Getty have NO option but to sooner or later enforce a 100% exclusivity, its their ticket to survival, simply because for every exclusive gained its another agencies loss. Thats why. Make no misstake, they are not stupid,  they know that among independants, there are just as good, sometimes even better artists who are supplying a whole string of competitors. Getty cant live nor in the long run survive this predicament,  its an infamnia and a thorn.

So, whats the answer?  well since most independants wont come over freely,  they will force us, like with this new contract and the RM contract, etc and as Lisa said, how can you give up 35% of your earnings?  well its impossible, isnt it? so we either put up or shutup.

I am afraid I see it like lagereek. I see IS/Getty will force the decision. They have been advertising of exclusiveness first - and most strongly - and only one model of exclusivity - that of artist exclusivity, not image exclusivity. Latest since last year I see them as driving out non-exclusives - be it through the royalities they receive, the collections they can place their images in or the placement of their images in the search. This will only get worse. And all who remain non-exclusive will see their images in the lowest priced/valued collections (with very few exceptions). I hope I am wrong on that.

This is a pretty critical move. Commissions in the "less than 10%" are probably due soon through sister agencies/partner reselling.
My team and I are researching the extend of this, but a royalty set by Istock on partner distribution is not something we favor at all.

I totally agree.  are you considering pulling out from istock altogether? for someone like you and Lisa with such huge ports it may be a difficult thing to do for sure. 

Has any of you read what could be called a 'mission statement' from H&F on their site? Compared to how mildly high level bussinesses őhrase their intenions, imho they are extremely agressive, almost threatening. They basically say that they buy in, squeeze everything out the company, if the current management stands in the way of that operation they will fire them, replace them with their own. They emphaszie that they are very good at delivering this move, and have done it in the past no problemo... then they exit.

Can you post a link to exactly where you're getting that?  I don't doubt it, but in reading their "about" section, I don't see that anywhere.  Seems pretty mild language to me...

http://www.hf.com/about/index.html

Quote from: lagereek on August 30, 2011, 11:09

Click-click, has got it wrong,  financial suicide?  not at all and why?  simply because most independants with any sizable port and income would in fact go exclusive, if it came to that. At the same time as they benefit from indies turning exclusive, theyre stopping compeeting agencies from earning. Simple.

You see?  this is why they have no option but sooner or later enforce exclusivity.

No, you're wrong on this one (with respect).  The top selling independents would NOT go exclusive.  Most of them couldn't even if they wanted to.  Yuri, Andres, Monkeybusiness, etc. all have outside distribution contracts that would mean they couldn't comply with Istock's artist exclusivity even if they wanted to.  And I doubt they would want to.  None of them even fill their allotted upload slots.  Andres hasn't uploaded anything to Istock at all the past month.  Istock is making itself irrelevant to the really big independent players.  

They are still relevant to me, as I've said, but I would leave rather than go exclusive with them.  It isn't just about the money.  I don't trust the higher ups running the show.  

Well, yes!  but wait a minute,  now youre refering to some of the worlds most prolific microstockers, people who in themselves are instituions and ofcourse they wouldnt go exclusive and for obvious reasons, own outlets and all.  No, Im talking about all the droves of ordinary Diamonds, gold, etc, independants. Thats enough.
Even so people like Yuri, Andresr, etc, are in a position to cut deals, since Im sure Getty wouldnt like to loose their magnitude.

Well, I dont know, I think its leaning very heavily towards an all out exclusivity being pushed upon us. Like the poster above says, people like H%F, are no spring chickens, if you dont produce, its the end of line and thay for sure have got both Getty and IS, by the short and curleys.

...
Click-click, has got it wrong,  financial suicide?  not at all and why?  simply because most independants with any sizable port and income would in fact go exclusive, if it came to that. At the same time as they benefit from indies turning exclusive, theyre stopping compeeting agencies from earning. Simple. ....

I don't understand your reasoning here. As far I understand what you wrote, you're saying that "most independants with any sizable port and income would in fact go exclusive, if it came to that".

