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Author Topic: ISTOCK - HALF OF IMAGES FOR HALF PRICE!!!  (Read 20718 times)

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« Reply #25 on: August 21, 2013, 05:01 »
+1

and also notice how you can get paid 'up to $120' so that makes me wonder how it is common to get $150 as per your other post let alone $231.

... that is because you miss the footnote which says "* Or more, based on sale price received."


BoBoBolinski

« Reply #26 on: August 21, 2013, 05:16 »
-4
It's a bit like the 'Save as much as 70% off' you see in shop sales, 'up to', 'as much as' usually mean it's possible but unlikely.

« Reply #27 on: August 21, 2013, 05:28 »
+3
Take a look at the earnings ratings, there are plenty of people happy to still be exclusive and earning considerably more than the 25 cents a pop that SS pay.

The lowest royalty I've ever received at SS was 20c and that was back in 2004/5.

In contrast the lowest royalty that I've had on Istock (that I'm aware of) was just 6c and that was just a couple of years ago. Even if I had been exclusive on 40% it would only have been about 13c. I still regularly have 'sales' on IS for much less than 25c.

So far this week on SS I've had 2 SOD's each paying $114.92 and an EL for $28.

BoBoBolinski

« Reply #28 on: August 21, 2013, 05:50 »
-1
That's considerably less than I've earned on IS this week.

« Reply #29 on: August 21, 2013, 06:07 »
0
That's considerably less than I've earned on IS this week.

What? The 25c you mentioned?

« Reply #30 on: August 21, 2013, 06:23 »
+1
"I'm glad that I'm not an exclusive iStock contributor."

Take a look at the earnings ratings, there are plenty of people happy to still be exclusive and earning considerably more than the 25 cents a pop that SS pay.
There is no one I know on SS who has an RPD of 25 cent... so I dont know where you got that from.


Ron, you are so in denial. Here is the 'Shutterstock Earnings Schedule' for you...
http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml

and also notice how you can get paid 'up to $120' so that makes me wonder how it is common to get $150 as per your other post let alone $231.


I see some people have this naive 6yearold's concept of business, thinking if they sell something for twice as much, they will earn double. In reality of course they usually can hardly sell anything at all :) To turn this around for better understanding by the mentally impaired: in a digital economy it doesn't matter how low the price is as long as it pumps up the volume. SS has low prices and large volume. IS is converging towards low prices WITH decreasing volume = that is destructive for the business... and threy top it all off by giving the lowest of low commission anywhere - 8 - 9 cents (!!!). They suck and should be wiped into the trash as soon as possible.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #31 on: August 21, 2013, 06:32 »
0
"I'm glad that I'm not an exclusive iStock contributor."

Take a look at the earnings ratings, there are plenty of people happy to still be exclusive and earning considerably more than the 25 cents a pop that SS pay.
There is no one I know on SS who has an RPD of 25 cent... so I dont know where you got that from.
I do. But they're not on msg (I know them personally).

« Reply #32 on: August 21, 2013, 06:38 »
0
"I'm glad that I'm not an exclusive iStock contributor."

Take a look at the earnings ratings, there are plenty of people happy to still be exclusive and earning considerably more than the 25 cents a pop that SS pay.
There is no one I know on SS who has an RPD of 25 cent... so I dont know where you got that from.
I do. But they're not on msg (I know them personally).
They must have a tiny portfolio, to not get any PPD's, EL's and SOD's

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #33 on: August 21, 2013, 06:40 »
0
"I'm glad that I'm not an exclusive iStock contributor."

Take a look at the earnings ratings, there are plenty of people happy to still be exclusive and earning considerably more than the 25 cents a pop that SS pay.
There is no one I know on SS who has an RPD of 25 cent... so I dont know where you got that from.
I do. But they're not on msg (I know them personally).
They must have a tiny portfolio, to not get any PPD's, EL's and SOD's
One has over a thousand, the others high hundreds.
But in each case they are 70%+ UK natural history, very high quality. It just seems that doesn't sell there.

Ron

« Reply #34 on: August 21, 2013, 06:49 »
0
"I'm glad that I'm not an exclusive iStock contributor."

Take a look at the earnings ratings, there are plenty of people happy to still be exclusive and earning considerably more than the 25 cents a pop that SS pay.
There is no one I know on SS who has an RPD of 25 cent... so I dont know where you got that from.


