please ensure that your files are properly prepared and edited prior to uploading them to iStock.com and note that the option to edit keywords after submission will be removed from third-party applications shortly, prior to August 20th. (The functionality for editing keywords may still appear on the file edit page, but it no longer supports updates to iStock.com. In fact, you may have already noticed that keyword updates are not being reflected on the ADP and/or do not surface in search results.)
Starting August 20th (or shortly thereafter), and after Unification, you will need to submit a request to deactivate a file. Please note that we will only consider deactivating files for legal or similar justifiable reasons as it provides a negative experience for customers when files are suddenly unavailable for license."
We all took a deep breath and let it wash over us, something we often do after new changes are announced by Getty that we know, no matter how well Getty window dresses things, will ultimately result in decreasing our incomes exponentially even further.
Then, a couple days later, after the latest news sinks in, we often think about what we are going to do. At that time, the first thing many of us did prior to August 20th was to deactivate a number of key files before it was too late. Then we wrote pages and pages on this forum about our further speculations of what next self destruct bomb Getty will be dropping upon us come September 1st.
We waited, we watched, and it almost looked like Getty was going to resist hesitation to cut all our royalties to a flat 15% as the entire first month of the high selling season for stock imagery (September) passed by without as much as a peep from the Grim Getty Reaper. I was even expecting to see a thread appear entitled "It Looks Like We Finally Made It" through 1 full year without Getty completely ransacking our incomes again.
But then, here we are now. It was all too good to be true. The bomb did drop and the news is even worse than we ever could have imagined. How could we be so naive to even think for a second that nothing would happen? And, in true Getty form, it has sparked a thread on this site in a matter of just 2 days that already has over 200 posts and continues. In many ways, just simply and exactly what we expected but had hoped wasn't going to happen, just for once.
The worst part in it all is that there is no longer any room for humor, optimism, or any talk of the "glass still being half full" in any way. The bottom line is we will all now end up earning less than the price of a single square of toilet paper on image downloads.
It even seemed unimaginable (from my already jaded perspective) that it would ever reach a point of capitulation like this. Especially after it appeared that Getty was, for once, standing up for our rights as creators with their email on September 27th entitled "Google’s Actions Threaten Creative Livelihoods - Take Action: We Need Your Voice".
But now I sit here, like many of you who have hung in with iStock this far, through all the pay cuts and other changes over the last 6 years designed to reduce our incomes, exploit our intellectual property rights, and basically destroy our enthusiasms, almost not believing what has just happened.
Many of us were able to even continue these last few years to quietly produce and upload content that was low cost to create, in denial thinking maybe we could even defy gravity a bit in some way, against our better judgment of course, until finally reaching the point we are now where Getty simply has adamantly decided "We are going to pay you nothing anymore for your work".
This finally is and will be the straw that broke the camel's back only because none of us here are in need of just "new lens cap money" and are going to be able to shoulder this latest convoluted tear down. So it is no longer a matter of feeling slighted or taken advantage of, it is simply game over.
The business model no longer works anymore for creators. It is finally time to leave and accept that there is nothing else we can do to try and swim upstream by simply living with the latest changes in one form or another and following the old tried and proven "shoot, upload, repeat" mantra.
It's been nice knowing you iStock, but bon voyage Getty and, despite all my pessimism and cynicism over the years about the way they do things, I must admit this time they have completely outdone themselves and even my own darkest imagination.
I would have never thunked, despite their greed and unethical practices over the years, that they would have ever tried pulling something as devious as this. But then again, most megalomaniac dictators were never able to foresee or envision the downfalls of their own regimes and empires until they themselves were finally swinging from a noose, taking in their last breaths, and realizing "yes it's really over", just before the screen goes black.
-
Great post.
Notice that no one is trying to organise a "deactivation day" or similar over this one.
People are just looking at what's happened and thinking by themselves "of course, that's the end of IStock" and deleting their work.
The writing on the wall has gotten so big you don't need anyone to point it out anymore.
-
Great post.
Notice that no one is trying to organise a "deactivation day" or similar over this one.
People are just looking at what's happened and thinking by themselves "of course, that's the end of IStock" and deleting their work.
The writing on the wall has gotten so big you don't need anyone to point it out anymore.
Agreed, it become crystall clear that it is a dead end.
-
I don't get why people are still contributing to microstock at all at the moment. The only thing which is growing is the total number of images. And that means, inevitably, that the prices are only going down. Ever closer to zero. The size of the market was vastly over-estimated. That boom era is never coming back. Is everyone just hoping that everyone else will give up first? Otherwise it seems like a rather costly hobby.
And if you are really into pictures as a hobby then why not give up taking pictures which you think might sell and start taking pictures you like or which interest you instead? That's the thing about the best of the stuff in the non-microstock and more bespoke collections like Stocksy - that, at best, the pictures seem much more real. They seem like pictures made by people who love pictures.
-
I contribute to microstock and my income grows. Not like in the easy years, but it makes money.
getty has decided to kill off istock, instead of wasting everyones time with a new rc system more confusing than the last, they should just give us all a flat 5% and be done with it.
Nobody is going to invest in shooting for them, all attention will be on the other sites that are growing. Nobody is going to organize a boycott, because they are not important enough.
I will leave what I have there out of nostalgia, all my attention is elsewhere.
It's over.
-
Of course the elephant in the room is that Getty with their free hand to discount and effectively pocket the cash will try and steam roller the competition.
The worst thing that could happen is they suck sales from other better paying agencies and contributors will end up with poor revenues across all sites.
It also doesn't help that Getty's #1 competitor SS is currently making a real mess of things for contributors and has done since May.
Yes but their mistake is they are just not that significant anymore they act as if they have a monopoly but in reality they are not in the top division anymore.
-
Nobody is going to invest in shooting for them, all attention will be on the other sites that are growing.
None of the microstock sites are ever again going to be a good investment for individual contributing photographers (vs, for example, a minimum wage job).
The microstock sites depend today upon the legacy collections and upon new hobbyists coming in at the bottom of the pyramid - probably believing that their initial growth (from no sales to a few sales) is a trend they can track.
-
Nobody is going to invest in shooting for them, all attention will be on the other sites that are growing.
None of the microstock sites are ever again going to be a good investment for individual contributing photographers (vs, for example, a minimum wage job).
The microstock sites depend today upon the legacy collections and upon new hobbyists coming in at the bottom of the pyramid - probably believing that their initial growth (from no sales to a few sales) is a trend they can track.
Honestly I don't want the thread to derail with an argument but it's pointless you posting over and over again that it isn't IStock's fault and the industry is on its knees.
I get that you couldn't make it work for you, and that isn't necessarily because of the quality of your work, but some people are doing just fine with this still.
My income is still increasing year on year. My returns from most sites per download have increased not decreased. The industry is doing just fine for those who know how to make it work for them.
Were you an exclusive at IStock? IStock has been going down the toilet for years, so I guess that could explain your pessimism. Those of us who have been putting all our eggs in all the baskets for the last decade can see the bigger picture.
-
getty is also going to lose macrostock. offset, adobe, stocksy.. that is the future of macro.
And SS is attacking them with editorials, if Adobe also invests in that, what do they have left?
-
My income is still increasing year on year. My returns from most sites per download have increased not decreased
If your profit is not growing proportionate to the total size of your collection then you are running to stand still. Most microstockers are struggling to keep up. Well done if you have been in this for more than a few years and are ahead of the trend - when you take into account your hourly rate vs minimum wage and the cost of your investment.
Traditionally, photographers' back catalogues also represented a passive income, an investment. That is less and less the case for microstockers.
I guess that could explain your pessimism
I'm not pessimistic. I think that constant change is a fantastic thing. And I really admire the direction taken by sites such as Stocksy - both the work which they represent and the seemingly more sustainable and positive approach to the changing market. I also very much admire much of the work which Getty represents.
-
"If your profit is not growing proportionate to the total size of your collection then you are running to stand still." Not really you are running to go more slowly uphill..rather like SS themselves. As you allude to what matters is if you can turn a profit that makes it worth it for you for the hours and expense you put in. What is also a factor is how long the "tail" is if you stop uploading completely...I suspect it is much shorter than people anticipated but never the less there is a period of true "passive income" if you do stop.
-
My guess is that your work is of a quality and production value that is unsuited to microstock. Perhaps you started out when returns were much higher and could justify the outlay. Work like that shouldn't be on the micros as it requires a higher return per download to justify producing it.
I started around ten years ago and my workflow is optimised for micro. I was never on the trad sites. I can see why to someone who is used to selling licensed for hundreds or thousands of dollars it looks like there is little difference between 2c and 38c per download. The difference for someone running a business as a microstock contributor it is actually beyond vast. I believe the people running IStock now are suffering from the same delusion, being used to licensing images for many hundreds of dollars and not having the faintest idea of the difference between a 2c and 38c sub return on our bottom lines.
-
getty is also going to lose macrostock. offset, adobe, stocksy.. that is the future of macro.
And SS is attacking them with editorials, if Adobe also invests in that, what do they have left?
Macro will appear soon in Adobe. Maybe in the next year. They have the basis from the Infinity collection.
-
And adobe also allows exclusive images for higher returns. They have very interesting options.
-
Macro run today in adobe in the in infinite collection. They pay 40% and this is good.
-
Can we apply directly to join Adobe infinite?
ETA: Love your tagline!!
"Bad images can sell."
-
Context; I sold in excess of one million licenses and make a six figure profit every year
That's excellent and I am very impressed. Your work is obviously very good. My own contribution to microstock was certainly lousy and insignificant by comparison. (Would it be rude to ask how many you are currently selling per year ? I am guessing that it must be in excess of 200,000. Would that be about right?)
Based on these numbers, I totally get your point about the difference between 0.38c and 0.02c. It certainly puts things in perspective.
But FWIW - I believe that you would be very much the exception. The majority of people still supporting the microstock model or joining today will be hobbyists and beginners who will struggle to make back their costs.
-
Hobbyists buy their equipment for hobby purposes, so basicaly they dont have to get "their costs back". Every $ they earn is basically plus form them, since they didn't buy equipment for selling photos but for themselves.
-
Context; I sold in excess of one million licenses and make a six figure profit every year
That's excellent and I am very impressed. Your work is obviously very good. My own contribution to microstock was certainly lousy and insignificant by comparison. (Would it be rude to ask how many you are currently selling per year ? I am guessing that it must be in excess of 200,000. Would that be about right?)
Based on these numbers, I totally get your point about the difference between 0.38c and 0.02c. It certainly puts things in perspective.
But FWIW - I believe that you would be very much the exception. The majority of people still supporting the microstock model or joining today will be hobbyists and beginners who will struggle to make back their costs.
200,000 is approximately right (withing 10%), probably just below. My ramping up of download numbers hasn't been a straight line from 2006 till today. 2010 to 2013 saw a much steeper growth as I got my workflow down.
It's the same in any industry, it's a bell curve and I am more to the right than most. IStock's new payment structure is unsustainable for anyone.
ETA, and thanks for the compliment but my work isn't that great. Technically sound but otherwise mediocre. I am capable of producing very high quality work, but it wouldn't be worth uploading to the micros. I used to produce high quality work for fun but frankly now I work in the same field I don't get the same pleasure from it. I do this to support my family, not for the fun of it. I plan to take up the more arty side of things again when I retire.
-
Can we apply directly to join Adobe infinite?
ETA: Love your tagline!!
"Bad images can sell."
As far as i know is possible for Emerald or upper ranked contributors.
-
Hobbyists buy their equipment for hobby purposes, so basicaly they dont have to get "their costs back". Every $ they earn is basically plus form them, since they didn't buy equipment for selling photos but for themselves.
Exactly. And therefore I doubt they will care that much. Many would probably carry on contributing even for badges and likes. And it will probably come to that.
-
As an Exclusive, The Corporation still makes enough to pay our large mortgage and go on shooting trips. I still upload everyday. I listen to what Istock asks for and try to shoot it. I never waivered from Exclusivity in 10 years and hope this change will keep earning status quo or go up. I never hired a model, I don't have a fancy studio.
I do feel bad for non exclusives but I was getting a little annoyed at the better placement of files when Exclusive only earn their money from Getty. They are finally realizing how important Exclusive contributors really are and are giving non exclusive the chance to become exclusive with the new sub system being counted as downloads. The downloads may be .o2, (at worst) but it counts as a download toward exclusivity. In the chart to the right Istock exclusive earnings at 154.7 still blows all other agencies away. If I were you, and I'm not, I wouldn't be doing this mass exodus but rethinking how to become exclusive and becoming part of that 154.7 number. The other agencies will follow shortly behind, it's all business. SS started the standard with their sub style .38 sales and IS had to follow them and we became very successful with subs. if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS. Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
-
My income is still increasing year on year. My returns from most sites per download have increased not decreased. The industry is doing just fine for those who know how to make it work for them.
I'm an iStock exclusive, I realize you are not. Are your sales and/or income on iStock also increasing year on year, or are you saying your income is increasing year on year from all sites combined. I can't see how anyone who has been around for a while can increase income at iStock year on year. I've increased my upload and I still make less.
-
As an Exclusive, The Corporation still makes enough to pay our large mortgage and go on shooting trips. I still upload everyday. I listen to what I stock asks for and try to shoot it. I never waivered from Exclusivity in 10 years and hope this change will keep earning status quo or go up. I never hired a model, I don't have a fancy studio.
I do feel bad for non exclusives but I was getting a little annoyed at the better placement of files when Exclusive only earn their money from Getty. They are finally realizing how important Exclusive contributors really are and are giving non exclusive the chance to become exclusive with the new sub system being counted as downloads. The downloads may be .o2, (at worst) but it counts as a download toward exclusivity. In the chart to the right Istock exclusive earnings at 154.7 still blows all other agencies away. I were you, and I'm not, I wouldn't be doing this mass exodus but rethinking how to become exclusive and becoming part of that 154.7 number. The other agencies will follow shortly behind, it's all business. SS started the standard with their sub style .38 sales and IS had to follow them and we became very successful with subs. if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS. Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
Your maths is way off. As a non exclusive you need to add up all the numbers from the other agencies and compare to the IStock exclusive number.
Also bear in mind that there is a minimum hurdle to become exclusive. The numbers for an independent who can become exclusive with IStock will on average be significantly higher for the other agencies than those shown in the chart, as these also include those who have not yet passed that hurdle.
I am sorry if you are in too deep with IStock to cut the cord, but don't kid yourself. They are only heading one way.
-
My income is still increasing year on year. My returns from most sites per download have increased not decreased. The industry is doing just fine for those who know how to make it work for them.
I'm an iStock exclusive, I realize you are not. Are your sales and/or income on iStock also increasing year on year, or are you saying your income is increasing year on year from all sites combined. I can't see how anyone who has been around for a while can increase income at iStock year on year. I've increased my upload and I still make less.
No I am saying IStock is the only major agency where income has steadily declined. I believe my words were "going down the toilet for years"
ETA and they are also one of the only agencies consistently cutting commissions, a clear act of desperation leading to death spiral
-
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
Lol.
-
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
Lol.
I know. I think some people just don't have a breaking point I guess?
-
Nice math.....
an average/good camera should resist 250.000 actuations and it costs around 1000$:
it means 0,004$ per actuation. You need to make one photo (that sells at least once) every five actuations just to pay for the camera
My last camera's shutter broke after about 150,000 actuations.
-
Whilst I'm sure some established people do nicely with exclusivity I can't help thinking anyone opting in at this point is either crazy or has a port ideally suited to I Stock. Riding the back of the death spiral?
-
...we became very successful with subs. ...and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS.
No you're not. You're not "successful" and you're not pulling from SS. My sub sales certainly haven't moved from SS to iS—all that's happened is that credit sales at iS have become sub sales, eroding my income. 2¢ will erode it even faster.
...if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing...
So an average Saturday for me at SS, for years now.
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
I looked, but they don't have an emoticon for how hard I'm laughing.
Is that what iS is hoping? That if they offer less than ever they'll entice indies into going exclusive? The arrogance is breathtaking.
-
I don't get why people are still contributing to microstock at all at the moment. The only thing which is growing is the total number of images. And that means, inevitably, that the prices are only going down. Ever closer to zero. The size of the market was vastly over-estimated. That boom era is never coming back. Is everyone just hoping that everyone else will give up first? Otherwise it seems like a rather costly hobby.
And if you are really into pictures as a hobby then why not give up taking pictures which you think might sell and start taking pictures you like or which interest you instead? That's the thing about the best of the stuff in the non-microstock and more bespoke collections like Stocksy - that, at best, the pictures seem much more real. They seem like pictures made by people who love pictures.
Some of us are desperate for the income. We are very creative and are in saturated creative markets. Times are rough and the global economy is good for many, but not for all. Sadly I am in that boat. :'(
-
...we became very successful with subs. ...and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS.
No you're not. You're not "successful" and you're not pulling from SS. My sub sales certainly haven't moved from SS to iS—all that's happened is that credit sales at iS have become sub sales, eroding my income. 2¢ will erode it even faster.
...if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing...
So an average Saturday for me at SS, for years now.
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
I looked, but they don't have an emoticon for how hard I'm laughing.
Is that what iS is hoping? That if they offer less than ever they'll entice indies into going exclusive? The arrogance is breathtaking.
It really seems to burn you up that some people actually do well at IS/Getty.
The arrogance truly is breathtaking.
-
Jodie, I am glad it is working for you, but in the current market to be non exclusive is a no brainer.
You can work the whole macro world, including gettyimages if you want to, you can supply exclusive images to niche collections (stockfood) and you can supply all the micros with generic content.
You can process your files in many different styles and thus revive older content by giving it a new look.
And you can find a home for all your files, because the bestsellers on all agencies are completly different.
Finally - you can sleep peacefully every night, because even if one of the agencies messes up something (they all do at some point), it will be balanced by another one that is doing better than expected in that month.
Nobody who invests in their production and does stock for a living, will pull their ports and go artist exclusive for the complicated and unpredictable mess that is their new RC plan.
I hope you continue to do well, but 2017 will likely see another exodus of hard core exclusives.
With Adobe and SS on the rise, they can´t afford to stay at the ever shrinking agency.
-
I am sorry but Jodi didn't say she was doing well, she said she is "still makes enough to pay our large mortgage and go on shooting trips".
To me that very clearly sounds like she is doing worse than she did (and not well enough to pay her mortgage plus the rest of her living expenses) but is caught up in the closed thinking that has been discussed already.
As a long term IStock exclusive she is looking at the whole industry based on her experience with the old market leader that is quickly on its way out. She seems to be trying to convince herself that even given her decreasing returns she is still better off where she is because things must surely be in the same downward spiral everywhere.
Well they aren't. Sorry.
ET just correct a typo ("must" not "much")
-
...we became very successful with subs. ...and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS.
No you're not. You're not "successful" and you're not pulling from SS. My sub sales certainly haven't moved from SS to iS—all that's happened is that credit sales at iS have become sub sales, eroding my income. 2¢ will erode it even faster.
...if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing...
So an average Saturday for me at SS, for years now.
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
I looked, but they don't have an emoticon for how hard I'm laughing.
Is that what iS is hoping? That if they offer less than ever they'll entice indies into going exclusive? The arrogance is breathtaking.
It really seems to burn you up that some people actually do well at IS/Getty.
The arrogance truly is breathtaking.
Couldn't think of anything original to say?
-
With Adobe and SS on the rise, they can´t afford to stay at the ever shrinking agency.
