Stock royalties sometimes feel like a scam. Just found this image of mine used all across South Africa by BP and I got a whopping 40 cents from iStock for this

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B8vo8qcrF2M

i have images.of mine given for free by IStock/Getty to two newspaper groups, no compensation. By their standards 40 cents is relative wealth. my sympathies.

send your work to those who treat it with respect and fair remuneration.

Istock is what it is,the 15% as non-exclusive is just the tip of the iceberg.

with connect "sales" they basically give away your entire portfolio,so your content can be downloaded practically for free.

they say that vectors are paid 20% as non-exclusive,but then in the end many were paid 15%

what is Istock in the end?

an agency that aims to sell large quantities at a low price,because they don't care about your work,but what matters to them is the quantity they can sell.

the fact is that they wave a few bucks in front of you and you follow the money,and don't really think about how much of your work is sold.

don't forget that the race to the bottom started from Istock,they are the ones who started pulling prices down,and as long as we send content to these people,we accept being treated this way.

everyone has their own point of view and needs,it's not up to me to judge,but my advice is to think about this,continuing to send content on Istock means accepting these terrible working conditions and encouraging the race to the bottom.

they're just digital vampires with a nice face! 

send your work to those who treat it with respect and fair remuneration.

Istock is what it is,the 15% as non-exclusive is just the tip of the iceberg.

with connect "sales" they basically give away your entire portfolio,so your content can be downloaded practically for free.

they say that vectors are paid 20% as non-exclusive,but then in the end many were paid 15%

what is Istock in the end?

an agency that aims to sell large quantities at a low price,because they don't care about your work,but what matters to them is the quantity they can sell.

the fact is that they wave a few bucks in front of you and you follow the money,and don't really think about how much of your work is sold.

don't forget that the race to the bottom started from Istock,they are the ones who started pulling prices down,and as long as we send content to these people,we accept being treated this way.

everyone has their own point of view and needs,it's not up to me to judge,but my advice is to think about this,continuing to send content on Istock means accepting these terrible working conditions and encouraging the race to the bottom.

they're just digital vampires with a nice face! 

Refusing AI garbage is not a lack of respect.
AI prompters are digital vampires with a nice face... 

Do you have any idea how many skilled photographers the AI ​​(that you delight in using) robs every day?

Getty connect sales are for places like pinterest where people share small getty preview images. They do NOT get the full size image as a download.

And if anybody clicks on the preview link it takes them straight to getty where they can license a full size image.

So you are getting a little money for promotional use that used to be free and is still free on most other agencies.

It is tiny amounts, but basically you get some revenue share for images used in preview sizes via social media/pinterest.

I also think the 15% royalty for non exclusive content is too low, but the connect sales don't bother me.

However, in absolute money istock still outsells many smaller places with much higher royalty sharing. So they are still worth uploading too IMO.

you can take any image and ask ai to create a prompt for it to then create similar images with ai.

but, digressing from istock.

I think istock/getty have very, very good content, I think they will be able to live without ai for quite a while.

adobe did not have any exclusive content before, now with the ai collection they have semi exclusive content because  they have the largest collection in the industry.

I could imagine istock letting the exclusive artists use the getty ai tool to create content for them at some point.

i doubt they will take midjourney content unless midjourney starts paying them licensing fees.

I think at the time getty was the first agency trying to get money out of places like pinterest. If I remember correctly, they even sued them and then got a licensing deal.

They then went on doing deals like these with other social media hubs.

It is not a way to get rich, but it makes using the istock/getty files legal and the promotional use always has a backlink.

You can for instance also pin your own images from dreamstime to pinterest. That will show them also as a shareable preview file with a link to dreamstime. But you don't get any additional revenue for this kind of preview advertising.

connect sales are tiny, but they do add up, but most importantly it gives getty control over how the content is being used.

It also gives them great insights into what kind of content is popular and that people like to share. They can then use that info to let us know what content to shoot in their producer recommendations.