Ron, you are so in denial. Here is the 'Shutterstock Earnings Schedule' for you...
http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml

and also notice how you can get paid 'up to $120' so that makes me wonder how it is common to get $150 as per your other post let alone $231.
Read the link your provided,

Quote
30% of sale price received (up to $120)*
   * Or more, based on sale price received.

« Reply #35 on: August 21, 2013, 07:52 »
+3
It's amazing to me that people will sell the same image in every market and then complain about commodity pricing. As an exclusive I don't have to worry as much about commodity pricing and I don't care if half my images hardly sell as long as my best selling images are Vetta and S+. Non-exclusives also tend to discount the additional earnings exclusives get on Getty., which is quite substantial.  The fact is that there are many buyers that will pay a lot for the right image and not all images will sell much better at dirt cheap prices.

« Reply #36 on: August 21, 2013, 08:23 »
+2
This made me laugh
   

Hey iStock (whoever might listen),


I really shouldn't care, but you are paying the marketing out of the 70% you keep from the revenue of my images.


Today I stumbled upon a new ad on a German website:
istock_ad


I am really confused now. It says in bad or at least ambiguous German that "1/2 of the files do cost 1/2 times more (!) forever" which I understand as "we have raised the prices for 50% of our images by 50%" (at least that is my understanding as a native German speaker).


I don't think that this is intended

BoBoBolinski

« Reply #37 on: August 21, 2013, 08:23 »
-1
"What? The 25c you mentioned?"

Yep ;)

« Reply #38 on: August 21, 2013, 08:26 »
+1
The problem for contributors is getting a fair share of the profits but that's the same for content providers in lots of online industries.  I'd be more concerned about the traditional sites.  I don't understand the Getty finances, how much are the hedge funds taking out of them?  If they're being run by the same people that are wrecking istock, what's their future prospects?  Will alamy carry on cutting commissions and lowering prices?

with the actual trend it's gotta be more and more difficult for suppliers to stay afloat, how will small stockers with a few 1000s images in portfolio compete with all the image factories and the global oversupply ?

traditional RM agencies are not in the same business, they're not selling the same image 100 times or even just twice, you shoot a large set and you're lucky to sell once but the payout will justify the production costs, you can also upload in other agencies including micros and see what sticks on the wall, i'm all for giving micros a chance and a few leftovers of course, many times it's quite hard to know what will sell or not.


BoBoBolinski

« Reply #39 on: August 21, 2013, 08:28 »
-1
In reality of course they usually can hardly sell anything at all

Why is it that when I read ranting posts like this that I wouldn't mind betting the writer has very few sales anywhere?

« Reply #40 on: August 21, 2013, 08:44 »
0
Case for exclusivity. Today I made 4 sales so far. First one a small out of the S collection. This was a decent image of the full moon with a black background. I made $3.25. They would have had to stumble over a lot of M images to get to this one, so maybe it is worth more, I don't know.  I also got 3 ELs today. One on a Vetta, which netted close to $200. The other 2 were on S+. Best day ever, yes.  Hard to convince me to drop exclusivity.

« Reply #41 on: August 21, 2013, 08:51 »
0
Latest IS FB post:
'The ability to curate content with affordable, quality images, opens the door to possibilities. "

I don't even know what that means.  How did "create" become "curate"?


« Reply #42 on: August 21, 2013, 09:35 »
0
It's amazing to me that people will sell the same image in every market and then complain about commodity pricing. As an exclusive I don't have to worry as much about commodity pricing and I don't care if half my images hardly sell as long as my best selling images are Vetta and S+. Non-exclusives also tend to discount the additional earnings exclusives get on Getty., which is quite substantial.  The fact is that there are many buyers that will pay a lot for the right image and not all images will sell much better at dirt cheap prices.

Are you a well known highly regarded artist? If not ( : > ), your images are commodity. The rest is only a matter of time.

EmberMike

« Reply #43 on: August 21, 2013, 12:16 »
0
I'm not talking about RPD, I'm talking about what people can receive for the sale of a file.

I've gotten far less at istock.

EmberMike

« Reply #44 on: August 21, 2013, 12:25 »
+2
istock is in full retreat mode, slashing prices, unlimited uploads, what's next?...