I will be very surprised if they don't end up squeezing at both ends too. It's an inherent problem with companies which have to please investors and stock holders who expect continual growth.
-
I would agree, except the two sites that are squeezing the worst are still privately owned, DP and IStock
ETA. I think more because it is so counter productive, as proved by two above, than because of of any loving feelings for the contributor
-
I was exclusive at iStock for almost 10 years in photo and video! This year my video income kept going down no matter how hard I worked or what I loaded. I finally got the courage to drop it and I have never been happier! I know being exclusive works for some and that is fine but not for me that is for sure. I am not loading new content to iStock anymore and promote other sites from my own website that treat me fair. The video team at Getty/iStock is great and helpful! the management is another story! Don't forget even as an exclusive they can change your earnings every year by moving the target. RC is not gone and now it will be even easier to move the target. I don't get yanked around by $1 video sales and 0.2 image sales at other places! I don't love SS pricing but at least they stay consistent. Adobe is the dark horse in this race and they are the one to watch! If you go to AdobeStock now and sign in with your cloud ID you can click on an image and bam it will be in photoshop for you. You then can play around with it and with one click the watermark will go away. Their market share and integration is what everyone is afraid of. Getty is small compared to Adobe.
-
"The other agencies will follow shortly behind" and there's the fundamental problem with the I-stock mindset....no agency would follow them anymore........they are not leaders in the market.
-
$0.28 to $0.02 is 14X. I've just started and it takes me months to reach $50. Now it's 14X longer to reach $100 at which I can leave and get my money. Wow.
$50 is not very much but it hurts to know how easy they can snatch it from me legally. :'(
-
Dear colleagues,
I suggest to combine our forces to prevent the offensive price policy of Getty Images. Many of Russian speaking community have already deleted their portfolios from iStock either deactivated works. However it hardly can effect Getty Images to worry. Recent suggestion is to make some kind of request, petition, site with aim to effect iStock for setting of fair minimum payment for 1 illustration.
To make this we need an initiative team that will represent our interests. We need legal consulting and information on fair royalty rate within US law, public organizations that can attract attention to our issue, unions of designers, freelancer etc.
Thank you so much,
Also you can follow discussion on http://www.microstock.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=53&page=1452 (http://www.microstock.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=53&page=1452)
-
I can't left iStock for a while
I will do ASAP, but the fact is that they make a mistake, paying to me a quite important amount of money in advance. To delete my portfolio I have to wait to sell enough to delete the minus sign on the amount.
The problem is that I'm not uploading since last year, and I see a regular decreasing in sold images, day by day. From now, with my 2 cents (per picture), I will wait for a long time before be released from this prison. :o
-
So glad i deleted my account there once they made that news a couple of months ago about not able to delete your images.
-
http://press.gettyimages.com/getty-images-appoints-dawn-airey-as-chief-executive-officer/ (http://press.gettyimages.com/getty-images-appoints-dawn-airey-as-chief-executive-officer/)
Thank both of them.....laughing all the way to the bank.......He is for sure one of the worst offenders to photographers of all genres from stock to photojournalism. Never had such a single man hurt so much photography. He is not the only one to blame.......all of us that have nourished his megalomany and photographer explotation are responsible ....myself included.
I just remember now his words when he finally dismembered Corbis "“Lovely to get the milk, the cream, cheese, yoghurt and the meat without buying the cow,” what to be expected from such a sad man.....
I remain optimist do....bigger empires have fallen......
-
$0.28 to $0.02 is 14X. I've just started and it takes me months to reach $50. Now it's 14X longer to reach $100 at which I can leave and get my money. Wow.
$50 is not very much but it hurts to know how easy they can snatch it from me legally. :'(
If you leave by contacting them rather than simply deactivating your images, you will get the money in your account, even if it is under $100. You could even get little bumps sometime later which would be the late subs/PP payment. Be aware that your files may still be on partner sites for 90 days per the ASA.
-
...we became very successful with subs. ...and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS.
No you're not. You're not "successful" and you're not pulling from SS. My sub sales certainly haven't moved from SS to iS—all that's happened is that credit sales at iS have become sub sales, eroding my income. 2¢ will erode it even faster.
...if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing...
So an average Saturday for me at SS, for years now.
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
I looked, but they don't have an emoticon for how hard I'm laughing.
Is that what iS is hoping? That if they offer less than ever they'll entice indies into going exclusive? The arrogance is breathtaking.
1.Successful is subjective
2.my sub sals are .75 to 2.50. Not .38
3. I still have good regular sales and ELs
I have PP sales and I have 3000 images on Getty.
I am also bedridden most of the time from an autoimmune disease and an accident in 2007 so my shoots can only last about 10-20 minutes at most. I consider myself very SUCCESSFUL
4. I work for the Corporation on Istock that I don't own, I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files. So I am not in so deep. I just never wanted to upload anywhere else. Istock/Getty is enough money for me at this time.
5.I do have a breaking point but nothing but my health is broken for me right now.
-
I don't get why people are still contributing to microstock at all at the moment. The only thing which is growing is the total number of images. And that means, inevitably, that the prices are only going down. Ever closer to zero. The size of the market was vastly over-estimated. That boom era is never coming back. Is everyone just hoping that everyone else will give up first? Otherwise it seems like a rather costly hobby.
And if you are really into pictures as a hobby then why not give up taking pictures which you think might sell and start taking pictures you like or which interest you instead? That's the thing about the best of the stuff in the non-microstock and more bespoke collections like Stocksy - that, at best, the pictures seem much more real. They seem like pictures made by people who love pictures.
I'd agree but stocksy has no interest in what I like to shoot.
Yes it is a costly hobby or a way to make something back from my already costly hobby. The boom is gone five years, some people just have been in the dark denial so long they can't accept the fact. Also agree prices are only going down with more photos from more and demand not growing. You are right, there is not going to be a come back in any circumstance.
All we can watch for is when there will finally be a bottom to the fall and when income will go flat at what rate? That is the future of Microstock. The market is in freefall right now.
-
...we became very successful with subs. ...and our program isn't that old so we are pulling from SS.
No you're not. You're not "successful" and you're not pulling from SS. My sub sales certainly haven't moved from SS to iS—all that's happened is that credit sales at iS have become sub sales, eroding my income. 2¢ will erode it even faster.
...if you wanted to know where your sub sales are going. In any given day, I could have 30 to 100 sub sales and growing...
So an average Saturday for me at SS, for years now.
Instead of pulling your ports, think about becoming exclusive and do the opposite of what you are doing, ignoring your port.
I looked, but they don't have an emoticon for how hard I'm laughing.
Is that what iS is hoping? That if they offer less than ever they'll entice indies into going exclusive? The arrogance is breathtaking.
1.Successful is subjective
2.my sub sals are .75 to 2.50. Not .38
3. I still have good regular sales and ELs
I have PP sales and I have 3000 images on Getty.
I am also bedridden most of the time from an autoimmune disease and an accident in 2007 so my shoots can only last about 10-20 minutes at most. I consider myself very SUCCESSFUL
4. I work for the Corporation on Istock that I don't own, I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files. So I am not in so deep. I just never wanted to upload anywhere else. Istock/Getty is enough money for me at this time.
5.I do have a breaking point but nothing but my health is broken for me right now.
When you said "we" in your OP you were referring to "iStock," and I answered you the same way...so "you" in my answer refers to "iStock," not to Jodi.
So if you feel you're successful, great...but iStock becomes less successful every day, and I see no evidence of them taking any market share from anyone.
From your POV 30 subs a day is a lot, because you're new to subs...but to me and many others it truly is an average Saturday, the worst sales day of the week (and that's just on SS....I also get subs from other sites, including iS). I get hardly any higher sales on iS, but lots on SS and FT/Adobe.
I just can't believe iStock believes that screwing indies over would somehow entice them to go exclusive.
It reminds me of the time I proudly told my boss about a freelancer of mine who was doing a great job. When I was out to lunch he called the freelancer in and excitedly told him he'd like to offer him LESS money in exchange for steady work. Of course, the freelancer said no, and why on earth would he want to lock himself in to a lower rate for months on end when he could get more elsewhere?
He'd been happily doing amazing work for me for months, thinking his pay was fine, but he was so insulted by this lowball offer he started looking for work elsewhere and was gone in a week, making more money....never to return.
I was amazed at my boss's upside-down thought process then, and it still amazes me that people think offering someone LESS will get them to stay.
Edited to add: And it irritates me that you're one of the "special few" who get the perks of exclusivity at iStock while also selling work elsewhere. Let me know if I can have that deal.
-
... I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files.
Does that apply to all iS exclusives, or was it a special deal they were prepared to offer you?
-
my sub sals are .75 to 2.50. Not .38
Well, get ready for much less than $0.75
If you are at 40% and a customer gets a 1 year $319/month package (750 Signature/month) and downloads more than 170 files, you'll make less than your current $0.75. And to make $2.50, no more than 51 files should be downloaded from that package.
In many of the packages, the maximum number of downloads that will allow exclusives to keep at least current earnings will have to be really low.
-
... I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files.
Does that apply to all iS exclusives, or was it a special deal they were prepared to offer you?
I too would like to know this! Very curious.
-
I don't sell work elsewhere and never ever did under my name or any other. That is the point I was making. According to legal when I called three years ago when the corporation was set up, If a contributer isn't a main part of the corporation they can sell their work elsewhere. I could have misunderstood what I heard so don't quote me, call and ask for yourself. I don't have a problem because I and all my pictures are exclusively on Istock and Getty and wherever they put them. I never had the need or urge to upload anywhere else. I don't get any special treatment. I never even got a picture of the week! I'm hoping this new deal will be special treatment for exclusives. My special treatment is a lot of hard work, a lot of hours on this computer sorting, editing, sending files to the keyworders and not having much of a life outside of stock photography. And 30 subs is my worst day, I didn't want to give my real highest figures in this forum. It really is nobody's business. This crowd is tough...What happened to the world where people were happy for other people's successes?
-
... I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files.
Does that apply to all iS exclusives, or was it a special deal they were prepared to offer you?
I too would like to know this! Very curious.
Their policy for exclusives has always been they own your soul for RF. You can have a different RM portfolio elsewhere. But who knows maybe things have changed.
-
Whoa! People still do cheerleading for agencies? I thought that died out. I feel like I just saw a unicorn. ;)
-
... I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files.
Does that apply to all iS exclusives, or was it a special deal they were prepared to offer you?
I too would like to know this! Very curious.
Their policy for exclusives has always been they own your soul for RF. You can have a different RM portfolio elsewhere. But who knows maybe things have changed.
I believe it has something to do with the way the corporation is set up. Not a single exclusive contributor. It is easy to find out. Just call or write to legal and get an answer in writing. I don't have a problem with it because I am totally exclusive. I do have a problem with you Shelma being "irritated" when I clearly stated I never uploaded anywhere else. Evidently you have a reading problem mistaking my hard work for special treatment.
-
If a contributer isn't a main part of the corporation they can sell their work elsewhere. I could have misunderstood what I heard so don't quote me, call and ask for yourself.
I don't bite the hand that feeds me, so I'm not incline to ask iStock myself. Though I do hope someone else here who have less at stake would be willing to ask iStock.
Though my guess from reading what you wrote, the logic might be something like this... the exclusive contract is between iStock and whomever the copyright holder is. The copyright holder can be an individual person, or it can be a corporation. So your statement reads like if there were a corporation with several shooters, then under that scenario, none of them are a main part of the corporation. Or it could actually be spelt out in the ownership structure of the corporation, say one of those people own 80%, then the rest of them would own little or none. Then those who own little to none, maybe able to profit from the exclusive contract from the corporation and be able to sell as independent person on all other stock sties, provided the content don't appear to be the same. Anyway that's my wild uneducated guess.
Which leads me back to memory of the account named 'globalstock' (http://www.istockphoto.com/portfolio/globalstock (http://www.istockphoto.com/portfolio/globalstock)) on iStock. My vague memory was that this account was created some years ago to house 2 or more existing exclusive stock photographer's work. All of whom had AMAZING photography skills. My vague memory is that at the same time, they still kept their original individual accounts at iStock and also kept files there too. I never did understand why they created a new account to merge some of their own content. Maybe to meet the RC target? OR maybe everything I wrote in this paragraph is complete nonsense, and I don't actually know what I'm talking about, which is possible. *confused face*
Doesn't Yuri have 2 (or more) accounts at iStock? I don't understand why he has more than 1. Other than to get around upload limits maybe? Just guessing.
-
Jodie, your loyalty is admirable, especially after all that Getty did to istock and us. istock changed my life and I have lots of good memories.
But after the getty/microsoft and getty/google deal and the way they treated Sean and others, there really wasn´t much I could have done.
I simply had to accept that the company I loved and felt at home with no longer existed.
In your situation, with all the serious health issues, staying exclusive might indeed be the best solution.
But the fact remains that Getty is a struggling company, with very bad top level management, they are horribly in debt and their IT skills are lousy. There is a reason SS has over 300 people just working on the tech side of their company.
Since the Getty market share has been falling for years, and with the visible success of Adobe and SS, I really don´t see how istock can ever grow again.
As an exclusive your files are favored, so you are not as affected by their fall.
But those that supply all sites, we all know how istock is falling behind. And the overall earnings from both macro, micro and exclusive content are much higher than being istock exclusive.
However it is very hard work and does take time to regain your income. Some people can do it in 6 months, some, in video, like jeff immediately make more money. For others it will be 2 years.
But overall being indie is an excellent experience, all your files can be used and find a home.
You can also more easily get files onto Getty if that is important to you, just supply one of their distribution partners, or several and suddenly, you have easy access to macrostock. All macrostock, not just Getty. Macro is a huge world.
So istock is working for you, fine. But there is very little chance that anyone who invests in shooting will forego Adobe or Shutterstock and all the other sites, including stocksy, to live at the mercy of their new yearly targets and unpredictable changes.
-
My special treatment is a lot of hard work, a lot of hours on this computer sorting, editing, sending files to the keyworders and not having much of a life outside of stock photography. And 30 subs is my worst day, I didn't want to give my real highest figures in this forum. It really is nobody's business. This crowd is tough...What happened to the world where people were happy for other people's successes?
Once again, you were speaking for iStock and I was answering about iStock. If you're successful, great! But iStock is not. I don't conflate the two.
"Exclusives" selling work elsewhere is a real sore point here, whether you take advantage of it or not. Even your fellow exclusives sound surprised about that. Heck, I could take down my non-sellers from SS and make them exclusive on iS, as could everyone else, if we all got that deal.
-
Guys. Those who consider reduction of royatly rates by iStock offensive and unfair, please let's combine our forces and each one will write and send the claim letter to Freelance Union www.freelancersunion.org (http://www.freelancersunion.org)
Please let me know when you've done.
-
"Exclusives" selling work elsewhere is a real sore point here, whether you take advantage of it or not. Even your fellow exclusives sound surprised about that
I doubt anyone is particularly surprised if they follow the logic of a contract. IIRC the contract is between the agency and the entity owning the copyright. For example - if you work for a business you can also potentially do separate work as an individual. Equally one could presumably buy the copyright to work from an indie and sell it exclusively. It's about who the contract is with - suppose you are the director of more than one business.
This has all been discussed many times over the past decade. The issue people get annoyed about is when the same entity is both 'exclusive' and 'non-exclusive'. Or when the same images and / or similars are sold both as exclusive and non-exclusive - apparently by different entities.
-
Guys. Those who consider reduction of royatly rates by iStock offensive and unfair, please let's combine our forces and each one will write and send the claim letter to Freelance Union [url=http://www.freelancersunion.org]www.freelancersunion.org[/url] ([url]http://www.freelancersunion.org[/url])
Please let me know when you've done.
I don't think it can be something changed with any sort of protest. Everyone handles his own business. You can not dictated to anyone what to do and how to do his business. The only think we can do, is to pull out all our images and let them go down. So we protect out work to not be sold for almost nothing.
-
I don't think it can be something changed with any sort of protest. Everyone handles his own business. You can not dictated to anyone what to do and how to do his business. The only think we can do, is to pull out all our images and let them go down. So we protect out work to not be sold for almost nothing.
Luka, this is misleading. Anyone can say own opinion and negotiate for better conditions. The offered rate does not cover the resources and time applied to work. If we don't make buzz now then tommorow other stocks will do the same.
At the moment in music industry the royalty rates are growing on, and there are fixed minimum rates in USD as well.
If you don't want to participate, you don't have to. I call for those who take this business seriously.
-
I don't think it can be something changed with any sort of protest. Everyone handles his own business. You can not dictated to anyone what to do and how to do his business. The only think we can do, is to pull out all our images and let them go down. So we protect out work to not be sold for almost nothing.
Luka, this is misleading. Anyone can say own opinion and negotiate for better conditions. The offered rate does not cover the resources and time applied to work. If we don't make buzz now then tommorow other stocks will do the same.
At the moment in music industry the royalty rates are growing on, and there are fixed minimum rates in USD as well.
If you don't want to participate, you don't have to. I call for those who take this business seriously.
It is not about I want or I don't want to participate. I don't think this can change anything. And I take this seriously, but this doesn't mean we can ignore a reality. At least this is my opinion. I am extremely unhappy with what has happen also :(
-
Guys. Those who consider reduction of royatly rates by iStock offensive and unfair, please let's combine our forces and each one will write and send the claim letter to Freelance Union [url=http://www.freelancersunion.org]www.freelancersunion.org[/url] ([url]http://www.freelancersunion.org[/url])
Please let me know when you've done.
Does Freelancer's Union do this sort of thing? As far as I know, they were formed to offer health and dental insurance to American freelancers before Obamacare. Though it wouldn't hurt if someone there picked up the story and it spread among freelance designers.
-
I have deactivated my best selling images at iStock now, and stop uploading new files.
It's a pity, because my october is not bad at all, but I just wont accept the risk of getting only $0.02 for them.
-
Guys. Those who consider reduction of royatly rates by iStock offensive and unfair, please let's combine our forces and each one will write and send the claim letter to Freelance Union [url=http://www.freelancersunion.org]www.freelancersunion.org[/url] ([url]http://www.freelancersunion.org[/url])
Please let me know when you've done.
Isn't this way beyond that now?
Maybe several years ago with the first outrageous behaviour perpetrated by IStock on its contributors, but what do you think this will do now?
Having seen what they are prepared to do even if they backtrack on this they will only find another way or be less open about what they are doing.
IMHO it's way too late to expect any kind of fair deal from them under any circumstances. What are you waiting for? they have just told you they will pay you 2 cents for downloads!!! What would they have to do for you to stop working with them!!!!
-
Though it wouldn't hurt if someone there picked up the story and it spread among freelance designers.
Completely agree! I have already contacted with manager and she agreed to start talking about it in two weeks by phone call.
It is good news for us but my English is not good enough to tell and understand correctly.
Would you help and talk to her about Getty, and give us feedback.
Here are her contacts: Sharon (Member Engagement Manager), 718-532-1515 x669. [email protected]
Freelancers Union. 408 Jay Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. FreelancersUnion . org
-
On second thoughts. Totally worth it to drive business away and expose their shenanigans. Just wouldn't recommend working with them ever again regardless.
-
Just sent this to the greedy bass turds. I hope it doesn't take long.
