Author Topic: Getty's photographers are no happier than iStock's (Read 3771 times)

fotoVoyager · « **on:** December 23, 2012, 05:49 »

Rather disgruntled blog post about search, E+ and falling sales.

I think we're mistaken to blame each other, we need to campaign for more realistic royalty percentages.

http://blog.johnlund.com/2012/12/getty-image-search-and-participation.html

ShadySue · « **Reply #1 on:** December 23, 2012, 07:32 »

I'm sure with all the policies they put in place, e.g. the recent change to RC arrangements, they are hoping to Divide and Conquer.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #2 on:** December 23, 2012, 11:02 »

I think John's impression is incorrect. There are not that many E+ images there, and I certainly didn't make any number of sales of note in November, and none in October.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #3 on:** December 23, 2012, 12:31 »

I think it's interesting that Getty folks are seeing income fall. As with iStock contributors, Getty shooters are looking around for something to blame for this decline and latching on to ingestion of micro images and the fact the Getty contributors aren't complaining enough.

Possibly Getty's traffic as well as iStock's is on a downward trend? If they're busy pushing Thinkstock perhaps it's a migration from one part of the Getty empire to another and the Getty Images contributors want even less to do with Thinkstock than they do with the disliked iStock.

I'm guessing he does certain searches to see how his images are faring and is seeing a lot of E+ stufff. Sean, you only have 344 E+ images out of over 12K. A number of contributors have talked about maxing out their E+ slots as a way to maintain income as downloads fell.

I didn't see the recent charade in the iStock forums as the blogger did. I didn't see people getting what they wanted, although a few crumbs were offered (I liked Rob Sylvan's thanks for shaking loose change from the sofa cushions). The Getty shooters perhaps saw that differently as they couldn't really see the massive gap between what people were asking for and what Getty "gave".

What I do think would be good is for more Getty contributors and iStock contributors to exchange notes about what they see going on. Not sure if they'd be able to change more things, but more information would have to be better than less as Getty continues to try and keep its profits up.

idreamphoto · « **Reply #4 on:** December 23, 2012, 13:54 »

..just guessing but i think he means istock had a lot of complaints and now in the past few days
313,956 photos have been added to the E+ collection on Getty - you can check by going to advanced search and choosing the collection (E+) and typing in "image" and you see how many there are.
I think the E+ contributors will start seeing sales next month? I'm not sure exactly how many of those were just added... .....most. I would think the move was planned a long time ago;)
Happy Holidays

ShadySue · « **Reply #5 on:** December 23, 2012, 14:14 »

The move was announced in January - and is ongoing, having started months late. I'm interested that they are currently transferring. I haven't had avy moved over since the mistaken editorials were removed.

KB · « **Reply #6 on:** December 23, 2012, 14:25 »

Quote from: ShadySue on December 23, 2012, 14:14

I haven't had any moved over since the mistaken editorials were removed.

They couldn't even do that right: They removed my mistaken editorials, along with the others transferred during that batch, and then slowly brought most of them back, including the editorials. Ha!

[email protected] · « **Reply #7 on:** December 23, 2012, 20:39 »

Quote from: jsnover on December 23, 2012, 12:31

I think it's interesting that Getty folks are seeing income fall. As with iStock contributors, Getty shooters are looking around for something to blame for this decline and latching on to ingestion of micro images and the fact the Getty contributors aren't complaining enough.

Possibly Getty's traffic as well as iStock's is on a downward trend? If they're busy pushing Thinkstock perhaps it's a migration from one part of the Getty empire to another and the Getty Images contributors want even less to do with Thinkstock than they do with the disliked iStock.

I'm guessing he does certain searches to see how his images are faring and is seeing a lot of E+ stufff. Sean, you only have 344 E+ images out of over 12K. A number of contributors have talked about maxing out their E+ slots as a way to maintain income as downloads fell.

I didn't see the recent charade in the iStock forums as the blogger did. I didn't see people getting what they wanted, although a few crumbs were offered (I liked Rob Sylvan's thanks for shaking loose change from the sofa cushions). The Getty shooters perhaps saw that differently as they couldn't really see the massive gap between what people were asking for and what Getty "gave".

What I do think would be good is for more Getty contributors and iStock contributors to exchange notes about what they see going on. Not sure if they'd be able to change more things, but more information would have to be better than less as Getty continues to try and keep its profits up.

I think you are right about the panic. It is the getty products that were manipulated for short term profit to boost the sale price two times in four years. It worked. Oh no! But it also tanked the exclusive model and top ten exclusives are bailing out. The problem for us stock photographers is the * is broken and watch out for the falling prices and horrible increase in competition. If you don't think that istock isolated the competition while avoiding a price war you are crazy. It is out there and coming in 2013.