How do you know that? How many of the tens of thousands of non-exclusives have you spoken to that expressed they would become exclusive?

Lisa, just as an example as she spoke out here, would leave instead of becoming exclusive. She sure does not represent all non-exclusives but it also demonstrates that not most non-exclusives would become exclusive if the choice was imminent.

Then you said: "At the same time as they benefit from indies turning exclusive, theyre stopping competing agencies from earning. Simple."

While technically true, who is still having enough trust into IS to put all their eggs into IS's basket? IS appears to me like an old demented lady that does one thing one minute and another thing the next minute.

IS does not watch out or care for its exclusives either. What are the perks? Oh I see, uploading once and then you can go back shooting. Riiiiiiight.
They grabbed the stolen commissions from the exclusives the same way they did with the non-exclusives. Sean still has to hunt down illegal uses because IS won't do it for him. Nor would IS pay him any recovered licensing fees either.

5 years ago, if I had the choice, I would have signed up exclusively with IS under the condition that they wouldn't sell out. They did, and here we are.

Feels like a bad marriage lately with istock.

Quote from: lagereek on August 30, 2011, 11:09

...
Click-click, has got it wrong,  financial suicide?  not at all and why?  simply because most independants with any sizable port and income would in fact go exclusive, if it came to that. At the same time as they benefit from indies turning exclusive, theyre stopping compeeting agencies from earning. Simple. ....

I don't understand your reasoning here. As far I understand what you wrote, you're saying that "most independants with any sizable port and income would in fact go exclusive, if it came to that".

How do you know that? How many of the tens of thousands of non-exclusives have you spoken to that expressed they would become exclusive?

Lisa, just as an example as she spoke out here, would leave instead of becoming exclusive. She sure does not represent all non-exclusives but it also demonstrates that not most non-exclusives would become exclusive if the choice was imminent.

Then you said: "At the same time as they benefit from indies turning exclusive, theyre stopping competing agencies from earning. Simple."

While technically true, who is still having enough trust into IS to put all their eggs into IS's basket? IS appears to me like an old demented lady that does one thing one minute and another thing the next minute.

IS does not watch out or care for its exclusives either. What are the perks? Oh I see, uploading once and then you can go back shooting. Riiiiiiight.
They grabbed the stolen commissions from the exclusives the same way they did with the non-exclusives. Sean still has to hunt down illegal uses because IS won't do it for him. Nor would IS pay him any recovered licensing fees either.

5 years ago, if I had the choice, I would have signed up exclusively with IS under the condition that they wouldn't sell out. They did, and here we are.

Oh boy!  I dont know tens of thousands, ofcourse not and do you really seriously believe Getty is interested in all tens of thousands? hardly. The ones that matter, yes. I personally know four "ordinary" Diamonds,  who have turned during this year and there are no regrets, they are earning more then they did before.
This is what I mean with,  lets not fool ourselves with what we want to believe.

Lisa, just as an example as she spoke out here, would leave instead of becoming exclusive. She sure does not represent all non-exclusives but it also demonstrates that not most non-exclusives would become exclusive if the choice was imminent.

Elena alluded to the same thing in the other thread - that if they go to exclusive only she won't be uploading there anymore.  I read that to mean she would leave if offered that ultimatum.  She can, of course, clarify here if I am misinterpreting.  

I am very confident that only a tiny minority of high earning independents would go exclusive with Istock rather than leave, if those were their only two choices.  And if such a minority exists, they were probably planning exclusivity anyway.  

But frankly, this is all hypothetical.  For right now, we have enough crappola to wade through without making stuff up...

Quote from: retrorocket on August 30, 2011, 11:30

Quote from: lagereek on August 30, 2011, 11:09

Click-click, has got it wrong,  financial suicide?  not at all and why?  simply because most independants with any sizable port and income would in fact go exclusive, if it came to that. At the same time as they benefit from indies turning exclusive, theyre stopping compeeting agencies from earning. Simple.