Congratulations, IStock. After putting up with your total lack of respect and rock-bottom royalties for TWELVE YEARS, you have finally found a way to get rid of me. I tolerated your stingy 15% royalties for far longer than I should have, and now you have finally gotten my attention by informing me that my photos are worth as little as 2 CENTS to you. I considered deactivating nearly all of my files, but after thinking about it, I hereby REFUSE to support your ill-treatment of content creators by leaving even ONE file in your untrustworthy hands. Any agency that thinks so little of me and my hard work is not an agency that I need to have any type of relationship with, in any form or fashion. I will now concentrate my efforts on agencies which still pay me somewhat fairly. So please delete my account as soon as possible and send me any unpaid funds which you owe me.
PS. I will be educating my customers via my website exactly why they will no longer find my files on your site and I sincerely hope you go out of business.
-
Just sent this to the greedy bass turds. I hope it doesn't take long.
Congratulations, IStock. After putting up with your total lack of respect and rock-bottom royalties for TWELVE YEARS, you have finally found a way to get rid of me. I tolerated your stingy 15% royalties for far longer than I should have, and now you have finally gotten my attention by informing me that my photos are worth as little as 2 CENTS to you. I considered deactivating nearly all of my files, but after thinking about it, I hereby REFUSE to support your ill-treatment of content creators by leaving even ONE file in your untrustworthy hands. Any agency that thinks so little of me and my hard work is not an agency that I need to have any type of relationship with, in any form or fashion. I will now concentrate my efforts on agencies which still pay me somewhat fairly. So please delete my account as soon as possible and send me any unpaid funds which you owe me.
PS. I will be educating my customers via my website exactly why they will no longer find my files on your site and I sincerely hope you go out of business.
I have reached this point too. Will you please post what response you get. I know there is a 30 day hold before images are deleted. I just want to know if they make it difficult to close account and have images removed or difficult to get last payment.
For the ones that think some organized action will change their mind, WRONG. For those that think stopping to upload new images but leave existing portfolio there will affect them, WRONG. This was all tried in a widespread and organized effort a couple years ago with NO IMPACT. They are too stupid, greedy, and short sighted to consider contributor efforts or long term health of their own busines.
Only one thing will have an impact. Deleting ALL images and closing the account. This will at least drive buyers to better sites and show other sites that contributors will enforce limits and aren't just all talk and no action.
I don't say this casually. This will hurt my income. Istock currently pays my mortgage. But whether I stay or go I will lose a lifestyle affecting amount of money. I'd rather share the pain with istock than to suffer more loss of my dignity.
-
I am not leaving the rest of my port up for the money, I think it is less than 100 dollars a month now.
For me istock and my time there is part of my identity as a stock artist. Removing my port completly would feel like I am trying to erase myself.
istock and getty don´t care either way and since my stuff hardly sells, there are no buyers to affect.
But it is still (the rest) of my portfolio, even if the good files are long gone.
For a while I was hoping the company might be sold one day and then an old port could be reactivated. But now I guess istock will die when Getty goes bankrupt. I don´t think anybody will buy them, Adobe and SS have their own content, they don´t need anything from Getty.
So for good or bad, the rest of my portfolio will stay until istock goes up in flames.
-
I am not leaving the rest of my port up for the money, I think it is less than 100 dollars a month now.
For me istock and my time there is part of my identity as a stock artist. Removing my port completly would feel like I am trying to erase myself.
istock and getty don´t care either way and since my stuff hardly sells, there are no buyers to affect.
But it is still (the rest) of my portfolio, even if the good files are long gone.
For a while I was hoping the company might be sold one day and then an old port could be reactivated. But now I guess istock will die when Getty goes bankrupt. I don´t think anybody will buy them, Adobe and SS have their own content, they don´t need anything from Getty.
So for good or bad, the rest of my portfolio will stay until istock goes up in flames.
Visual China Group might buy them...
-
I understand Independents being upset because their royalty went from 15-20% to flat 15%
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
We still don't know their criteria about how many credits will be necessary to be in each category, thats something that will have to be judge the day they publish it.
My condolences and solidarity to independent fellows, but for exclusives, I still don't see the reasons to panic and close accounts
-
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
Sounds ridiculous to me. They are not known for their accounting acuity.
-
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
Sounds ridiculous to me. They are not known for their accounting acuity.
I can't understand why they insist on making things so complicated when their coders are so code-challenged, even so far as introducing bugs where none existed before, and 'disappearing' files from search.
But I don't pretend to be able to understand many of their decisions and apparent policies.
-
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
Sounds ridiculous to me. They are not known for their accounting acuity.
I am not talking here about their accounting acuity, Im just saying that from now on, we will get the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs). It does not mean either that we are going to make more money, this is something only time will tell. So far I don't see a reason to panic about the latest news (if you are exclusive)
-
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
Sounds ridiculous to me. They are not known for their accounting acuity.
I am not talking here about their accounting acuity, Im just saying that from now on, we will get the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs). It does not mean either that we are going to make more money, this is something only time will tell. So far I don't see a reason to panic about the latest news (if you are exclusive)
Yeah it looks like a small raise but once again they introduce stupid targets. Since four years I triple my portfolio and my income fell by 80%. Now they easly can reduce my 40% to 30% and I'm pretty sure that they do it.
-
In a way it makes sense to pay a percentage for subs, at least it means they aren't motivated to try and minimise the number of downloads the customer uses to do us out of commission.
Now the reality check. The percentage is terrible off the bat. Second, they are doing it so they can heavily discount packages and pass on the cost to us (so all those lovely tables are meaningless, customers wont be paying that much for packages).
Also bear in mind this is Getty. Their 85% isn't spent innovating or improving their service. Look at their upload process or buggy website. Compare with Adobe, who have just integrated stock into Creative suite, or SS who managed to offer a plugin to compete within weeks (days?). It is spent on old school sales reps used to take customers from the competition by low balling prices. It is like we are paying to shoot ourselves in the back, we are funding the switch from sites that pay us better commissions to IStock, which pays us terribly.
-
I understand Independents being upset because their royalty went from 15-20% to flat 15%
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
We still don't know their criteria about how many credits will be necessary to be in each category, thats something that will have to be judge the day they publish it.
My condolences and solidarity to independent fellows, but for exclusives, I still don't see the reasons to panic and close accounts
In theory, it's fair, other than the percentages, indie or exclusive being unfairly low. However, they have many ways in which, by incompetence or malice, they can prevent people from selling and reaching their target. For example: not adding new words to the CV for many months (explanation offered this week, but totally unacceptible); holding files in 'pending' for weeks or months; somehow rendering files totally unfindable; manipulating the best match search so that certain files (for many months, new files) are totally submerged, never to see the light of day again. Or placing indie files favourably (in the past year, I've often seen up to 12 out of the top 15 files being indie, despite there being a majority of exclusive files for that search term).
I see plenty of reason to panic and understand fully why people would want to close their accounts. It's a bigger decision for me, because I still wouldn't want to voluntarily sign up for an agency would pay me 25c per download (iStock forced that on us with pisspoor Getty sales rather than me accepting it before uploading), so when I'm out, I'm out of the micro game.
Also there are so many indications that SS has been infected with whatever has blighted "iStockbyGetty" for years. The higher they rise, the harder they fall.
-
I understand Independents being upset because their royalty went from 15-20% to flat 15%
But paying the exact percentage of royalties for any single sale (credits and subs) looks to me like a fair move.
We still don't know their criteria about how many credits will be necessary to be in each category, thats something that will have to be judge the day they publish it.
My condolences and solidarity to independent fellows, but for exclusives, I still don't see the reasons to panic and close accounts
You think 15% is fair??
So for a $100 sale the contributor gets $15 Getty pockets $85
Stunning! :o
-
Every time they pay us less, they lose lots of images that might be just what their buyers want and can be found on their rival sites. They lose buyers when we tell them how little istock pay and how only amateurs will do microstock if sites keep almost all the money. If if doesn't make a difference, I wonder why istock are doing so badly?
If they want to make more money, they should try paying us more.
-
Every time they pay us less, they lose lots of images that might be just what their buyers want and can be found on their rival sites. They lose buyers when we tell them how little istock pay and how only amateurs will do microstock if sites keep almost all the money. If if doesn't make a difference, I wonder why istock are doing so badly?
At least partly it could also be all the search bugs, site bugs and an ever-changing, totally incompetent vision-free management. Of course, they are only doing the bidding of their masters.
-
Every time they pay us less, they lose lots of images that might be just what their buyers want
Looking for images to buy, one of the biggest problems with the microstocks in general is that there are too many images. Nearly all of them irrelevantly keyworded.
The small curated collections are a relief by comparison. Though lately some have too much content which only really works in a vertical orientation (I suspect because people are misunderstanding how responsive design tends to be typically approached in practice) .
-
Every time they pay us less, they lose lots of images that might be just what their buyers want
Looking for images to buy, one of the biggest problems with the microstocks in general is that there are too many images. Nearly all of them irrelevantly keyworded.
The small curated collections are a relief by comparison. Though lately some have too much content which only really works in a vertical orientation (I suspect because people are misunderstanding how responsive design tends to be typically approached in practice) .
I believe that the outfit that comes up with a more intelligent search that meets the specific needs of the individual buyer will have a huge advantage....unfortunately I'm not clever enough to do that.
-
Every time they pay us less, they lose lots of images that might be just what their buyers want
Looking for images to buy, one of the biggest problems with the microstocks in general is that there are too many images. Nearly all of them irrelevantly keyworded.
The small curated collections are a relief by comparison. Though lately some have too much content which only really works in a vertical orientation (I suspect because people are misunderstanding how responsive design tends to be typically approached in practice) .
I believe that the outfit that comes up with a more intelligent search that meets the specific needs of the individual buyer will have a huge advantage....unfortunately I'm not clever enough to do that.
I think the solution is to employ people to curate smaller trend based collections. Quality and relevance trumps quantity.
(I am fully aware that my own legacy microstock content would not meet my own standards today btw :) )
-
Stop discussing, just ask to delete your profile, as i do.
They will lower commission again in year or two. This is evident.
They have no respect, they just want your money and don't want to do anything, just look at their atrocious upload system and pathetic keyword system.
ps Contributors don't need to keyword images themselves, they must create art only.
People already have technologies aimed to recognize images and keyword them automatically.
Agencies just way too greedy to spend money to incorporate this feature into their system. They know: slaves do this manually. Why to bother?
-
Every time they pay us less, they lose lots of images that might be just what their buyers want
Looking for images to buy, one of the biggest problems with the microstocks in general is that there are too many images. Nearly all of them irrelevantly keyworded.
The small curated collections are a relief by comparison. Though lately some have too much content which only really works in a vertical orientation (I suspect because people are misunderstanding how responsive design tends to be typically approached in practice) .
I believe that the outfit that comes up with a more intelligent search that meets the specific needs of the individual buyer will have a huge advantage....unfortunately I'm not clever enough to do that.
I think the solution is to employ people to curate smaller trend based collections. Quality and relevance trumps quantity.
(I am fully aware that my own legacy microstock content would not meet my own standards today btw :) )
I don't feel this is the way things are going...humans are too expensive and arguably too subjective and often biased
-
Stop discussing, just ask to delete your profile, as i do.
They will lower commission again in year or two. This is evident.
They have no respect, they just want your money and don't want to do anything, just look at their atrocious upload system and pathetic keyword system.
ps Contributors don't need to keyword images themselves, they must create art only.
People already have technologies aimed to recognize images and keyword them automatically.
Agencies just way too greedy to spend money to incorporate this feature into their system. They know: slaves do this manually. Why to bother?
Agree with deleting profile at iStock, that's what I just did. Enough is enough.
Disagree with automatic keywording. Still not good enough for precise description of most subjects.
Of course there is no need to overcomplicate it either with the controlled vocabulary.
-
I can 't see what 'deleting your profile' can do: we can't even see other contributors' profiles nowadays AFAICS, and I don't understand what good deleting it would do in any case.
If you 'meant' delete all your images, bear in mind you'd lose any outstanding earnings, and I don't know how long it would take to get them off the partner programs.
As for auto-keywording: that would certainly be a huge prompt to quit any agency. I don't even want another person doing mine.
The CV was a great idea, and a great feature back in the day. However, a combination of spammers and not being kept up to date means it's not as useful as it could be.
-
The CV was a great idea, and a great feature back in the day. However, a combination of spammers and not being kept up to date means it's not as useful as it could be.
I have the impression that sooner or later the CV will have to be abandoned. But it will take a huge amount of expensive work to apply new and more useful metadata and I wonder whether much of the collection will, instead, be abandoned - or left to the old system. To be gradually replaced by new content tagged under some better, less ambitious, scheme. I could see it being like the transition from film to digital - where instead of scanning the old work, it was instead gradually replaced.
The CV is often very weak on specifics - in particular where translation is part of the mix. Not only because of spam but also because of the way in which specific meaning gets wrongly mapped to irrelevant meanings.
-
We have a big discussion in russian stock community about this very bad situation with istock
At this moment we decide to get in FreelancersUnion.org
We write directly to:
Sharon (Member Engagement Manager), 718-532-1515 x669. [email protected]
Freelancers Union. 408 Jay Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
text of letter is something like that:
Good Day!
My name is ________ ,
and I represent the community of freelance stock designers.
We, as well as many other stock designers of USA and rest of the world, faced the outrageous case of devaluating our labors on the market of stock illustration.
All of us received letter from Getty Images which informed us on changing their policy and decreasing royalty payments (https://contributors.gettyimages.com...rticle_id=4845)
That means if client purchase advantageous subscription plan, then we receive $ 0,02 net, this is completley not proportional to the time and labor applied to creating any illustration design.
Could you give us advice what to do and how to act in this case?
We would like to attract attention to this issue and gather signs at change.org, to engage public organizations which could help us to make buzz around it and effect it to achieve setting of fair minimum payment for 1 illustration in this industry.
Best regards,
Also we a planning collective boycott of istockphoto.
Only all together we can do something with that!
At this moment we get 0.28$ from subscription at Istock
So we will get 14 times less. Just imagine if all other stock agencies will reduce royalties to this amount. In order of each 1400$ you will receive only 100$
-
We have a big discussion in russian stock community about this very bad situation with istock
At this moment we decide to get in FreelancersUnion.org
We write directly to:
Sharon (Member Engagement Manager), 718-532-1515 x669. [email protected]
Freelancers Union. 408 Jay Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
text of letter is something like that:
Good Day!
My name is ________ ,
and I represent the community of freelance stock designers.
We, as well as many other stock designers of USA and rest of the world, faced the outrageous case of devaluating our labors on the market of stock illustration.
All of us received letter from Getty Images which informed us on changing their policy and decreasing royalty payments (https://contributors.gettyimages.com...rticle_id=4845)
That means if client purchase advantageous subscription plan, then we receive $ 0,02 net, this is completley not proportional to the time and labor applied to creating any illustration design.
Could you give us advice what to do and how to act in this case?
We would like to attract attention to this issue and gather signs at change.org, to engage public organizations which could help us to make buzz around it and effect it to achieve setting of fair minimum payment for 1 illustration in this industry.
Best regards,
Also we a planning collective boycott of istockphoto.
Only all together we can do something with that!
At this moment we get 0.28$ from subscription at Istock
So we will get 14 times less. Just imagine if all other stock agencies will reduce royalties to this amount. In order of each 1400$ you will receive only 100$
I think that the as you say the new royalties in Istock are bad and they will only become worse. I was a member of the former SAA (Stock Artist Alliance) and I can tell you they could not fight Getty when they began eroding the industry. And there is really no point to it. It is a private enterprise and they can and will do what they want BUT the power is within us It is every contributor and their personal decision that changes the Stock map.
No letters no boycott by a few hundred contributors is going to change the policy of any corporation and to expect that thousands are going to support it is naive. I think there are many honest and coherent contributors here that have pulled ports when any Agency pulled the rug under their feet. You cannot tame the beast.Remember the tale of the scorpion and the frog.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
They will sting us again and again...not only them,any corporation that sees their suppliers as dispensable assets and not the human being behind. Hopefully there are some outlets that have proven much fairer attitude in the long term....support them and you will change the world......dont waste you time desiring to change Getty....it is not going to happen unfortunately.
-
I don't think it's so much trying to change Getty as getting the message out to buyers (and other microstock sites) that we won't accept 2¢ royalties. Forget Getty...they're on their way out.
-
It is a private enterprise and they can and will do what they want BUT the power is within us It is every contributor and their personal decision that changes the Stock map.
We already have a good case how to fight for our rights!
Drivers for the cab-hailing firm Uber will learn later whether they are entitled to holiday pay, rest breaks and the National Living Wage.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37787067 (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37787067)
"This case represents the first proper legal review of whether jobs in this part of the so-called gig economy really represent a new paradigm of freedom and self-employment, or in fact are simply a new technology ploy to deny employed workers ordinary employment rights and a national minimum wage," says Maria Ludkin, legal director at the GMB.
Right now, our Russian speaking part of contibutor society is working on petition, so wait for answer from Freelancers Unity.
Our intention is to put this case to court in Germany, Britain or USA.
Do not delete your accounts, but deactivate top sales. This way you can impact.
-
I can 't see what 'deleting your profile' can do: we can't even see other contributors' profiles nowadays AFAICS, and I don't understand what good deleting it would do in any case.
If you have many thousands of images there that you want removed because you WONT accept .02 for them, then the only reasonable choice to remove them is to close your account. It would be insane to waste time deleting 5-10k or more images one by one, even if it were allowed, which we are told it isn't.
Of course if you are expecting one last big payout before it all goes to spit, then wait till its banked before you go if you want. Will you always be leaving some pittance behind? Sure. But better that then be treated like a back alley whore.
-
I can 't see what 'deleting your profile' can do: we can't even see other contributors' profiles nowadays AFAICS, and I don't understand what good deleting it would do in any case.
If you have many thousands of images there that you want removed because you WONT accept .02 for them, then the only reasonable choice to remove them is to close your account. It would be insane to waste time deleting 5-10k or more images one by one, even if it were allowed, which we are told it isn't.
Of course if you are expecting one last big payout before it all goes to spit, then wait till its banked before you go if you want. Will you always be leaving some pittance behind? Sure. But better that then be treated like a back alley whore.
The deactivate images still works.
-
I deactivated all my best images years ago but thought I would deactivate some more and I can't even log in. Will try again tomorrow.
-
I can 't see what 'deleting your profile' can do: we can't even see other contributors' profiles nowadays AFAICS, and I don't understand what good deleting it would do in any case.
If you have many thousands of images there that you want removed because you WONT accept .02 for them, then the only reasonable choice to remove them is to close your account. It would be insane to waste time deleting 5-10k or more images one by one, even if it were allowed, which we are told it isn't.
Of course if you are expecting one last big payout before it all goes to spit, then wait till its banked before you go if you want. Will you always be leaving some pittance behind? Sure. But better that then be treated like a back alley whore.
I wasn't talking about not closing your account. I was talking about the pointlessness of deleting your profile. In fact, now that I'm back on the computer, I see I can't see my own profile, far less anyone else's, it seems to be expunged from my home page.
That said, as the new rates don't kick in until January 1st, it would be smarter (as I said in an earlier post) if you want out to contact CR and cancel your contract with iStock. The benefit would be that you'll get any payments which are due you, even to the extent of getting late payments for PP/subs, as your PP will be live for up to 90 days (and another sneaky clause about 'up to a year' if the images have been used in promotional material, which seems to count a lot more than just adverts). The other advantage is that they should have your files removed from the PP by 90 days, then you can kick up a stink, even legally if you want. I'm not sure that just deactivating your file from iS guarantees that they'll ever be removed from the PP, without you having to contact CR anyway - I certainly see nothing about that in the ASA.