They should restaff. Really, I hate to make the suggestion knowing that if it ever happens it will mean a lot of people lose their jobs, but let's face it, the current istock staff aren't capable of keeping the company competitive. They react to things long after they should, following other companies and trends instead of innovating and trying to stay ahead of the curve. Their IT staff is purely reactionary at this point, not improving anything and just sluggishly responding to problems as they arise.

The istock staff has been this way for years. They said for so long that they'd never allow EPS10 files, or they'd never allow text in files. Meanwhile other companies expanded into these areas and beat istock to the punch. Then years later, istock finally gets on board with these things that buyers clearly want (the top-selling image at SS last year was a vector file that contained lots of text, something that istock would have rejected).

They need new people, folks who are forward-thinkers and can get ahead of their problems, and not just react to them. They need people who can predict what new product buyers will want and delivering those products before (or at least along with) the rest of the market.

They can start on the vector side of things by mandating that files with text include an editable version (no outlined text). Buyers want this. SS doesn't allow it, even though I just got another email Monday from an annoyed buyer who wanted an easily editable file with the fonts/text intact. istock could get ahead of SS with a policy about these files, but they don't have people at HQ right now who can think of this stuff.

That tip is free, istock. Want more, you can hire me as a consultant. ;)

cuppacoffee

« Reply #45 on: August 21, 2013, 12:32 »
0
What about the copyright issue with fonts?

... in the USA: Typefaces are not copyrightable; bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, but scalable fonts are copyrightable.

EmberMike

« Reply #46 on: August 21, 2013, 12:37 »
0
What about the copyright issue with fonts?

... in the USA: Typefaces are not copyrightable; bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, but scalable fonts are copyrightable.

The font is copyrightable, not what you make with it. How would anyone trademark a logo if they had to worry about a font copyright? The intellectual property is in the font file itself and the ability to use it to create letters and words. We're not embedding fonts in stock images, so there's no issue.

cuppacoffee

« Reply #47 on: August 21, 2013, 12:46 »
0
This helps explain the "murky" areas, I think. http://blog.crowdspring.com/2011/03/font-law-licensing/

"...In contrast, Germany recognized in 1981 that typeface designs can be protected by copyright as original works. England also allows typeface designs to be protected by copyright (since 1989)."

shudderstok

« Reply #48 on: August 21, 2013, 12:46 »
-4
istock is in full retreat mode, slashing prices, unlimited uploads, what's next?...

They should restaff. Really, I hate to make the suggestion knowing that if it ever happens it will mean a lot of people lose their jobs, but let's face it, the current istock staff aren't capable of keeping the company competitive. They react to things long after they should, following other companies and trends instead of innovating and trying to stay ahead of the curve. Their IT staff is purely reactionary at this point, not improving anything and just sluggishly responding to problems as they arise.

The istock staff has been this way for years. They said for so long that they'd never allow EPS10 files, or they'd never allow text in files. Meanwhile other companies expanded into these areas and beat istock to the punch. Then years later, istock finally gets on board with these things that buyers clearly want (the top-selling image at SS last year was a vector file that contained lots of text, something that istock would have rejected).

They need new people, folks who are forward-thinkers and can get ahead of their problems, and not just react to them. They need people who can predict what new product buyers will want and delivering those products before (or at least along with) the rest of the market.

They can start on the vector side of things by mandating that files with text include an editable version (no outlined text). Buyers want this. SS doesn't allow it, even though I just got another email Monday from an annoyed buyer who wanted an easily editable file with the fonts/text intact. istock could get ahead of SS with a policy about these files, but they don't have people at HQ right now who can think of this stuff.

That tip is free, istock. Want more, you can hire me as a consultant. ;)

me thinks that if IS hired you as a consultant they'd be here moaning too instead of making millions of dollars selling our images. just sayin.



« Reply #49 on: August 21, 2013, 13:12 »
0
The font is copyrightable, not what you make with it.

Fonts are redistributed under masses of different licences. As I am sure you know. Some permit commercial use of content produced using the font, others do not. Some specifically prohibit stock use of content produced using the font. Some require accreditation. Etc.

I am not sure how it works with vectors - but I suspect that, as with PDFs and 3d models, editable text using specific fonts means effectively embedding, and therefore redistributing, the font.


 

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