You see?  this is why they have no option but sooner or later enforce exclusivity.

I think you might be wrong. I'm afraid in 6 months time that there won't be enough volume at IS for big independents to even consider going exclusive. Getty is pushing for Thinkstock to become its new star to get rid of the high payouts. Why else would there be forced participation? Istock considers Shutterstock a competitor, so Istock exclusives should realize that Thinkstock will soon be real a competitor with Istock. I remember Klein in an interview telling the music industry not to be afraid of letting one of your businesses cannibalize the others. That is essentially what Istock originally did to the stock photography side of Getty Images and now Thinkstock will have enough quality images to compete with and cannibalize Istock.

Look!  do yourself a favour, forget all this jazz about contributors, buyers for a moment, we are just pawns in this pharaphernalia. Think business instead.  Would you like to do all these moves, this and that, TS, IS, PP, and all,  and STILL, leaving your main competitors like SS, DT, etc, to freely roam around taking a big chunk of the cake.
Cant you see?  this is just the tip of the iceberg,  leaving much more to come.

The danger here, is that we are fooling ourselves into believing the same old codswhallop, like buyers are leaving, contributors are leaving, etc, etc. well, a fools paradise, so to speak.

I thought I was thinking business. I'm exclusive and sales have been falling steadily in an unprecedented way and forced participation in Thinkstock will only further hurt sales at Istock. I dropped photo exclusivity yesterday to get my foot in the door at other agencies. I think people are running from exclusivity and not towards it.

Getty have NO option but to sooner or later enforce a 100% exclusivity, its their ticket to survival, simply because for every exclusive gained its another agencies loss. Thats why. Make no misstake, they are not stupid ...

(blah, blah, blah ...)

I know these guys since 20 years back ... (Yeah, yeah, yeah ... blah, blah, blah)

Good grief. You do write such utter rubbish sometimes, no, make that pretty much all the time. Istock are not going to enforce exclusivity because they couldn't afford to do so. Not today, not tomorrow, not in the foreseeable future (i.e. not whilst still owned by H&F).

Over the years Istock have had plenty of opportunity to ensure exclusivity, by simply increasing Diamond-level commission to 50% or even a tad higher for BD's for example. They could have wiped out the competition before it had even started because Istock were so dominant in their proportion of the total revenue generated.

Unfortunately for them, because the competition have been allowed to grow, that opportunity has slowly slipped through their fingers. Istock's reputation and trustworthiness has also slipped badly too and I am quite sure that the vast majority of independent contributors would simply walk away from Istock if such an ultimatum were put to them.

If Istock insisted on exclusivity they could lose up to 70% of their library (on which they are probably paying an average commission of about 17%) and a great deal of the revenue that those images generate. Such an act would be the greatest gift possible to their competitors, a gift that would no doubt 'keep on giving', and would relegate Istock to a second-tier agency. It ain't going to happen so stop scaremongering with such ridiculous nonsense.

....
If Istock insisted on exclusivity they could lose up to 70% of their library (on which they are probably paying an average commission of about 17%) and a great deal of the revenue that those images generate. Such an act would be the greatest gift possible to their competitors, a gift that would no doubt 'keep on giving', and would relegate Istock to a second-tier agency. It ain't going to happen so stop scaremongering with such ridiculous nonsense.

That's the point I was trying to make, but failed... Thanks gostwyck!

Ok now stone me to death and call me a troll, but I'd like to point something out about the attitude of most contribs I see around here. You ppl go all crazy about petty "theft" when you see some of your images on the displayed "illegaly", spend time and energy looking them up, bug ppl, IPs and send DMCA notices, all that for something that probably did few cents worth of damage or more likely nothing since it has very little to do with actual sales... but when the agencies keep shafting you to hell, you just sit around and take it, including insults from such worthless abominations as Lobo, just to rub some salt into the wound. Just brilliant.

Well I, for one, am proud to say no, I didn't and no, I won't.  And that's what makes ME happy (along with money).