-
Some subscriptions we'll make more, but the big buyers and the 750 yearly we'll make much less. Most of the volume comes from these high number subs not the small packs where we can make more. But the bottom of this is locked at 15% for us, 85% for them.
http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg (http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg)
-
Just wondering... Are these rate and redeemed credit changes the entirety of the Getty/iStock Unification? Or is there more to come?
Unification was not mentioned in the recent email.
-
Some subscriptions we'll make more, but the big buyers and the 750 yearly we'll make much less. Most of the volume comes from these high number subs not the small packs where we can make more. But the bottom of this is locked at 15% for us, 85% for them.
[url]http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg[/url] ([url]http://www.ilbusca.com/temp/Subs_NE.jpg[/url])
I think ilbusca didn't consider the fact that each download from 1 Month Essentials 10 or 25 currently pay $1.00 to non exclusives. So, even those small packs will bring a cut for non exclusives.
Only the 1 Month Essentials 50 is in the safe zone for non-exclusives
The only non exclusives who could really see some benefit from this change, would be those who are former exclusives with lots of signature files.
-
You think 15% is fair??
So for a $100 sale the contributor gets $15 Getty pockets $85
Stunning! :o
Get a small party at McDonald and all your $15 earnings gone. Now feel like a beggar
-
It is a private enterprise and they can and will do what they want BUT the power is within us It is every contributor and their personal decision that changes the Stock map.
We already have a good case how to fight for our rights!
Drivers for the cab-hailing firm Uber will learn later whether they are entitled to holiday pay, rest breaks and the National Living Wage.
[url]http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37787067[/url] ([url]http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37787067[/url])
"This case represents the first proper legal review of whether jobs in this part of the so-called gig economy really represent a new paradigm of freedom and self-employment, or in fact are simply a new technology ploy to deny employed workers ordinary employment rights and a national minimum wage," says Maria Ludkin, legal director at the GMB.
Right now, our Russian speaking part of contibutor society is working on petition, so wait for answer from Freelancers Unity.
Our intention is to put this case to court in Germany, Britain or USA.
Do not delete your accounts, but deactivate top sales. This way you can impact.
Please believe me this will not work. Exclusives may have a tiny chance of success. For non exclusives their relationship with istock is nothing like the relationship uber drivers have with uber. The solution is to stop working with ISock.
-
Okay, sorry. After reading the summary of the uk case Uber drivers just won. A lot of the points that lead to the decision do seem to mirror our relationship to microstock agencies.
-
Okay, sorry. After reading the summary of the uk case Uber drivers just won. A lot of the points that lead to the decision do seem to mirror our relationship to microstock agencies.
But a lot don't its a fundamentally different relationship total red herring. For a start no one asks us to do anything. If an agency contracted us via a customer to undertake a specific shoot then just possibly there might be something but even then unless its an exclusive relationship then thats just freelancing.
-
Take a look at the summary list of points. I haven't got the link right now but if you google the reddit thread discussing it the top comment summarises it. It's things like the agent has contact with the client while the worker doesn't. The agency gets to write and change the contract and so on. It is not as straight forward as it first seems. A lot of the fundamentals actually are mirrored.
-
Take a look at the summary list of points. I haven't got the link right now but if you google the reddit thread discussing it the top comment summarises it. It's things like the agent has contact with the client while the worker doesn't. The agency gets to write and change the contract and so on. It is not as straight forward as it first seems. A lot of the fundamentals actually are mirrored.
I think I will wait and see if anyone takes it to court.......more pressing things to worry about
-
Take a look at the summary list of points. I haven't got the link right now but if you google the reddit thread discussing it the top comment summarises it. It's things like the agent has contact with the client while the worker doesn't. The agency gets to write and change the contract and so on. It is not as straight forward as it first seems. A lot of the fundamentals actually are mirrored.
I think I will wait and see if anyone takes it to court.......more pressing things to worry about
Agree. The immediate solution is to at least suspend uploads preferably delete portfolios.
-
Suspend uploads? deleting portfolios? thats like playing getty right in to the hands. Thats exactly what they want. Getty do not want IS. Full stop.
-
Suspend uploads? deleting portfolios? thats like playing getty right in to the hands. Thats exactly what they want. Getty do not want IS. Full stop.
What do you suggest. How is refusing to work with them playing into their hands?
-
I just asked for account closing.
-
Okay, here's a quote from SpaceStockFootage from the Uber discussion thread and anyone looking to take them to court in the same way as Uber drivers have Uber needs to read it:
B) If we're considered employees, then surely we'd not own the copyright on our own work, as it would be 'work for hire'?
IMHO he's absolutely correct.
-
We're not employees. The stock sites are marketplaces, or artists' representatives, but not our employers. If for some reason we were considered employees, that would mean that if you submit to 20 different sites, each of those sites has to provide you with, for example, health benefits? Think how crazy that is.
When you're a Uber driver, you can't sell the same ride over and over again.
However, we certainly have the right to complain about unfair business practices, like 2 cent royalties when the going rate is closer to 15 times as much. And we can most certainly refuse en masse to supply a marketplace that tries to screw us out of the money our work makes for them. And we can let the public know about such business practices and alternative places to license our images.
-
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5541/30386832440_97ffc38b53_z.jpg)
My first disappointment
-
I just got a 0.03. Waw. I'll dress myself nice and go to shopping >:(. Unfortunately I didn't have time to delete everything. But I think tonight I will have less sleep and finished what I have started, >:(
-
Those are probably some Getty earnings, they're happening every month....0,01$-0,06$...
-
Those are probably some Getty earnings, they're happening every month....0,01$-0,06$...
I was also a little bit confused. Did I understand it wrong or this Royalties will occur starting with 25th November?
-
Those are probably some Getty earnings, they're happening every month....0,01$-0,06$...
So, they sell the pics at a MacroStock (Getty) for something like $500 and pay us a royalty of $0.02 ?!
I just opened few pics at Getty and got this message: "Buy this photo at £ 485.00 GBP. Or just £ 400.00 with an UltraPack. Save Now".
£ 400.00 GBP = $500 USD
-
Those are probably some Getty earnings, they're happening every month....0,01$-0,06$...
Then I suppose I should be happy, because I had $0.13 from G.I Connect in august :-\
-
Okay, here's a quote from SpaceStockFootage from the Uber discussion thread and anyone looking to take them to court in the same way as Uber drivers have Uber needs to read it:
B) If we're considered employees, then surely we'd not own the copyright on our own work, as it would be 'work for hire'?
IMHO he's absolutely correct.
Depends on where you live. In the US the creator of the work owns the copyright by default, even if it is done through an employer or work for hire. There would have to be a separate signed agreement for the copyright to be transferred to the employee.
-
Okay, here's a quote from SpaceStockFootage from the Uber discussion thread and anyone looking to take them to court in the same way as Uber drivers have Uber needs to read it:
B) If we're considered employees, then surely we'd not own the copyright on our own work, as it would be 'work for hire'?
IMHO he's absolutely correct.
Depends on where you live. In the US the creator of the work owns the copyright by default, even if it is done through an employer or work for hire. There would have to be a separate signed agreement for the copyright to be transferred to the employee.
Nope. Work for hire is an exception to copyright law, and in cases of work for hire the employer owns the copyright. It can extend even further...in ad agencies the client owns the copyright, not you or even the ad agency you work for...because your time is paid for, ultimately, by the client. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf)
-
I'm speaking with someone from Freelancer's Union this afternoon. Keep in mind that this isn't really what you think of as a "Union;" they don't organize people or represent groups legally. So I'm not sure where this will go or how or whether they can help in any way. However, dozens of people have emailed them, so we did get their attention. ;)
Right now they're just confused and want clarification about what's going on.
-
I'm speaking with someone from Freelancer's Union this afternoon. Keep in mind that this isn't really what you think of as a "Union;" they don't organize people or represent groups legally. So I'm not sure where this will go or how or whether they can help in any way. However, dozens of people have emailed them, so we did get their attention. ;)
Right now they're just confused and want clarification about what's going on.
Dozens of people! We can make our own union! Maybe a Facebook group for the beginning or twitter to be connected and up to date.
-
I must admit I only check in to my iStock account about once a month, and this forum every few months. I've never been to their new forum. Sorry to hear the latest bad news for any of you that depend on this for all or a significant part of your income. Istock has been very poor for years about communicating changes to us. Not sure why that is.
I am exclusive there with over 7000 images and have been with them about 11 years. I have no interest starting over at another agency. Mine is a hobby but is was nice averaging $1400 per month for a while back in the old days. That's down to about $300 now. Partly their fault, partly mine, mostly the simple law of supply and demand in my opinion. There are so many files available and I suspect millions more coming online every week across the industry. As a result, the agencies don't value the contributors as in the past.
I do continue to upload at times, not with hope of increasing sales,simply so I can continue to expense all the hobby gear I buy through the LLC I set up.
It still amazes me people buy much at all with all the free content out there.
-
I'm speaking with someone from Freelancer's Union this afternoon. Keep in mind that this isn't really what you think of as a "Union;" they don't organize people or represent groups legally. So I'm not sure where this will go or how or whether they can help in any way. However, dozens of people have emailed them, so we did get their attention. ;)
Right now they're just confused and want clarification about what's going on.
Dozens of people! We can make our own union! Maybe a Facebook group for the beginning or twitter to be connected and up to date.
Didn't that happen once before, and didn't Getty retaliate? I was completely out of the loop then.
-
I'm speaking with someone from Freelancer's Union this afternoon. Keep in mind that this isn't really what you think of as a "Union;" they don't organize people or represent groups legally. So I'm not sure where this will go or how or whether they can help in any way. However, dozens of people have emailed them, so we did get their attention. ;)
Right now they're just confused and want clarification about what's going on.
I'm sorry I didnt see this message earlier.
-
It still amazes me people buy much at all with all the free content out there.
I don't think there's that much free content out there. It's just, that people think, that they can use it for free, or sites with "free content" which was actually stolen from agencies.
-
I'm speaking with someone from Freelancer's Union this afternoon. Keep in mind that this isn't really what you think of as a "Union;" they don't organize people or represent groups legally. So I'm not sure where this will go or how or whether they can help in any way. However, dozens of people have emailed them, so we did get their attention. ;)
Right now they're just confused and want clarification about what's going on.
Dozens of people! We can make our own union! Maybe a Facebook group for the beginning or twitter to be connected and up to date.
Didn't that happen once before, and didn't Getty retaliate? I was completely out of the loop then.
I think that is a part of the main problem we need a union in that the indivdual is annonym for the agencies.
We can collect contributor email adresses to send out hot news.
We can build american, german, russian, french, etc. "special forces" to inform the buyers/contributors in there native speech.
We can fight there advertisement. We can make promotion with our own advertisement funded by membership fees and donations.
But the first step is organization to building our own network.
It all depends on us!
-
If you try to start a union, it won't work. Pull your hand out of a bucket of water and the hole fills right in. You aren't employees, you aren't forced to submit your work to any agency. There are thousands of hobbyist, some really talented that would submit their work just for the thrill of seeing it sold online. I started in Macrostock when I got $600.00 and more for an image. I never dreamed I would start selling images for .25 in 2007. There were some great years in between (not considering what I got paid for macrostock). Now is a new decade of the microstock industry and it looks like it is going to be a take it or leave, choose your agency(s) choose how and what you shoot, and how much time you are going to invest in it.
Between cellphones, good inexpensive DSLR's, hobbyist, buyers wanting rock bottom prices and free or copyright infringed images on the internet. It has become a very difficult environment for a great experienced stock photographer.
I just keep working as hard as I can and try to produce the best work I can come up with. I will stay true to what is in my heart, capturing photographs.
-
Those are probably some Getty earnings, they're happening every month....0,01$-0,06$...
So, they sell the pics at a MacroStock (Getty) for something like $500 and pay us a royalty of $0.02 ?!
I just opened few pics at Getty and got this message: "Buy this photo at £ 485.00 GBP. Or just £ 400.00 with an UltraPack. Save Now".
£ 400.00 GBP = $500 USD
No, they discount sales unbelievably heavily to certain buyers, as Alamy and probably others do. There is also something called Getty Connect, which I don't understand at all, but is something like a pay-per-view scheme, which is possibly/probably where the 2c came from. Is it a black bar on your chart? That denotes the Connect scheme.
-
ShadySue, thanks. Yes, it is a pitiful thin black bar. iStock website is so cumbersome and complicated, it is difficult to find and understand anything.
-
Hello everybody!
Stocker from Russia are very unhappy IStock policy.
Many agree to sign the petition. If you give a link to the public the text of the petition, that a lot of participants to sign.
However, many doubt the success of the struggle for their rights against a huge corporation.
Outputs are two: either sell it for 2 cents, or delete a portfolio and go to other sellers.
-
The CV was a great idea, and a great feature back in the day. However, a combination of spammers and not being kept up to date means it's not as useful as it could be.
The CV made me an intentional spammer.
I do not spam on any other site, but on IS sometimes I was forced to spam if a word was not in their CV for the meaning that I needed. Better choosing an imperfect disambiguation than leaving out the word completely.
Luckily, now I'm out of iStock. I'm starting to realise how much time I lost with their terrible upload method, I should have spent it shooting new photos for other sites.
-
I don't think there's that much free content out there. It's just, that people think, that they can use it for free, or sites with "free content" which was actually stolen from agencies.
One of the disadvantages of established microstock is that often there are too many search results to wade through. The thing you might want to use might be there but can be impossible to find. And the styles are all jumbled up because the work is not curated.
There is some very good content available free today (properly legal). One free site where our much-hipper-than-us client chose images from is really very cool. Much of the work has a similar feel to it. One of the advantages of that site is that it has relatively little content.
-
Hello everybody!
Stocker from Russia are very unhappy IStock policy.
Many agree to sign the petition. If you give a link to the public the text of the petition, that a lot of participants to sign.
However, many doubt the success of the struggle for their rights against a huge corporation.
Outputs are two: either sell it for 2 cents, or delete a portfolio and go to other sellers.
I and others have a call scheduled with the attorney who founded Freelancer's Union. The person I chatted with yesterday suggested a lot of good ideas that they've found to be effective in other fights. I'm also not sure Getty will implement any changes (though other large corporations have), but again, I think it's important to get the message out there.
Honestly, if we don't make noise about 2 cent royalties now I think we might all be kissing microstock goodbye, unless we live in countries with very low costs of living. This could be Getty's attempt to kill iStock, and maybe all microstock, if it becomes unsustainable for most of us. I'm sure there are a few people here who'd be happy with that, but I'd be sad. I'd have to work in advertising again. :(
-
This could be Getty's attempt to kill iStock, and maybe all microstock, if it becomes unsustainable for most of us. I'm sure there are a few people here who'd be happy with that, but I'd be sad. I'd have to work in advertising again. :(
Let's make a distinction here: I'd be sad if they succeeded in killing microstock, but not if they succeeded in killing iStock.
-
Hello everybody!
Stocker from Russia are very unhappy IStock policy.
Many agree to sign the petition. If you give a link to the public the text of the petition, that a lot of participants to sign.
However, many doubt the success of the struggle for their rights against a huge corporation.
Outputs are two: either sell it for 2 cents, or delete a portfolio and go to other sellers.
I and others have a call scheduled with the attorney who founded Freelancer's Union. The person I chatted with yesterday suggested a lot of good ideas that they've found to be effective in other fights. I'm also not sure Getty will implement any changes (though other large corporations have), but again, I think it's important to get the message out there.
Honestly, if we don't make noise about 2 cent royalties now I think we might all be kissing microstock goodbye, unless we live in countries with very low costs of living. This could be Getty's attempt to kill iStock, and maybe all microstock, if it becomes unsustainable for most of us. I'm sure there are a few people here who'd be happy with that, but I'd be sad. I'd have to work in advertising again. :(
Let us know how it goes and what we can do. Of course don't give away any information that helps Getty ;)
-
Suppose that you have 750 images in your portfolio and one buyer with a yearly subscription plan bought all of them.
750*0.02= $15(10.5$ after taxes) or maybe 750*0.03= $22.5 (15.75$) after taxes.
This is the value of giving your 750 image port to a buyer on Istock.
-
copyright infringed images on the internet
Like the ones Getty downloaded from the Library of Congress and licensed to who knows who, then kept up after the photographer, Carol Highsmith, requested they take them down....after they sent her a letter demanding payment for her own work?
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
Use the correct terminology: I presume you are urging 'delete your portfolios'.
Though terminating your contract would be the best way to go to get all the money you're due.
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
Use the correct terminology: I presume you are urging 'delete your portfolios'.
Though terminating your contract would be the best way to go to get all the money you're due.
That's true. It's better to contact their support to close your account. This way you will receive the money in your balance even though it's not yet $100.
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
Use the correct terminology: I presume you are urging 'delete your portfolios'.
Though terminating your contract would be the best way to go to get all the money you're due.
That's true. It's better to contact their support to close your account. This way you will receive the money in your balance even though it's not yet $100.
They can keep my 56 cents :-) Perhaps they need it more than I do!
-
This could be Getty's attempt to kill iStock, and maybe all microstock, if it becomes unsustainable for most of us. I'm sure there are a few people here who'd be happy with that, but I'd be sad. I'd have to work in advertising again. :(
Let's make a distinction here: I'd be sad if they succeeded in killing microstock, but not if they succeeded in killing iStock.
Can't agree more then one time or I'd give you a 10.
-
Managed to start deactivating. When are they stopping us deactivating?
-
Managed to start deactivating. When are they stopping us deactivating?
According to iStock some time in August ;)
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
Use the correct terminology: I presume you are urging 'delete your portfolios'.
Though terminating your contract would be the best way to go to get all the money you're due.
That's true. It's better to contact their support to close your account. This way you will receive the money in your balance even though it's not yet $100.
So that's possible? I'm at $ 99.51, and I definitely want my money. What's the best way to go about closing my account and deleting my portfolio.
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
Use the correct terminology: I presume you are urging 'delete your portfolios'.
Though terminating your contract would be the best way to go to get all the money you're due.
That's true. It's better to contact their support to close your account. This way you will receive the money in your balance even though it's not yet $100.
So that's possible? I'm at $ 99.51, and I definitely want my money. What's the best way to go about closing my account and deleting my portfolio.
Yes, I've contacted their support.
-
Delete your profiles. You can't do this?
There is another solution: delete your profiles.
Or another one: delete your profiles.
Use the correct terminology: I presume you are urging 'delete your portfolios'.
Though terminating your contract would be the best way to go to get all the money you're due.
That's true. It's better to contact their support to close your account. This way you will receive the money in your balance even though it's not yet $100.
So that's possible? I'm at $ 99.51, and I definitely want my money. What's the best way to go about closing my account and deleting my portfolio.
-
Managed to start deactivating. When are they stopping us deactivating?
According to iStock some time in August ;)
Must be the first time their complete incompetence has been to my advantage :)
-
I stopped uploading to Istock 3 years ago and Im feeling so light to not have uploading there with their primitive and so complicated process, their slow site, their so low commission, their so greedy, stingy and dictatorial mind, im really surprised some are still uploading to these crooks after so many commission cuts, scams and lies other the years .
-
I just sent in a request to close my account. My images have been gone for years, but I kept my account open in case future intelligence prevailed on their part, but that isn't going to ever happen.
-
I've gone from earning over a 1000$ a month to probably not even reaching a 1000$ for the whole of this year. I think it's time to say goodbye.
-
For whomever wishes to submit a petition, I have created a possible draft. Correct it, pick it apart, make it say what needs to be said. Or ignore it and kill it. I submit this just as a starting place to get some petition wording.
-------
Petition served to __person__. Petition served to iStock/Getty.
Petition to establish royalties to Contributers which are in line with costs of creation of such contributed photographic and illustration content.
WHEREAS: The cost of contributors creating content is not insignificant. Costs include: computers, Internet access, travel, cameras, office space, pencils, desks, chairs, paper, scanners.
WHEREAS: The cost of contributors gaining education, training, and experience is not insignificant.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty has announced changes to the Royalty payment structures to occur at or near the end of year 2016. Per these announcements, already poor royalty payment structures are, in some cases, getting lowered to the contributors. Per some calculations a low royalty of $0.02 USD is possible.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty has the lowest paying Royalty structure in the Micrstock industry – starting at a low 15% of the license sale price.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty indeed has third party programs and collections that pay Royalties well under the iStock collection 15%.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty uses Contributor content in situations where usage is not paid as related to the image. iStock Getty revenue is gained by viewed impressions or calculations outside of image licensing. Hence the contributor is not receiving a fair license royalty per image use.
WHEREAS: Volume licenses indeed create additional royalty payment to contributors. However, even dozens of license royalties at the iStock/Getty royalty structure do not adequately compensate for the contributor costs.
Content contributors, buyers, and interested parties, with signatures per this document, petition iStock/Getty to:
PETITION: To set a license royalty to contributors of no less than 25% of the license sale price.
PETITION: To set a license royalty to contributors of no less than $0.25 USD.
PETITION: To pay a contributor royalty of the higher amount of 25% or $0.25 USD for each license.
PETITION: To bring the third party image collections (Subscriptions, Getty, Partners, side usage calculations) into this minimum royalty structure.
We, the undersigned, support these minimum contributor royalty structures which should be implemented at iStock/Getty.
-
Thanks!
I've written a very simple petition asking Getty to keep its current royalty structure, and it's been translated into 4 languages. I don't think Saturday (today) is the right day to publish it, based on the silence yesterday when I asked people to tweet and donate a photo. I'm not at my computer today, but I can post it tomorrow.
And of course, everyone's input is welcome. Whether we want to ask Getty to keep the current royalties or increase them is up to everyone...my gut feeling is that people would probably be more sympathetic to our cause if we just ask for our current royalties.
-
I wont be signing a petition to keep 15 to 20% when other sites pay 30 to 50%. They used to have an excuse when they had high sales volume but now that's gone, they seem like a waste of time for non-exclusives.
-
All sites should be fair trade sites and pay artists 50% or better. I wont sign a petition that accepts less.
-
For whomever wishes to submit a petition, I have created a possible draft. Correct it, pick it apart, make it say what needs to be said. Or ignore it and kill it. I submit this just as a starting place to get some petition wording.
-------
Petition served to __person__. Petition served to iStock/Getty.
Petition to establish royalties to Contributers which are in line with costs of creation of such contributed photographic and illustration content.
WHEREAS: The cost of contributors creating content is not insignificant. Costs include: computers, Internet access, travel, cameras, office space, pencils, desks, chairs, paper, scanners.
WHEREAS: The cost of contributors gaining education, training, and experience is not insignificant.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty has announced changes to the Royalty payment structures to occur at or near the end of year 2016. Per these announcements, already poor royalty payment structures are, in some cases, getting lowered to the contributors. Per some calculations a low royalty of $0.02 USD is possible.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty has the lowest paying Royalty structure in the Micrstock industry – starting at a low 15% of the license sale price.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty indeed has third party programs and collections that pay Royalties well under the iStock collection 15%.
WHEREAS: iStock/Getty uses Contributor content in situations where usage is not paid as related to the image. iStock Getty revenue is gained by viewed impressions or calculations outside of image licensing. Hence the contributor is not receiving a fair license royalty per image use.
WHEREAS: Volume licenses indeed create additional royalty payment to contributors. However, even dozens of license royalties at the iStock/Getty royalty structure do not adequately compensate for the contributor costs.
Content contributors, buyers, and interested parties, with signatures per this document, petition iStock/Getty to:
PETITION: To set a license royalty to contributors of no less than 25% of the license sale price.
PETITION: To set a license royalty to contributors of no less than $0.25 USD.
PETITION: To pay a contributor royalty of the higher amount of 25% or $0.25 USD for each license.
PETITION: To bring the third party image collections (Subscriptions, Getty, Partners, side usage calculations) into this minimum royalty structure.
We, the undersigned, support these minimum contributor royalty structures which should be implemented at iStock/Getty.
I would add lenses, professional lighting and light modifiers, studio space, props, model fees, and location fees, photo editing software, photo storage, etc. to the photographer expenses.
I would be happy to sign the petition but sad to say I don't expect anything to come of it. The only thing that will ever get Gettys attention will be mass exodus of contributors so their store shelves are EMPTY.
-
I think they are taking the route netflix is on at the moment. Less content but more of it exclusive. They aren't interested in a big collection of nonexclusive stuff anymore. If they were they'd be mad to bring in the changes. I think you would have to be crazy as a non exclusive contributor to keep uploading to them now.
-
I won't sign a petition either that only demands to keep to current royalties. It should ask for at least 30%. Maybe in the case of istock I would think about signing it at 25%, but not sure. I know it's unrealistic to expect that from Getty, still I just can't sign my name under a petition that asks for 16-17% royalty instead of 15...
-
I'm not/wasn't exclusive. I just voted with my feet and,I agree, it's tough to put my name to anything that specifies what is still less than a fair pay rate.
-
+1 to not signing a petition ro keep the already terrible rates. Stan's was pretty close to what I would sign but listing specific expenses is maybe too much. I would ask for the 25 guaranteed minimum on subs for start. 25% minimum commission is terrible but a step in the right direction I guess. 25 25 has a certain symmetry.
You know for any of this to work we would have to at least organise a long term strike where everone suspends uploading until demands are met right? This would be the only way to actually make a difference. I think it's easier just to stop working with them altogether.
-
The odds of them now moving to increase rates must be...
about...
now where's that infinite improbability drive thing gone?
:(
-
Well if people would band together and take some action the chance would be 100%, they would have no product.
The chances of people banding together are close to zero, so yeah
-
A petition for keeping the existing commission? This is insane for me.
15-20% was, is and always will be outragous, insulting and unacceptable.
-
ok, what i dont understand with some of you
this petition is mostly because of those insulting 2 cent per image
you dont care that you will earn 14 times less from subscription sales, but suddenly you care about 15% commission.(this not apply for those of you who deleted pictures when 15% cut happened)
i personally think that everything below 50% is unacceptable, that's why i upload to alamy even my sales are very small there, but if we can say something, even if that dont change anything, just to be heard I dont see anything bad in that.
for those who continue to upload images there for 15%, and don't what to sign petition but are signing that they agree with 15% and 2 cents royalty every time they upload new images there, how that makes sense to you?
-
ok, what i dont understand with some of you
this petition is mostly because of those insulting 2 cent per image
you dont care that you will earn 14 times less from subscription sales, but suddenly you care about 15% commission.(this not apply for those of you who deleted pictures when 15% cut happened)
i personally think that everything below 50% is unacceptable, that's why i upload to alamy even my sales are very small there, but if we can say something, even if that dont change anything, just to be heard I dont see anything bad in that.
for those who continue to upload images there for 15%, and don't what to sign petition but are signing that they agree with 15% and 2 cents royalty every time they upload new images there, how that makes sense to you?
It doesn't, no one should be uploading anything new until this is resolved.
-
ok, what i dont understand with some of you
this petition is mostly because of those insulting 2 cent per image
you dont care that you will earn 14 times less from subscription sales, but suddenly you care about 15% commission.(this not apply for those of you who deleted pictures when 15% cut happened)
i personally think that everything below 50% is unacceptable, that's why i upload to alamy even my sales are very small there, but if we can say something, even if that dont change anything, just to be heard I dont see anything bad in that.
for those who continue to upload images there for 15%, and don't what to sign petition but are signing that they agree with 15% and 2 cents royalty every time they upload new images there, how that makes sense to you?
I don't really get it either, because photographers have been at 15% for while now. Though of course I agree that I'd love to see Getty raise non-exclusives' royalties up to at least 30%, which is right around Shutterstock and Adobe levels.
I personally think anything less than 80% sucks, because honestly, artists' representatives outside the stock world usually take a 20% cut, not 85%, 70% or even 50%. Only after I started uploading to iS did I even realize how terribly stock artists were compensated.
-
I still can't quite believe that so few people made a stand when they cut below 20%. That was the final straw for me, all my best selling images were deactivated and I haven't uploaded anything new for years.
If Getty had the choice of paying us 30% or having no images to sell, what would they choose? If they chose to have no images to sell, that would send buyers to sites that pay us more. Isn't that the worst that could happen if we all decided not to put up with less than 20%? Obviously this is different for exclusives but they don't seem to have as many of them as they used to.
-
I still can't quite believe that so few people made a stand when they cut below 20%. That was the final straw for me, all my best selling images were deactivated and I haven't uploaded anything new for years.
If Getty had the choice of paying us 30% or having no images to sell, what would they choose? If they chose to have no images to sell, that would send buyers to sites that pay us more. Isn't that the worst that could happen if we all decided not to put up with less than 20%? Obviously this is different for exclusives but they don't seem to have as many of them as they used to.
That was what made me stop uploading, I think it was some other indignity/abuse that got me to delete most of my images.
-
I still can't quite believe that so few people made a stand when they cut below 20%. That was the final straw for me, all my best selling images were deactivated and I haven't uploaded anything new for years.
If Getty had the choice of paying us 30% or having no images to sell, what would they choose? If they chose to have no images to sell, that would send buyers to sites that pay us more. Isn't that the worst that could happen if we all decided not to put up with less than 20%? Obviously this is different for exclusives but they don't seem to have as many of them as they used to.
Fully agree.
Typical case of Prisoner's Dilemma:
"I know we're all better off if we all leave. But if I silently stay while others leave, I will have less competition, so I am better off".
Unability to cooperate due to the theoretical possibility to gain by not cooperating...
-
I still can't quite believe that so few people made a stand when they cut below 20%. That was the final straw for me, all my best selling images were deactivated and I haven't uploaded anything new for years.
If Getty had the choice of paying us 30% or having no images to sell, what would they choose? If they chose to have no images to sell, that would send buyers to sites that pay us more. Isn't that the worst that could happen if we all decided not to put up with less than 20%? Obviously this is different for exclusives but they don't seem to have as many of them as they used to.
Fully agree.
Typical case of Prisoner's Dilemma:
"I know we're all better off if we all leave. But if I silently stay while others leave, I will have less competition, so I am better off".
Unability to cooperate due to the theoretical possibility to gain by not cooperating...
Hopefully istock have proven that staying with them didn't make things better. I think my earnings went up on other sites when I deactivated all my best selling images, it looks like most buyers search for images on more than one site. All the time I would of spent uploading to istock went on uploading to Alamy and they now make as much as I was getting from istock when they had my full portfolio. It feels much more satisfying working with a site that has a 50/50 split.
-
I still can't quite believe that so few people made a stand when they cut below 20%. That was the final straw for me, all my best selling images were deactivated and I haven't uploaded anything new for years.
If Getty had the choice of paying us 30% or having no images to sell, what would they choose? If they chose to have no images to sell, that would send buyers to sites that pay us more. Isn't that the worst that could happen if we all decided not to put up with less than 20%? Obviously this is different for exclusives but they don't seem to have as many of them as they used to.
Fully agree.
Typical case of Prisoner's Dilemma:
"I know we're all better off if we all leave. But if I silently stay while others leave, I will have less competition, so I am better off".
Unability to cooperate due to the theoretical possibility to gain by not cooperating...
More like Stockholm syndrome ;D
Quoted from Wikipedia
"Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other."
-
I don't think Istock will ever agree to 50% although this is what we really should be getting. 25 or 30% would be more realistic.
Haven't uploaded anything in a few weeks anyway, at the moment either keeping my existing port there or closing my account, depending on how things turn out.
Look forward to signing the petition.
-
Who wants a petition? Anyone?
-
I still can't quite believe that so few people made a stand when they cut below 20%. That was the final straw for me, all my best selling images were deactivated and I haven't uploaded anything new for years.
If Getty had the choice of paying us 30% or having no images to sell, what would they choose? If they chose to have no images to sell, that would send buyers to sites that pay us more. Isn't that the worst that could happen if we all decided not to put up with less than 20%? Obviously this is different for exclusives but they don't seem to have as many of them as they used to.
Fully agree.
Typical case of Prisoner's Dilemma:
"I know we're all better off if we all leave. But if I silently stay while others leave, I will have less competition, so I am better off".
Unability to cooperate due to the theoretical possibility to gain by not cooperating...
More like Stockholm syndrome ;D
Or iStockholm Syndrome.
-
Sorry for the petition delay.
-
A bunch of us have been communicating with each other and offering and absorbing feedback from everyone.
-
We'll have a quick poll and adjust the petition.
-
Who wants a petition? Anyone?
Yes, please.
I have only one request: ask them to sink quickly. And if they could re-hire Kelly Thompson before it would be great.
-
I'm not signing that petition. For what, to beg for a pittance?
Have some dignity and self-respect, people.
-
I'm not signing that petition. For what, to beg for a pittance?
Have some dignity and self-respect, people.
+1
-
I would rather sign a petition asking buyers to not use Getty/istock because we will no longer be able to afford to supply new images to them.
-
I've already had 6 USD 0.02 sales, all in a single day last month. I'm out after the next payment. These guys are not even wort the effort of signing a petition.
-
I'm not signing that petition. For what, to beg for a pittance?
Have some dignity and self-respect, people.
Well said Mike!!
-
I've already had 6 USD 0.02 sales, all in a single day last month. I'm out after the next payment. These guys are not even wort the effort of signing a petition.
It was supposed to start on november 25, am i wrong ?
-
I've already had 6 USD 0.02 sales, all in a single day last month. I'm out after the next payment. These guys are not even wort the effort of signing a petition.
It was supposed to start on november 25, am i wrong ?
Not sure, but I too have had an 0.02c and a 0.04c royalty from iStock in the last few days.
-
I've already had 6 USD 0.02 sales, all in a single day last month. I'm out after the next payment. These guys are not even wort the effort of signing a petition.
EPIX, correct me if I am wrong:
You have had 300 sales in a single day.
Really?
-
I asked them "nicely" to close my account and remove my portfolio on October 28th. I think they have 30 days, which if I'm counting correctly will be on November 27th, since October had 31 days. I'm quite sure I probably won't be the only one they will be in breach of contract with. Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit if my account is still open on November 28th?
-
I've already had 6 USD 0.02 sales, all in a single day last month. I'm out after the next payment. These guys are not even wort the effort of signing a petition.
EPIX, correct me if I am wrong:
You have had 300 sales in a single day.
Really?
I think she wanted to say she had 6 sales of 0.02 USD each other. Pretty bad.
I'm relief, I have deleted almost everything from them. I left only a few images, just in case they change their minds.
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
-
I'm getting out of there. Sent a request to close my account. The thought of still selling for almost nothing in 2017 was just too much.
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
-
ok, what i dont understand with some of you
this petition is mostly because of those insulting 2 cent per image
you dont care that you will earn 14 times less from subscription sales, but suddenly you care about 15% commission.(this not apply for those of you who deleted pictures when 15% cut happened)
i personally think that everything below 50% is unacceptable, that's why i upload to alamy even my sales are very small there, but if we can say something, even if that dont change anything, just to be heard I dont see anything bad in that.
for those who continue to upload images there for 15%, and don't what to sign petition but are signing that they agree with 15% and 2 cents royalty every time they upload new images there, how that makes sense to you?
Those who continue, well they deserve exactly what they get and it makes perfect sense to me :)
About istock...sooner they sink completely...the better :)
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
No, if I'm reading it correctly we would get 15% of 10¢. 10¢ is the minimum a customer can pay (price per file or ppf). 15% of .1 is .015. They are rounding up to 2¢. How generous...
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
No, if I'm reading it correctly we would get 15% of 10¢. 10¢ is the minimum a customer can pay (price per file or ppf). 15% of .1 is .015. They are rounding up to 2¢. How generous...
Oh yeah. Lol. "price," not "royalty." Doh! So it's just pushed back a month.
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
No, if I'm reading it correctly we would get 15% of 10¢. 10¢ is the minimum a customer can pay (price per file or ppf). 15% of .1 is .015. They are rounding up to 2¢. How generous...
Oh yeah. Lol. "price," not "royalty." Doh! So it's just pushed back a month.
No worries! They also made it overly complicated. At least they pushed it back a month.
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
I read the email and must have missed the "raise " to min. 10 cents. Not that it really makes a difference, but I would like to know how much of an insult I will be quitting ovet.
So then it is still .02. Pricks. Here I was imagining the petition might have had an impact and maybe a slim possibility of improvements for us. Glad I stopped uploading there a long time ago.
-
I never though I'd see the day when Dollar Photo Club would look like a GOOD deal....!
:(
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
I read the email and must have missed the "raise " to min. 10 cents. Not that it really makes a difference, but I would like to know how much of an insult I will be quitting ovet.
So then it is still .02. Pricks. Here I was imagining the petition might have had an impact and maybe a slim possibility of improvements for us. Glad I stopped uploading there a long time ago.
Have you ever seen a petition having any impact on a public company?
-
Today:
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5504/30844147680_b7837eab70_c.jpg)
-
Today:
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5504/30844147680_b7837eab70_c.jpg)
How do you plan to spend them? :)
-
Was the 1c Getty Connect? (Black line on your chart). If so, that's been going for over a year. I don't understand it: it's some sort of pay-per-view deal they have no doubt got a large fee for but pay us peanuts.
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
I read the email and must have missed the "raise " to min. 10 cents. Not that it really makes a difference, but I would like to know how much of an insult I will be quitting ovet.
So then it is still .02. Pricks. Here I was imagining the petition might have had an impact and maybe a slim possibility of improvements for us. Glad I stopped uploading there a long time ago.
Have you ever seen a petition having any impact on a public company?
https://www.change.org/victories#featured (https://www.change.org/victories#featured)
-
Have you ever seen a petition having any impact on a public company?
More of a social media campaign than a petition:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lego-ends-advertising-daily-mail-stop-funding-hate-campaign-a7413361.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lego-ends-advertising-daily-mail-stop-funding-hate-campaign-a7413361.html)
which is far bigger than it looks (Google Lego Daily Mail and you'll see how deeply entwined they've been for years).
The knock-on good news is that the Mail is using far fewer Alamy pics, which is great as they often re-use RM without paying and have to be chased up for months, and anyway I don't want my images featured in that near-fascist rag.
-
I just saw the email from them. Subscription licenses will have a minimum price per file will be 0.10c. Waww, a lot of money. I think the beggar how lives on the corner of my street feels better, now he knows I will not take his place. I will earn enough money with Istock, so I will not need to take his job >:(
So they raised it from 2¢ to 10¢? Am I understanding that correctly? If so, sorry....10¢ still doesn't cut it.
And now the new rates don't go into effect until December 23. More time to sign the (revised, if the 10¢ minimum is new) petition. ;)
I read the email and must have missed the "raise " to min. 10 cents. Not that it really makes a difference, but I would like to know how much of an insult I will be quitting ovet.
So then it is still .02. Pricks. Here I was imagining the petition might have had an impact and maybe a slim possibility of improvements for us. Glad I stopped uploading there a long time ago.
Have you ever seen a petition having any impact on a public company?
https://www.change.org/victories#featured (https://www.change.org/victories#featured)
Shelma, I am speaking about public companies, the ones with shareholders. Not sure that these are.
-
Look it up. There's a long history of petitions and boycotts working quite well with all sorts of causes, companies and brands.
-
I have zero confidence in a petition working with Getty/istock. Leaving now seems to be the only sensible option for non-exclusives. Any non-exclusives putting up with 15% and subs as low as $0.02 will be risking the other sites going the same way.
-
I have zero confidence in a petition working with Getty/istock. Leaving now seems to be the only sensible option for non-exclusives. Any non-exclusives putting up with 15% and subs as low as $0.02 will be risking the other sites going the same way.
I agree :) Good point
-
Look it up. There's a long history of petitions and boycotts working quite well with all sorts of causes, companies and brands.
Surely you are right, Shelma.
But probably about causes very more important than our little problems with a company that we could leave without any real damage for us ;) Here nobody dies at last…
-
we accepted micro stock many years ago because it was easy and good money even with poor, for nowadays standard, quality photos.
we accepted 0,2, 0,3 for photo and now complaint that they cut at 0,15.
personally i don't care, micro stock is the lower end of my production, photo that will be buried in hard disk , or i will never use for nothing. i will upload the more i can, micro stock for me is only about quantity, the more images you have the more u earn...
personally i grow all portfolio in any site in the last 4 months, cleaning a massive backlog of more than 150000 files who stupidly i kept in my hard disk without selling them when was the timer making good money. anyway i see a trend of growing. the fact that an agency cut my rates doesn't bother me, i learnt that in micro what counts is the number at the end of months. till it grows i upload.
serious photography goes to offset, and other agency where a customer want buy good quality and pay for them.
-
we accepted micro stock many years ago because it was easy and good money even with poor, for nowadays standard, quality photos.
we accepted 0,2, 0,3 for photo and now complaint that they cut at 0,15.
personally i don't care, micro stock is the lower end of my production, photo that will be buried in hard disk , or i will never use for nothing. i will upload the more i can, micro stock for me is only about quantity, the more images you have the more u earn...
personally i grow all portfolio in any site in the last 4 months, cleaning a massive backlog of more than 150000 files who stupidly i kept in my hard disk without selling them when was the timer making good money. anyway i see a trend of growing. the fact that an agency cut my rates doesn't bother me, i learnt that in micro what counts is the number at the end of months. till it grows i upload.
serious photography goes to offset, and other agency where a customer want buy good quality and pay for them.
I think you will find that 0.15 is what the buyer pays, you get 0.02, that's a game changer.
-
Today:
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5504/30844147680_b7837eab70_c.jpg)
"A penny saved is a penny earned" - Ben Franklin...
-
so far i haven't seen any of this 0,02....even when people see a lot of 0,1 0,06 i never saw nothing less than 0,28....
now i'm ready for 0,15m as minimum...o will upload less....also stock review seems a lot slow with non exclusive.... and see.
if i begin 0,02 simply i will leave my image there and not upload nothing more. very simple.
petition and useless fight are time consuming and will not end to nothing.
i see fotolia increasing a lot their sale and shutter stock recovering in the last 2 months...strangely i have my best month in stock from a long time. i repeat till they grow my per month income i will upload if not bye bye.
in my opinion they are simply moving their effort to exclusive contributor.
-
0,01?
i don't believe sorry.
i repeat bio trace in my account of anything less than 0,25...even from partner program.
i expect 0,15 minimum. anyway i always smell more with credits than sub.
-
150000 files as a backlog in a hard disk... amazing story
However, i hardly can imaging how uploading files (at any places) will even cover costs for keyword & upload time
unless they are specific produced concepts in high demand
-
I have some good shots in micro and earn money thanks to a lot of subs and shutter S.O licences or some fotolia credit sales or low images pack.
With Istock changes is very easy earnd 0.06...0.12...0,03...this is crazy low...even for stupid isolated apple in white and the worst is that i cant erase good microstock photos to send for other sites.
john bull i have good photos in offset and is not only about quality, a lot of quality images are rejected by them: is necesary some "realistic style" (plainpicture-stocksy-offset style and we musnt forget that plainpicture was the first) There is a lot of great photos in microstock and only work with high subs percentaje and some single sales. With 0.12-004--0.09 only work for youtube views.
-
so far i haven't seen any of this 0,02....even when people see a lot of 0,1 0,06 i never saw nothing less than 0,28....
now i'm ready for 0,15m as minimum...o will upload less....also stock review seems a lot slow with non exclusive.... and see.
if i begin 0,02 simply i will leave my image there and not upload nothing more. very simple.
petition and useless fight are time consuming and will not end to nothing.
i see fotolia increasing a lot their sale and shutter stock recovering in the last 2 months...strangely i have my best month in stock from a long time. i repeat till they grow my per month income i will upload if not bye bye.
in my opinion they are simply moving their effort to exclusive contributor.
Maybe because they aren't implementing the new royaltys until December 23. ::)
-
so far i haven't seen any of this 0,02....even when people see a lot of 0,1 0,06 i never saw nothing less than 0,28....
now i'm ready for 0,15m as minimum...o will upload less....also stock review seems a lot slow with non exclusive.... and see.
if i begin 0,02 simply i will leave my image there and not upload nothing more. very simple.
petition and useless fight are time consuming and will not end to nothing.
i see fotolia increasing a lot their sale and shutter stock recovering in the last 2 months...strangely i have my best month in stock from a long time. i repeat till they grow my per month income i will upload if not bye bye.
in my opinion they are simply moving their effort to exclusive contributor.
You will get $0.02 when they make the change and if you leave your images there, it will only get worse. They presume a lot of people wont bother leaving and they have been right until now. The problem is, why would other sites pay us more if we tolerate $0.02 with istock? Staying with them is going to cost you a lot of money. I remember saying this when they cut below 20% and I was right. Shutterstock used to give us a raise every year and that stopped. BigStock, I23RF and other sites have cut the amount they pay us or made it impossible to reach the levels we used to get paid. At some point, contributors have to take action or we will see all the sites paying us less until there's no point in uploading.
-
150000 files as a backlog in a hard disk... amazing story
However, i hardly can imaging how uploading files (at any places) will even cover costs for keyword & upload time
unless they are specific produced concepts in high demand
amazing story of how stupid i was:)...i began micro in the early time when if i had uploaded constantly i probably would have saved a lot of money....but i was lazy and really not interested.
i begin shooting model last month :))...
anyway let's see the results. clearly of 150000 images a lot will go to trash. in practice i don't buu...ll..it..but i have 5 6 trip in the world who i have not even fully reviewed:))...let's say better late than never
-
150000 files as a backlog in a hard disk... amazing story
However, i hardly can imaging how uploading files (at any places) will even cover costs for keyword & upload time
unless they are specific produced concepts in high demand
clearly i expect from 150000 10% of sellable images, of those 2,3% will go to rm and offset...the rest to micro.
-
so far i haven't seen any of this 0,02....even when people see a lot of 0,1 0,06 i never saw nothing less than 0,28....
now i'm ready for 0,15m as minimum...o will upload less....also stock review seems a lot slow with non exclusive.... and see.
if i begin 0,02 simply i will leave my image there and not upload nothing more. very simple.
petition and useless fight are time consuming and will not end to nothing.
i see fotolia increasing a lot their sale and shutter stock recovering in the last 2 months...strangely i have my best month in stock from a long time. i repeat till they grow my per month income i will upload if not bye bye.
in my opinion they are simply moving their effort to exclusive contributor.
You will get $0.02 when they make the change and if you leave your images there, it will only get worse. They presume a lot of people wont bother leaving and they have been right until now. The problem is, why would other sites pay us more if we tolerate $0.02 with istock? Staying with them is going to cost you a lot of money. I remember saying this when they cut below 20% and I was right. Shutterstock used to give us a raise every year and that stopped. BigStock, I23RF and other sites have cut the amount they pay us or made it impossible to reach the levels we used to get paid. At some point, contributors have to take action or we will see all the sites paying us less until there's no point in uploading.
at some point luckily most of these company will fail...and most of those who shoot pet and cheap still life will see their portfolio erased and luckily new company will not follow the step of the ancient micro....
luckily will see a growth of company who cares more about quality.
but it's a dream,.
clearly if what i will earn from an image is 0,02 i will not upload nothing more. if many will stop uploading they will see a lost in content.
-
personally where does the 0,02 come from? the 15% rate of one dollar is 0,15....now i earn 0,25...they sell images at 9 cent?
good for them.
-
I have some good shots in micro and earn money thanks to a lot of subs and shutter S.O licences or some fotolia credit sales or low images pack.
With Istock changes is very easy earnd 0.06...0.12...0,03...this is crazy low...even for stupid isolated apple in white and the worst is that i cant erase good microstock photos to send for other sites.
john bull i have good photos in offset and is not only about quality, a lot of quality images are rejected by them: is necesary some "realistic style" (plainpicture-stocksy-offset style and we musnt forget that plainpicture was the first) There is a lot of great photos in microstock and only work with high subs percentaje and some single sales. With 0.12-004--0.09 only work for youtube views.
well for me micro stock has tons of well made images but not very beautiful....i always browse agency for inspiration and to see what sell...in offset stocks i could browse forever, micro stock is os boring fo a lot of theme, landscape and travel are all oversaturated, i think most shooters use canon:).
-
so far i haven't seen any of this 0,02....even when people see a lot of 0,1 0,06 i never saw nothing less than 0,28....
now i'm ready for 0,15m as minimum...o will upload less....also stock review seems a lot slow with non exclusive.... and see.
if i begin 0,02 simply i will leave my image there and not upload nothing more. very simple.
petition and useless fight are time consuming and will not end to nothing.
i see fotolia increasing a lot their sale and shutter stock recovering in the last 2 months...strangely i have my best month in stock from a long time. i repeat till they grow my per month income i will upload if not bye bye.
in my opinion they are simply moving their effort to exclusive contributor.
You will get $0.02 when they make the change and if you leave your images there, it will only get worse. They presume a lot of people wont bother leaving and they have been right until now. The problem is, why would other sites pay us more if we tolerate $0.02 with istock? Staying with them is going to cost you a lot of money. I remember saying this when they cut below 20% and I was right. Shutterstock used to give us a raise every year and that stopped. BigStock, I23RF and other sites have cut the amount they pay us or made it impossible to reach the levels we used to get paid. At some point, contributors have to take action or we will see all the sites paying us less until there's no point in uploading.
let's see what happened.
clearly this company don't know nothing about business...i remember when shutter stock change price making the buy of extended license redundant and expensive...my extends license are fallen down since then...now this....luckily the dollar is getting stronger...so i will earn more euro:=
-
0,01?
i don't believe sorry.
i repeat bio trace in my account of anything less than 0,25...even from partner program.
i expect 0,15 minimum. anyway i always smell more with credits than sub.
Believe or disbelieve what you like: it doesn't alter the facts.
Here are two screenshots: one showing a 1c Getty Connect sale, the other showing one of my 3c sales last month. In my case, as I'm not on Thinkstock, Partner Program means Getty Plus.
(http://www.lizworld.com/Lowball.jpg)
-
i believe for sure just i not experienced any sale like this....maybe i shoot more travel images...maybe i sell less but sell for better price. i sell mostly crediti in stock fotolia andd shutter. maybe is what i shot.
-
i believe for sure just i not experienced any sale like this....maybe i shoot more travel images...maybe i sell less but sell for better price. i sell mostly crediti in stock fotolia andd shutter. maybe is what i shot.
It's hard to say, I can't see which of my images went for the 1c values (only four sales, thankfully). The 3c G+ sales only started this month, AFAIK. Why wouldn't customers who have good deals (e.g. big bulk buyers, people who can use Getty images for free e.g. Steelhouse [I suspect that's a Connect deal, for which Getty got a lot of money and we get almost nothing]) not want certain types of image?
-
i believe for sure just i not experienced any sale like this....maybe i shoot more travel images...maybe i sell less but sell for better price. i sell mostly crediti in stock fotolia andd shutter. maybe is what i shot.
It's hard to say, I can't see which of my images went for the 1c values (only four sales, thankfully). The 3c G+ sales only started this month, AFAIK. Why wouldn't customers who have good deals (e.g. big bulk buyers, people who can use Getty images for free e.g. Steelhouse [I suspect that's a Connect deal, for which Getty got a lot of money and we get almost nothing]) not want certain types of image?
i don't have any getty connect...only think stock...and i have check minimum sale ever 0,28...i expected this to lower to 0,2 0,15..clearluy 0,01 is a joke. but for me the important is not about how many sales for image, or royalty for sale....i see end month if the total is more than month before is sustainable, if not, i will stop uploading.
anyway i have stopped uploading cause i have 400 files waiting to be reviewed...it seems they not care more of non exclusive. in the past they review very fast. now s like a month waiting. in addiction i have very slow internet and only fast mobile with 20 giga month, so i need also to choose what upload to whom fast, and then use cable at home for other service...istock will be put on the second uploading.
-
I also got the 1c for September. I wonder why it doesn't show on the daily chart, only the monthly view.
They are maker it harder and harder to see what is happening. The hard part for me is that iStock is my number 1 earner.
-
I also got the 1c for September. I wonder why it doesn't show on the daily chart, only the monthly view.
It's because the 1c doesn't show until it's earned, viz the actual amount is less than 1c, but you only get the 1c when there is an aggregation of that amount.
I don't pretend to understand it, (and I see it's been around as far back as 2013!) but here's some info:
http://developer.gettyimages.com/faq_general#aboutconnect (http://developer.gettyimages.com/faq_general#aboutconnect)
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=351239 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=351239)
The original article explaining it seems to bring up a 404 error, unless someone knows where it has gone.
Ths OP here http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=351199&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=351199&page=1) includes the information: "Since Connect sales are small, they are aggregated and reported on a monthly basis."
-
So I finally got around to reading one of the emails sent this week on the new commission structure. Am I right in thinking that I'm currently getting 16% for my videos, and next year I'll get 20%?
-
Thanks for that ShadySue.
-
Update. It looks like they finally closed my account and it only took them 27 days. I guess I just have to trust them to send me the correct amount that they owe me. So today I am thankful to finally be done with those rotten, greedy bass turds. ;D
-
Update. It looks like they finally closed my account and it only took them 27 days. I guess I just have to trust them to send me the correct amount that they owe me. So today I am thankful to finally be done with those rotten, greedy bass turds. ;D
I will be joining you soon. Still can't quite believe that the response of lots of people to the prospect of getting $0.02 is to sign a petition. There's so many better places to sell for non-exclusives, this is a great opportunity to get away from istock and send a message to the other sites that they wont get away with paying us almost nothing.
-
Update. It looks like they finally closed my account and it only took them 27 days. I guess I just have to trust them to send me the correct amount that they owe me. So today I am thankful to finally be done with those rotten, greedy bass turds. ;D
I will be joining you soon. Still can't quite believe that the response of lots of people to the prospect of getting $0.02 is to sign a petition. There's so many better places to sell for non-exclusives, this is a great opportunity to get away from istock and send a message to the other sites that they wont get away with paying us almost nothing.
Same as its always been. Signing a petition is easy. Even though there is only a slim chance that it would even work, most do not really want to do what it takes...leave entirely. Instead, they will continue to take the peanuts, and just whine about it. For the life of me, I do not understand people who continue to accept abuse.
-
I am convinced that if we were more people to take action (signing the petition, stop uploading photos or even delete the account) we could change something.
Here, in Romania, last year, we succeeded to change a corrupt socialist government just because we mobilized.
This is just my opinion..
:-\
-
Update. It looks like they finally closed my account and it only took them 27 days. I guess I just have to trust them to send me the correct amount that they owe me. So today I am thankful to finally be done with those rotten, greedy bass turds. ;D
I will be joining you soon. Still can't quite believe that the response of lots of people to the prospect of getting $0.02 is to sign a petition. There's so many better places to sell for non-exclusives, this is a great opportunity to get away from istock and send a message to the other sites that they wont get away with paying us almost nothing.
Same as its always been. Signing a petition is easy. Even though there is only a slim chance that it would even work, most do not really want to do what it takes...leave entirely. Instead, they will continue to take the peanuts, and just whine about it. For the life of me, I do not understand people who continue to accept abuse.
The petition gives Getty/iStock (and others) an idea of how many contributors they might lose, gives them an opportunity to respond (unlikely) and sends a message to other sites that we won't accept a slash in royalties. It's also something that you can point buyers and media outlets to so they see it's not just one or two people upset about the decrease in royalties but something that affects the income of thousands of artists.
Close to 800 people have signed it now. If everyone signed it we'd have thousands of signatures, which would give people an idea of the impact this royalty cut has.
Whining here does nothing. At least the petition gives us a public voice. If it doesn't work, hey, I'll pull my port. But then I can tell the many, many buyers I know how hard we tried to get Getty to change its mind.
I think it's ironic when people who can't be bothered to even sign a petition have the time and energy to whine over and over again about how it's not gonna work.
-
I am convinced that if we were more people to take action (signing the petition, stop uploading photos or even delete the account) we could change something.
Here, in Romania, last year, we succeeded to change a corrupt socialist government just because we mobilized.
This is just my opinion..
:-\
You are waaaay too optimistic. We are in the same boat and I don't see any improvements. The fact we are trying, doesn't mean we also succeed. The more we try, the more they pull us back in. Let's hope 11 December will change something.
I am not confident in petitions. I sign a lot of them, because hope dies last :). You never know...but I will not be too positive :)
-
You are waaaay too optimistic. We are in the same boat and I don't see any improvements. The fact we are trying, doesn't mean we also succeed. The more we try, the more they pull us back in. Let's hope 11 December will change something.
I am not confident in petitions. I sign a lot of them, because hope dies last :). You never know...but I will not be too positive :)
Definitely that day will change something. The question is if that day will change for the better or worse?
I believe that it's our duty first step to try to do something and after that to complain. Another thing that I believe it is that (99%) anyone deserve what he is or what he's got. Same here: if we, the contributors don't do anything, well, why the agencies will do something good for us ?!
-
I got out of this sinking ship long ago!
-
if we, the contributors don't do anything, well, why the agencies will do something good for us ?!
Well, I did something about it: I have erased almost everything from Istock. I only left a few images, just in case they change their minds. And I have sign the petition, but I don't think this is the way to change something. Everyone runs his own business how he wants. You don't like it, you don't buy it. The only possibility to make it count, in this particular matter, is letting them without stuff for sale. Their buyers will go somewhere else, so they will have to change the way they understand to do business.
If I were they, (but I'm not), I would have payed exclusive contributor a lot more, leave people with good stuff to join in if they want, no matter if they were new and even if they wouldn't meet the requirements (250 downloads).
-
The option for even total newbies to become exclusive, should they want to ::), is part of all the new arrangements)
-
The option for even total newbies to become exclusive, should they want to ::), is part of all the new arrangements)
It's a big difference between trying to attract contributors and trying to force them to become exclusive by offering lower payments if they refuse to stay non exclusive. You can do this if you have only a few competitors and they are too small to count on the market.
-
No, I won't be signing any petitions. I no longer have any dogs in that fight, and it would be a total waste of my time anyway. You all have fun with your petitions, complaining to them, etc. The question of whether IStock gives a crap about what I or any other independent contributor thinks about them was answered loud and clear to me on October 25, 2016. That 2 cent royalty clause told me everything I needed to know about IStock and any future relationship I might have had with that abusive, offensive, greedy agency. I will now be putting my efforts into producing superior images for competing agencies that pay us fairly so I can do my part to help IS go out of business faster.
-
and you think that micro stock agency care about u or me or 100 contributor?
maybe you don't know exactly how many people are ready to jump the stock wagon in all the world...look only the spread of photographer coming from serbia ukraine russia in the last here...producing millions of photo, because produce in these country is so cheap u can shoot with model 5 times a time for the price of one shooting in usa or uk.....and they can live good with 800 1000 dollar month...
i repeat micro stock is a fight of poor. to survive you need supercontnetn and sell them in rm or high end rf factory. the micro stock at this moment or you have a big production with minimum cost or you die.
-
Update. It looks like they finally closed my account and it only took them 27 days. I guess I just have to trust them to send me the correct amount that they owe me. So today I am thankful to finally be done with those rotten, greedy bass turds. ;D
I will be joining you soon. Still can't quite believe that the response of lots of people to the prospect of getting $0.02 is to sign a petition. There's so many better places to sell for non-exclusives, this is a great opportunity to get away from istock and send a message to the other sites that they wont get away with paying us almost nothing.
Same as its always been. Signing a petition is easy. Even though there is only a slim chance that it would even work, most do not really want to do what it takes...leave entirely. Instead, they will continue to take the peanuts, and just whine about it. For the life of me, I do not understand people who continue to accept abuse.
The petition gives Getty/iStock (and others) an idea of how many contributors they might lose, gives them an opportunity to respond (unlikely) and sends a message to other sites that we won't accept a slash in royalties. It's also something that you can point buyers and media outlets to so they see it's not just one or two people upset about the decrease in royalties but something that affects the income of thousands of artists.
Close to 800 people have signed it now. If everyone signed it we'd have thousands of signatures, which would give people an idea of the impact this royalty cut has.
Whining here does nothing. At least the petition gives us a public voice. If it doesn't work, hey, I'll pull my port. But then I can tell the many, many buyers I know how hard we tried to get Getty to change its mind.
I think it's ironic when people who can't be bothered to even sign a petition have the time and energy to whine over and over again about how it's not gonna work.
It doesn't take much time or energy to request istock to close your account. It would hurt istock much more if 800 of us did that.
-
Update. It looks like they finally closed my account and it only took them 27 days. I guess I just have to trust them to send me the correct amount that they owe me. So today I am thankful to finally be done with those rotten, greedy bass turds. ;D
I will be joining you soon. Still can't quite believe that the response of lots of people to the prospect of getting $0.02 is to sign a petition. There's so many better places to sell for non-exclusives, this is a great opportunity to get away from istock and send a message to the other sites that they wont get away with paying us almost nothing.
Same as its always been. Signing a petition is easy. Even though there is only a slim chance that it would even work, most do not really want to do what it takes...leave entirely. Instead, they will continue to take the peanuts, and just whine about it. For the life of me, I do not understand people who continue to accept abuse.
The petition gives Getty/iStock (and others) an idea of how many contributors they might lose, gives them an opportunity to respond (unlikely) and sends a message to other sites that we won't accept a slash in royalties. It's also something that you can point buyers and media outlets to so they see it's not just one or two people upset about the decrease in royalties but something that affects the income of thousands of artists.
Close to 800 people have signed it now. If everyone signed it we'd have thousands of signatures, which would give people an idea of the impact this royalty cut has.
Whining here does nothing. At least the petition gives us a public voice. If it doesn't work, hey, I'll pull my port. But then I can tell the many, many buyers I know how hard we tried to get Getty to change its mind.
I think it's ironic when people who can't be bothered to even sign a petition have the time and energy to whine over and over again about how it's not gonna work.
I guess it depends on what your definition of whining is. I think whining is when someone has a choice to change something, but chooses not to, then keeps complaining or whining about it. I dont see whining as when people express their opinion about something or try to give advice on trying a different solution.
Complaining about Getty/istock has been going on for YEARS and yet here they still are. I am just hoping they self-destruct, with or without a petition.
-
The option for even total newbies to become exclusive, should they want to ::), is part of all the new arrangements)
Why would we want to? Slow agency, dropping commissions, no support, low sales.
I'm waiting a few months to see if I get some of those 2c sales. It was bad enough when I got 28c. If it gets worse, leaving is the answer. I won't even leave files there for that pay, it's an insult.
-
It doesn't take much time or energy to request istock to close your account. It would hurt istock much more if 800 of us did that.
Exactly what I said. I took my images down from istock years ago, but left my account open, hoping for common sense or fairness to contributors to prevail. That is never going to happen...it is only getting worse. I have a request in right now to totally delete my account. I dont ever want to work with them again and I dont accept their offer of peanuts for my images. In my mind, a far better solution.
-
It doesn't take much time or energy to request istock to close your account. It would hurt istock much more if 800 of us did that.
Would it?
If 800 people quietly close their accounts, what will it do? How would anyone know? Surely by now, after round after round of royalty cuts over the years, with mass deletions every now and again, at least 800 people must have closed their accounts, and many more have deactivated huge portions of their portfolios, me included.
Did it matter to Getty? Of course not. Nobody knows it happened but us.
What will matter to Getty is losing buyers. And being able to show them that thousands of artists have signed a petition about royalty cuts is useful.
-
It doesn't take much time or energy to request istock to close your account. It would hurt istock much more if 800 of us did that.
Would it?
If 800 people quietly close their accounts, what will it do? How would anyone know? Surely by now, after round after round of royalty cuts over the years, with mass deletions every now and again, at least 800 people must have closed their accounts, and many more have deactivated huge portions of their portfolios, me included.
Did it matter to Getty? Of course not. Nobody knows it happened but us.
What will matter to Getty is losing buyers. And being able to show them that thousands of artists have signed a petition about royalty cuts is useful.
Buyers put images in to lightboxes or they go back and buy images again. If they are gone, they might try and find them on other sites. I'm sure all those missing images makes a difference with Google. Istock used to be on a par with Shutterstock for non-exclusive in the earnings poll here. People leaving might of made a difference but they are even behind Fotolia now. So I have to disagree, Getty might not think it matters but they are wrong.
-
So I have to disagree, Getty might not think it matters but they are wrong.
If the top 800 leave, Getty would really notice it. If the bottom 8000 leave they would just laugh about how much wasted server space was being recovered. And those most likely to leave are those with the least to lose. The top 800 would lose quite a lot. The bottom 8000 probably would never have made a payout, anyway. That's just how it is.
-
So I have to disagree, Getty might not think it matters but they are wrong.
If the top 800 leave, Getty would really notice it. If the bottom 8000 leave they would just laugh about how much wasted server space was being recovered. And those most likely to leave are those with the least to lose. The top 800 would lose quite a lot. The bottom 8000 probably would never have made a payout, anyway. That's just how it is.
I'm in the top couple hundred and if my monthly income there drops any more I DONT stand to lose a lot. This year I make so little there that if I lose even one or two hundred $ /month it won't be worth staying.
-
They will only loose buyers if they don't have a large enough range of content to offer. No petition is going to affect Getty. The power is on buyers side more than ever, agencies are trying to make it thinning margins and squeezing contributors to the last drop. Many cannot sustain this pressure and they move out the game, but not in the numbers to really affect the diversity of their library. There is so much repetitive content now that they really have enough to offer of nearly every subject. Even so much mentioned niche is sometimes well covered. They have ilustrations and specially photography to fill five Titanics now.....not all video they want so the still treat those contributors a little better.
It is tough folks, forget petitions, mourning the good all times, unions,etc.......try to produce a very unique style and move to exclusive better treating agencies. The huge Juggernauts of the stock industry don't really care about contributors anymore.The black hole is not going to be any brighter.
I know....gloom and doom......but it is what it is......
It doesn't take much time or energy to request istock to close your account. It would hurt istock much more if 800 of us did that.
Would it?
If 800 people quietly close their accounts, what will it do? How would anyone know? Surely by now, after round after round of royalty cuts over the years, with mass deletions every now and again, at least 800 people must have closed their accounts, and many more have deactivated huge portions of their portfolios, me included.
Did it matter to Getty? Of course not. Nobody knows it happened but us.
What will matter to Getty is losing buyers. And being able to show them that thousands of artists have signed a petition about royalty cuts is useful.
-
So I have to disagree, Getty might not think it matters but they are wrong.
If the top 800 leave, Getty would really notice it. If the bottom 8000 leave they would just laugh about how much wasted server space was being recovered. And those most likely to leave are those with the least to lose. The top 800 would lose quite a lot. The bottom 8000 probably would never have made a payout, anyway. That's just how it is.
I'd agree except add that if everybody here and everybody who signed the petition left, they still wouldn't care. If one peanut producer leaves the maarket or 800 peanut growers leave the market, there are many more to fill in. This is a world market, and for some reason, just like Micro, there are more and more people willing to work for underpaying peanuts if anybody else leaves.
The agencies have come to the power point of, if you don't like it, you can leave. They have 1000 other stupid people that are willing to work for nearly nothing. This is the house that the early people built on happiness for 25c sales or 15% commissions at IS. The same people who flocked to sell out their soul for 25c to be a member on DP.
And every time one agency lowers returns, people scream, but we are unheard. A petition with 1000 names has no weight to Getty.
-
So I have to disagree, Getty might not think it matters but they are wrong.
If the top 800 leave, Getty would really notice it. If the bottom 8000 leave they would just laugh about how much wasted server space was being recovered. And those most likely to leave are those with the least to lose. The top 800 would lose quite a lot. The bottom 8000 probably would never have made a payout, anyway. That's just how it is.
I'd agree except add that if everybody here and everybody who signed the petition left, they still wouldn't care. If one peanut producer leaves the maarket or 800 peanut growers leave the market, there are many more to fill in. This is a world market, and for some reason, just like Micro, there are more and more people willing to work for underpaying peanuts if anybody else leaves.
The agencies have come to the power point of, if you don't like it, you can leave. They have 1000 other stupid people that are willing to work for nearly nothing. This is the house that the early people built on happiness for 25c sales or 15% commissions at IS. The same people who flocked to sell out their soul for 25c to be a member on DP.
And every time one agency lowers returns, people scream, but we are unheard. A petition with 1000 names has no weight to Getty.
Istock paid 20% to those "early people" and currently pays 17-19% to some of us. Not to metion they paid up to 40% to exclusives from the inception of that program. SS paiid .38 to anyone willing to work moderately hard. With FAR less competition at most sites, they were not earning peanuts, but many earned solid 6k incomes. Thats why the early people were happy. It was a balance that seemed to work well. I didn't come along til a few years later, but even in 2009 there was still a good chance to make money. I am kicking myself for not getting in sooner because I am sure my hesitancy cost me couple hundred k.
The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
I became active 8ish years ago, but I remember making 20% as nonexclusive until at least 2013, and the thread on the deactivation day subject seems to back that up. So isn't that more like 3+ years?
Not saying it doesn't suck, but explaining why some of us felt happy with stock til the past couple years.
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
I became active 8ish years ago, but I remember making 20% as nonexclusive until at least 2013, and the thread on the deactivation day subject seems to back that up. So isn't that more like 3+ years?
Not saying it doesn't suck, but explaining why some of us felt happy with stock til the past couple years.
They announced the cuts in 2010, so you must of been getting below 20%in 2011? Here's one thread about it http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/)
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
I became active 8ish years ago, but I remember making 20% as nonexclusive until at least 2013, and the thread on the deactivation day subject seems to back that up. So isn't that more like 3+ years?
Not saying it doesn't suck, but explaining why some of us felt happy with stock til the past couple years.
They announced the cuts in 2010, so you must of been getting below 20%in 2011? Here's one thread about it [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url])
Frosting and fabrications won't change the truth Pixel, Since TS around 2010 most independents have been getting 15% or less. IS has diverted sales from credit to subs and TS. They keep making exciting changes which only mean we get less. RC was another way to pay less to more people.
Exclusives do get what they work for and I've always said they deserve that for being loyal and exclusive. They should get better search placement.
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
I became active 8ish years ago, but I remember making 20% as nonexclusive until at least 2013, and the thread on the deactivation day subject seems to back that up. So isn't that more like 3+ years?
Not saying it doesn't suck, but explaining why some of us felt happy with stock til the past couple years.
They announced the cuts in 2010, so you must of been getting below 20%in 2011? Here's one thread about it [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url])
Frosting and fabrications won't change the truth Pixel, Since TS around 2010 most independents have been getting 15% or less. IS has diverted sales from credit to subs and TS. They keep making exciting changes which only mean we get less. RC was another way to pay less to more people.
Exclusives do get what they work for and I've always said they deserve that for being loyal and exclusive. They should get better search placement.
Don't get me wrong. I agree they've been screwing us for a long time.. That's why I haven't uploaded there in almost 3 years. I wasn't counting the Thinkstock subs as part of the % drop, but it did drop overall earnings. Some of you guys started before I did and probably remember outrages I didn't go thru or else didn't notice as I was building my port. I do know that I make a couple % over the minimum on the few credit sales i get, at least til the 23rd of this month. Then it's Merry Christmas contributors - BEND OVER and all goes even farther down the tubes. If the money's gone, so am I.
Had such a good month on Adobe/FT I may not even miss IS.
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
I became active 8ish years ago, but I remember making 20% as nonexclusive until at least 2013, and the thread on the deactivation day subject seems to back that up. So isn't that more like 3+ years?
Not saying it doesn't suck, but explaining why some of us felt happy with stock til the past couple years.
They announced the cuts in 2010, so you must of been getting below 20%in 2011? Here's one thread about it [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url])
Frosting and fabrications won't change the truth Pixel, Since TS around 2010 most independents have been getting 15% or less. IS has diverted sales from credit to subs and TS. They keep making exciting changes which only mean we get less. RC was another way to pay less to more people.
Exclusives do get what they work for and I've always said they deserve that for being loyal and exclusive. They should get better search placement.
Don't get me wrong. I agree they've been screwing us for a long time.. That's why I haven't uploaded there in almost 3 years. I wasn't counting the Thinkstock subs as part of the % drop, but it did drop overall earnings. Some of you guys started before I did and probably remember outrages I didn't go thru or else didn't notice as I was building my port. I do know that I make a couple % over the minimum on the few credit sales i get, at least til the 23rd of this month. Then it's Merry Christmas contributors - BEND OVER and all goes even farther down the tubes. If the money's gone, so am I.
Had such a good month on Adobe/FT I may not even miss IS.
Please accept my apologizes for thinking you were a happy iStock zombie drone. :) I read the message and understood wrong.
Like the old old threads where people averaged 50c a download, not including any EL. Now we can include EL and after subs and ts, I don't think I average 50c a download anymore. Less downloads means less income while we get latest exciting news.
Most agencies are finding new ways to pay less peanuts to us chumps. Istock is just the master at pretending we don't see through them. How did they go from overwhelming top agency with happy contributors, to #3 with people who haven't left, still disgruntled? Maybe they just don't care? Otherwise how can they be that stupid?
-
.....The agencies screwing over their contributors like this is a relatively recent phenomena. Past 3 years maybe. Before that some tried, but petitions and group actions did mostly work to stop them.
More like 6 years. It's all in this forum, istock sent us a "good news" email telling us they were cutting non-exclusives commission below 20%. Until then, we had some success improving things with a few sites but they ignored our deactivation day protest and all the big sites have given us "good news" since then.
I became active 8ish years ago, but I remember making 20% as nonexclusive until at least 2013, and the thread on the deactivation day subject seems to back that up. So isn't that more like 3+ years?
Not saying it doesn't suck, but explaining why some of us felt happy with stock til the past couple years.
They announced the cuts in 2010, so you must of been getting below 20%in 2011? Here's one thread about it [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/so-what-are-we-all-going-to-do/[/url])
Frosting and fabrications won't change the truth Pixel, Since TS around 2010 most independents have been getting 15% or less. IS has diverted sales from credit to subs and TS. They keep making exciting changes which only mean we get less. RC was another way to pay less to more people.
Exclusives do get what they work for and I've always said they deserve that for being loyal and exclusive. They should get better search placement.
Don't get me wrong. I agree they've been screwing us for a long time.. That's why I haven't uploaded there in almost 3 years. I wasn't counting the Thinkstock subs as part of the % drop, but it did drop overall earnings. Some of you guys started before I did and probably remember outrages I didn't go thru or else didn't notice as I was building my port. I do know that I make a couple % over the minimum on the few credit sales i get, at least til the 23rd of this month. Then it's Merry Christmas contributors - BEND OVER and all goes even farther down the tubes. If the money's gone, so am I.
Had such a good month on Adobe/FT I may not even miss IS.
Please accept my apologizes for thinking you were a happy iStock zombie drone. :) I read the message and understood wrong.
Like the old old threads where people averaged 50c a download, not including any EL. Now we can include EL and after subs and ts, I don't think I average 50c a download anymore. Less downloads means less income while we get latest exciting news.
Most agencies are finding new ways to pay less peanuts to us chumps. Istock is just the master at pretending we don't see through them. How did they go from overwhelming top agency with happy contributors, to #3 with people who haven't left, still disgruntled? Maybe they just don't care? Otherwise how can they be that stupid?
I think you nailed it. They just don't care AND they are that stupid!
And it seems likely they are bleeding money from their greedy, stupid policies. It blows my mind that some other sites seem to be going down the same road!
FWIW, I was a happy drone when I first joined, before they started to poison the well. I just didn't remember how long ago that was. I missed the glory days by a couple years, but things still seemed okay in 2009. I never in my life would of predicted how bad things could get there. So glad I was never exclusive!
-
I recall daring to criticise them all those years ago and getting shot down in flames by a lot in the forums who have since been bitten on the backside by Istock. I saw the early signs but many were wearing Istock tinted sunglasses.
-
Did they start messing us about three years ago or six years ago? Well, maybe eight or more years ago. See this thread from summer 2008 http://www.microstockgroup.com/stockxpert-com/StockXpert-photos-com/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/stockxpert-com/StockXpert-photos-com/)
I'm not even sure that's the earliest sign of looming troubles. When did Fotolia disconnect the value of a credit for photographers from the cost of a credit to buyers? I can't remember.
But if you really want to go back to the first sell-out, it was Bruce selling to Getty back in 2005 IIRC. Many early submitters were virulently anti- big business and regarded Getty as the great Satan. I'm told that a lot quit after Getty bought iStock. So that pushes it back more than a decade.
-
Did they start messing us about three years ago or six years ago? Well, maybe eight or more years ago. See this thread from summer 2008 [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/stockxpert-com/StockXpert-photos-com/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/stockxpert-com/StockXpert-photos-com/[/url])
I'm not even sure that's the earliest sign of looming troubles. When did Fotolia disconnect the value of a credit for photographers from the cost of a credit to buyers? I can't remember.
But if you really want to go back to the first sell-out, it was Bruce selling to Getty back in 2005 IIRC. Many early submitters were virulently anti- big business and regarded Getty as the great Satan. I'm told that a lot quit after Getty bought iStock. So that pushes it back more than a decade.
Absolutely! the trouble started with Bruce selling to Getty and although I was a long long time member of Getty I for one was against that deal. I smelled trouble from the very start. Getty itself started to show trouble and anxiety already when Mark Getty left the business in the hands of we all know who!
There has always been trouble at Istock and always this stupid friction between exclusives and independents even though not even 10% are exclusives. I recon a good lessen would be if all the independents just deleted their portfolios and left only then would Istock feel and experience the doom of a few exclusives trying to sdave an already sinking ship.
-
Does anyone remember that post by an ex employee explaining why getty is run the way it is? It explains a lot. We are perplexed by what they are doing because we expect the company to be run like a stock agency competing for customers and the best content. Actually like a lot of "businesses" nowadays it is just a financial vehicle to juggle funds about and make money by slight of hand.
-
Because they have always been billions in debt and really dont care. A few moths back they lost four or five long term and very well known RM photographers who was with them since the early 90s and didnt even flinge an eyelid.
The company is today run by suits trying to be clever business men and non creatives trying to run a creative business. Nowadays their pass-time is to sue people in the hope of earning a few dollars. Thats why.
-
There has always been trouble at Istock and always this stupid friction between exclusives and independents even though not even 10% are exclusives.
After they brought in the exclusivity thing in 2005, in response to the appearance of Shutterstock and DT, Bruce managed to keep any friction fairly minimal. It was when he completed his 3 year stint under Getty that they really ramped up the friction. I particularly recall a jarring piece of "great news" from Kelly Thompson, I think it was, where he said something along the lines of "the exclusives are all we care about", I actually protested in the forum that this was a new attitude and got a number of fairly aggressive replies from exclusives. Maybe it was part of the famous "money won't make you happy" post.
-
Correct and with Thompson thats where it all started that was the beginning of the end for us independents. Besides I am sure that Getty really dont want this Istock thorn in the side I am sure that withing a year or something they will either sell or fold the IS company.
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet. If you think he was involved in the big decisions I think you are wrong. I suspect his only role was to try and sugar coat orders from on high. He failed miserably but given what he had to work with I'm not sure he could have succeeded.
Don't get me wrong. F*** him for going along with it, but I don't believe he was the organ grinder.
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet.
True. iS hasn't had a CEO since Bruce left, has it?
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet. If you think he was involved in the big decisions I think you are wrong. I suspect his only role was to try and sugar coat orders from on high. He failed miserably but given what he had to work with I'm not sure he could have succeeded.
Don't get me wrong. F*** him for going along with it, but I don't believe he was the organ grinder.
I know! but even behind the scenes one can create lots of mayhem from second level management and he did!..... I belive Scott went to Adobe/Ft after leaving SS and now an then there is a very strange similarity in the cut-off patterns and geo searches?? we will see.
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet.
True. iS hasn't had a CEO since Bruce left, has it?
Thats because Getty dont want a proper CEO at Istock. They want a yes-man somebody they can boss around and scare!. Just look at the present CEO at Getty. Makes you laugh.
-
Did they start messing us about three years ago or six years ago? Well, maybe eight or more years ago. See this thread from summer 2008 [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/stockxpert-com/StockXpert-photos-com/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/stockxpert-com/StockXpert-photos-com/[/url])
I'm not even sure that's the earliest sign of looming troubles. When did Fotolia disconnect the value of a credit for photographers from the cost of a credit to buyers? I can't remember.
But if you really want to go back to the first sell-out, it was Bruce selling to Getty back in 2005 IIRC. Many early submitters were virulently anti- big business and regarded Getty as the great Satan. I'm told that a lot quit after Getty bought iStock. So that pushes it back more than a decade.
I think the problems started 15 years ago when istock started paying just 20% to its contributors. Alamy were around then, I think they were paying 60%? Other sites started up paying a much higher percentage than istock and that meant they had a lot of competition. I think if istock started at 50% and didn't sell out to Getty, it would have almost no competition.
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet. If you think he was involved in the big decisions I think you are wrong. I suspect his only role was to try and sugar coat orders from on high. He failed miserably but given what he had to work with I'm not sure he could have succeeded.
Don't get me wrong. F*** him for going along with it, but I don't believe he was the organ grinder.
Maybe and maybe not. Pretty much the next day at 500px he slashed commissions by 40%. That was 500px owners taking his f u k d up advice. That tells me a lot about him. I think he was far more culpable than many give him credit.
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet.
True. iS hasn't had a CEO since Bruce left, has it?
Thats because Getty dont want a proper CEO at Istock. They want a yes-man somebody they can boss around and scare!. Just look at the present CEO at Getty. Makes you laugh.
All of iStock is yes men and women holding space in their cubicale to have a job. The whole place is afraid to speak or think. Getty doesn't care like thorn in the side comment is right. Read Lobo on the forums for years, that's how bad the place is and how much they don't care or want to give a straight answer. He's just the mouthpiece and a very nasty person. He is the voice of what Getty and iStock think of us.
-
So I have to disagree, Getty might not think it matters but they are wrong.
If the top 800 leave, Getty would really notice it. If the bottom 8000 leave they would just laugh about how much wasted server space was being recovered. And those most likely to leave are those with the least to lose. The top 800 would lose quite a lot. The bottom 8000 probably would never have made a payout, anyway. That's just how it is.
I'm in the top couple hundred and if my monthly income there drops any more I DONT stand to lose a lot. This year I make so little there that if I lose even one or two hundred $ /month it won't be worth staying.
Wow, that's sad!
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet. If you think he was involved in the big decisions I think you are wrong. I suspect his only role was to try and sugar coat orders from on high. He failed miserably but given what he had to work with I'm not sure he could have succeeded.
Don't get me wrong. F*** him for going along with it, but I don't believe he was the organ grinder.
Maybe and maybe not. Pretty much the next day at 500px he slashed commissions by 40%. That was 500px owners taking his f u k d up advice. That tells me a lot about him. I think he was far more culpable than many give him credit.
Good point, maybe his USP is now the guy to hire when you want to shaft your contributor base?
I would love to see his CV! ;D
-
Does anyone remember that post by an ex employee explaining why getty is run the way it is? It explains a lot. We are perplexed by what they are doing because we expect the company to be run like a stock agency competing for customers and the best content. Actually like a lot of "businesses" nowadays it is just a financial vehicle to juggle funds about and make money by slight of hand.
In the comment section of this article....
http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.no/2015/02/getty-images-downward-spiral-approaches.html (http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.no/2015/02/getty-images-downward-spiral-approaches.html)
-
Thompson was only ever a puppet.
True. iS hasn't had a CEO since Bruce left, has it?
Thats because Getty dont want a proper CEO at Istock. They want a yes-man somebody they can boss around and scare!. Just look at the present CEO at Getty. Makes you laugh.
All of iStock is yes men and women holding space in their cubicale to have a job. The whole place is afraid to speak or think. Getty doesn't care like thorn in the side comment is right. Read Lobo on the forums for years, that's how bad the place is and how much they don't care or want to give a straight answer. He's just the mouthpiece and a very nasty person. He is the voice of what Getty and iStock think of us.
Correct! and it shows you the incompetence by Getty employing people like Lobo. Three people who are responsible for extremely bad contributor friction. Lobo, Thompson and Scott. All three now employed by other agencies. Bad judgement indeed!
-
Where did Lobo go?
-
Lobo is still with Istock/Getty under his real name right where he belongs!
-
Lobo is still with Istock/Getty under his real name right where he belongs!
The guy was nothing but a forum moderator at IS and totally worthless as such. So what is he now? well knowing the stupidity of Getty he probably became the President of GI? ;D
Scott went to Adobe/ft where he probably stirs the kettle as much as he did at the SS forum banning around 30 people just before he left. Nice people right.
-
Lobo is still with Istock/Getty under his real name right where he belongs!
Ha ha ha...I was attending GSC the same time as you. Small world.
-
Lobo is still with Istock/Getty under his real name right where he belongs!
The guy was nothing but a forum moderator at IS and totally worthless as such. So what is he now? well knowing the stupidity of Getty he probably became the President of GI? ;D
Scott went to Adobe/ft where he probably stirs the kettle as much as he did at the SS forum banning around 30 people just before he left. Nice people right.
Isn't Lobo Chris McBurney? One of Istock original co-founders with Bruce? I thought I read that somewhere awhile back. If it's true, he totally sold Istock down the river and should be ashamed to be part of what it has become.
-
Lobo is still with Istock/Getty under his real name right where he belongs!
The guy was nothing but a forum moderator at IS and totally worthless as such. So what is he now? well knowing the stupidity of Getty he probably became the President of GI? ;D
Scott went to Adobe/ft where he probably stirs the kettle as much as he did at the SS forum banning around 30 people just before he left. Nice people right.
Isn't Lobo Chris McBurney? One of Istock original co-founders with Bruce? I thought I read that somewhere awhile back. If it's true, he totally sold Istock down the river and should be ashamed to be part of what it has become.
Now he seems to be at Getty and Getty have a past record of hiring some really incompetent people.
-
Anyone heard from Yuri Arcurs? I see he has stopped doing anything with social media and was last here in August, if he doesn't have a secret alias. He still has a tiny portfolio on DT. Shame there was such a bust up with the non-exclusives, I'm sure Getty must of made him an offer he couldn't refuse but it was still so strange to see the biggest non-exclusive going with them at that time. I'm sure it was always going to work out well for him financially and that makes business sense but it didn't seem like a smart PR move :)
-
Anyone heard from Yuri Arcurs? I see he has stopped doing anything with social media and was last here in August, if he doesn't have a secret alias. He still has a tiny portfolio on DT. Shame there was such a bust up with the non-exclusives, I'm sure Getty must of made him an offer he couldn't refuse but it was still so strange to see the biggest non-exclusive going with them at that time. I'm sure it was always going to work out well for him financially and that makes business sense but it didn't seem like a smart PR move :)
I doubt it worked out as well for him as he thought it would. If it had he'd be crowing about it, here, on his website, in any blog that would interview him. His silence speaks volumes.
He also did damage to contributors as a whole. When he went exclusive at Getty and the world didn't end at the other sites, he proved to all agencies that any contributors are expendable, even the top seller.
-
I am sure he is doing well, better than us. His Peopleimages is the best site on the market at the moment and he has a lot of wholly owned content there. Beside that he has a top spot in the Getty search...
He just leveled up and he already reached the top of the contributors community so why would he advertise himself here anymore?
-
I am sure he is doing well, better than us. His Peopleimages is the best site on the market at the moment and he has a lot of wholly owned content there. Beside that he has a top spot in the Getty search...
He just leveled up and he already reached the top of the contributors community so why would he advertise himself here anymore?
Maybe maybe not but he seems to have a huge ego that requires feeding ..or did maybe hes just taking it easy?
-
His team has had some free uploading tool (rival to DM) on the go for a while now.
Still, if he came in here, I for one would still be gnawing at the old bone of "what happened/went wrong?"
Yuri (quoted by Pickerell) in June 2014:
""“Having just spent 3 days at GI in New York and today in Seattle with the IT exes I believe that very interesting things are in the pipeline for IS. Did I have a say in the upcoming changes... Yes - for sure. That being said. The GI top exe dev guys are highly competent and more flexible and agile towards change that I would have imagined. We are working on a set of core site improvements that will dramatically improve user experience and ultimately sales. Only thing that I can say now: Give IS three months and see the changes for yourself.
“Shutterstock might be in for a bit more competition than they expected, especially if GI has me project managing the develoment team and we utilize the two things GI has that nobody else has: 1. The best images in the world. 2. The best editors in the world. The best images displays that the world has ever seen is just around the corner. Watch this space!”"
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/can-istock-turn-midstock-sales-around/msg382833/#msg382833 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/can-istock-turn-midstock-sales-around/msg382833/#msg382833)
Before you ask: no, you never forget where you bury the hatchet.
-
I'm sure he's doing great financially but he would of been as a non-exclusive as well. The other sites were always going to be OK without him, because he is so successful, there are going to be thousands of copycats.
I hope one day he can talk about the Getty deal, it must of been a very interesting negotiation. I think he would have to be exclusive for many years, he obviously doesn't have the same deal an average contributor would get but does keeping his account open on other sites mean that he's keeping his options open?
-
Dear friends, Freelancers Union started promotion of our case
https://www.facebook.com/freelancersunion/posts/10154825826034726 (https://www.facebook.com/freelancersunion/posts/10154825826034726) (like&share)
with big help of "Microstock Coalition"
https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/12/02/getty-images-istock-petition/ (https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/12/02/getty-images-istock-petition/)
But it's not enough. They want to know the opinion of US-based designers, photographers etc.
Tomorrow on December 7th at 9:30 (New York Time) the conference call with Executive Director of Freelancers Union is to be held.
Would someone please participate and share your opinion to support the issue?
Freelancers Union phone:
718-532-1515 x669
408 Jay Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201
FreelancersUnion.org
-
We'll join in on the call. :)
-
“Shutterstock might be in for a bit more competition than they expected, especially if GI has me project managing the develoment team and we utilize the two things GI has that nobody else has: 1. The best images in the world. 2. The best editors in the world. The best images displays that the world has ever seen is just around the corner. Watch this space!”" Hilarious really the very definition of Hubris!
-
“Shutterstock might be in for a bit more competition than they expected, especially if GI has me project managing the develoment team and we utilize the two things GI has that nobody else has: 1. The best images in the world. 2. The best editors in the world. The best images displays that the world has ever seen is just around the corner. Watch this space!”" Hilarious really the very definition of Hubris!
Hate to bring up an exhausted subject, but I've heard so many similar brags and promises from Trump speeches over the past year. I guess all narcissists sound alike?
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri (along with at least 5 other top guys that used to be here regularly) don't bother to come around anymore?
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri don't bother to come around anymore?
He only came here when he had something to boast about, or when he wanted help. In the latter cases, he didn't feed back. He's not a great loss.
Besides, when people openly boast about how they're going to make things better, they should offer an explanation about why their project management didn't work, or expect a lot of flak.
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri (along with at least 5 other top guys that used to be here regularly) don't bother to come around anymore?
People come, people go. Usually it has more to do with whats going on in their life than anything said here.
I think the main reason so many long time posters don't post is cuz micro is not profitable or exciting for top contributors anymore as they've watched their incomes wither away.
-
It isn't just here, Yuri doesn't seem to be active on social media or his own blog. I can understand why he no longer comes here.
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri don't bother to come around anymore?
He only came here when he had something to boast about, or when he wanted help. In the latter cases, he didn't feed back. He's not a great loss.
Besides, when people openly boast about how they're going to make things better, they should offer an explanation about why their project management didn't work, or expect a lot of flak.
Not that there is any reason to debate what Yuri said years ago but he was talking about the user experience improving. I think it has, the site is a lot less buggy now than it was back then. I also looked back through some of his old posts I'd much rather have someone like him posting here occasionally than the people who were attacking him.
You also edited my quote which leaves out the most important point, many people who had expertise here were forced out. Anyone remember Lisa, it wasn't just those two either.
-
I don`t care about istock. Hope they die soon.
Methinks they are dying even as we speak.
I was with IS for several years but pulled my port for good in 2011. Never regretted it one bit.
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri don't bother to come around anymore?
He only came here when he had something to boast about, or when he wanted help. In the latter cases, he didn't feed back. He's not a great loss.
Besides, when people openly boast about how they're going to make things better, they should offer an explanation about why their project management didn't work, or expect a lot of flak.
Not that there is any reason to debate what Yuri said years ago but he was talking about the user experience improving. I think it has, the site is a lot less buggy now than it was back then. I also looked back through some of his old posts I'd much rather have someone like him posting here occasionally than the people who were attacking him.
You also edited my quote which leaves out the most important point, many people who had expertise here were forced out. Anyone remember Lisa, it wasn't just those two either.
If you mean Lisafx, no one forced her out, she left of her own free will, because she got tired of the bullies here. Everybody here has a choice to stay or leave. And don't forget the ignore button. I dont disagree with what you are saying, i am just questioning your use of the word forced.
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri don't bother to come around anymore?
He only came here when he had something to boast about, or when he wanted help. In the latter cases, he didn't feed back. He's not a great loss.
Besides, when people openly boast about how they're going to make things better, they should offer an explanation about why their project management didn't work, or expect a lot of flak.
Not that there is any reason to debate what Yuri said years ago but he was talking about the user experience improving.
That thread was particularly about earnings, and although he "didn't directly answer the question", there is no direct indication that he was talking about UX, other than as a means to the end of increasing earnings.
I think it has, the site is a lot less buggy now than it was back then.
Possibly, but there's a lot more spam now, even added directly via iStock's system, and acceptance standards have lowered considerably, meaning potential buyers often have to wade through a lot of stuff they'd rather not see.
I also looked back through some of his old posts I'd much rather have someone like him posting here occasionally than the people who were attacking him.
You also edited my quote which leaves out the most important point, many people who had expertise here were forced out. Anyone remember Lisa, it wasn't just those two either.
I did edit it out because I was talking only about Yuri.
Lisa was, IMO, a huge loss to the forum here. I'm not sure how active she currently is. She hasn't uploaded to iS for over two years, and seems not to be currently contributing to SS or DT. (Of course, she may have personal issues which are taking her time/energy rather than positively deciding not to upload.)
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri don't bother to come around anymore?
He only came here when he had something to boast about, or when he wanted help. In the latter cases, he didn't feed back. He's not a great loss.
Besides, when people openly boast about how they're going to make things better, they should offer an explanation about why their project management didn't work, or expect a lot of flak.
Not that there is any reason to debate what Yuri said years ago but he was talking about the user experience improving. I think it has, the site is a lot less buggy now than it was back then. I also looked back through some of his old posts I'd much rather have someone like him posting here occasionally than the people who were attacking him.
You also edited my quote which leaves out the most important point, many people who had expertise here were forced out. Anyone remember Lisa, it wasn't just those two either.
I don't like some of the bullies here but rightly or wrongly, I'm sure many people saw Yuri going exclusive as a betrayal. It should of been totally predictable that he would be met with hostility here when he went exclusive. Then he made some posts that stirred things up even more and expected to be treated with respect. I thought he knew a bit about psychology, so that looked deliberate to me but if he was genuine, then I can't believe how naive he was.
It would be nice if this was a civilised forum and we all treated each other with respect but for that to happen, Leaf would have to be kicking people 24/7. It's a lot easier if we all grow a thicker skin or use the ignore button.
-
I don't like some of the bullies here but rightly or wrongly, I'm sure many people saw Yuri going exclusive as a betrayal.
I agree with this. It seemed bizarre to me but a lot of people took his business decision very personally.
-
Dear all!
Freelancers Union needs very much some stories about How new Getty policy affect us!
US-journalists are ready to help, but they need real emotional source from us.
More activity - more pr-value to come!
-
Gee, I wonder why Yuri don't bother to come around anymore?
He only came here when he had something to boast about, or when he wanted help. In the latter cases, he didn't feed back. He's not a great loss.
Besides, when people openly boast about how they're going to make things better, they should offer an explanation about why their project management didn't work, or expect a lot of flak.
Not that there is any reason to debate what Yuri said years ago but he was talking about the user experience improving. I think it has, the site is a lot less buggy now than it was back then. I also looked back through some of his old posts I'd much rather have someone like him posting here occasionally than the people who were attacking him.
You also edited my quote which leaves out the most important point, many people who had expertise here were forced out. Anyone remember Lisa, it wasn't just those two either.
If you mean Lisafx, no one forced her out, she left of her own free will, because she got tired of the bullies here. Everybody here has a choice to stay or leave. And don't forget the ignore button. I dont disagree with what you are saying, i am just questioning your use of the word forced.
Not just here in the forum. She told me personally that she got vulgar PMs, email attacks and comments on her personal sales website. It was about DPC and FT mostly. Hope she's fine, I don't write her.
-
What is it now? One more day and iStock takes the lead in the race to the bottom. Or where they already winning? Waiting to see my first sub or partner sale after the crash.