Perfectly reasonable concern IMO Allsa.  Perhaps if you link to the article, you also include a link to fair trade sites that you are on such as Stockfresh and GLimages on the facebook page?  That way you are promoting fair trade but not at the expense of your own sales? 

Just a suggestion. 

I just deactivated 15 images that are on Thinkstock so I can test how quickly they come down. I know some people had seen images gone the next day, but as I still don't have my whole IS portfolio over there (over a year from when they said the files would be moved), I guess I just wanted to see what happened

I have deactivated 500+ images and saw my Thinkstock total going down a bit but twice now the total has gone up! iS hadn't transferred all my images over yet but apparently they are still adding to TS. And some of the newly added are among those recently deactivated. Typical.

So I checked Thinkstock this morning and my total has gone up too! From 2463 to 2482.

The 15 files I deactivated are gone - whether or not deleting images triggered them to add more of the missing ones I can't say, but it's been many weeks since anything was added to my Thinkstock portfolio (from backlog; I'm not uploading to IS)

Quote from: lisafx on January 25, 2013, 01:42
Perfectly reasonable concern IMO Allsa.  Perhaps if you link to the article, you also include a link to fair trade sites that you are on such as Stockfresh and GLimages on the facebook page?  That way you are promoting fair trade but not at the expense of your own sales? 

Just a suggestion. 

Thanks Lisa. For a long time I didn't consider GL because I thought it was a vector only agency. Then when they came up in this discussion, I looked into it and discovered they also accept raster illustrations and photos, I'll have to apply. Are DT, SS, BS, and CS considered to be fair trade sites as well?

Quote from: Allsa on January 25, 2013, 16:25
Are DT, SS, BS, and CS considered to be fair trade sites as well?

That's surely for you to decide.
Some pay more than an indie at iStock gets, and less than an average exclusive.
Yet commercial buyers can get huge files for very little money, so IMO there is not a 'fair' price on some of these sites. But many here disagree with me on this - which is fine. We all have to decide where our personal line lies.
FWIW, I was with a pretty reasonably fair site for ages and sold 1 file. Sure, for more than an EL would get me at iStock, and at a reasonable %age, but one fairly-priced sale doesn't pay the bills.

Okay, so I opted-out from Partner Program 10 days ago. But yesterday I received as usual... a miserable 0.40$ for some PP sale. How can I know that I really deactivated all files from PP?

Quote from: ivanjekic on January 25, 2013, 18:05
Okay, so I opted-out from Partner Program 10 days ago. But yesterday I received as usual... a miserable 0.40$ for some PP sale. How can I know that I really deactivated all files from PP?

PP sales are posted once a month - mid to end - for the prior month. So we just finished (I think) seeing the December PP sales. I would expect you'd see sales posted in mid-February for files that were for sale in the first part of January.

What was the date for this 40 cent sale?

Quote from: jsnover on January 25, 2013, 16:21
The 15 files I deactivated are gone - whether or not deleting images triggered them to add more of the missing ones I can't say, but it's been many weeks since anything was added to my Thinkstock portfolio (from backlog; I'm not uploading to IS)

lucky you!   My model released flame files that I deactivated on 14th January are still on Thinkstock   

Quote from: jsnover on January 25, 2013, 18:31

Quote from: ivanjekic on January 25, 2013, 18:05
Okay, so I opted-out from Partner Program 10 days ago. But yesterday I received as usual... a miserable 0.40$ for some PP sale. How can I know that I really deactivated all files from PP?

PP sales are posted once a month - mid to end - for the prior month. So we just finished (I think) seeing the December PP sales. I would expect you'd see sales posted in mid-February for files that were for sale in the first part of January.

What was the date for this 40 cent sale?

You're right those were December sales. However, I had like 10$ or so in sales from PP in December, so I don't where 0.4$ came from? Since I opted-out from PP I don't have any PP details anymore.

Quote from: ivanjekic on January 25, 2013, 22:30
You're right those were December sales. However, I had like 10$ or so in sales from PP in December, so I don't where 0.4$ came from? Since I opted-out from PP I don't have any PP details anymore.

Try (while logged in) going to this page - it's my uploads but the PP data. The link to it, for me, is on the left side of the my_uploads.php page but perhaps that's gone for you now you opted out?

Got a 0.08 sale today  these always make me feel insulated in a deep and profound way...

I deactivated 9 more today, when I had a couple spare minutes, including a flame or two.

Then later I got to thinking. When iStock sends those Deactivation Notice emails, does anyone stamp them as spam? I mean, I would never do such a thing because it might cause spam filters to raise the spam score of emails from iStock, and start putting all those emails in people's spam folders instead of delivering them to inboxes. I just wondered if anyone else was doing that.

Maybe be good to get an answer to this before Feb 2? Just so people would know not to do anything which might hurt Getty and iStock by accident.

Quote from: rimglow on January 22, 2013, 13:45
Okay, I pulled the trigger. Entire portfolio has been deactivated. 470 total.

Sorry, I couldn't wait until Feb. 2. The situation is too fluid.

This is big. His port is A1 FANTASTIC.

Quote from: jsnover on January 25, 2013, 22:53

Quote from: ivanjekic on January 25, 2013, 22:30
You're right those were December sales. However, I had like 10$ or so in sales from PP in December, so I don't where 0.4$ came from? Since I opted-out from PP I don't have any PP details anymore.

Try (while logged in) going to this page - it's my uploads but the PP data. The link to it, for me, is on the left side of the my_uploads.php page but perhaps that's gone for you now you opted out?

Thanks! Yes, it's confirmed, I opted-out from all PPs.

I will participate in this action by deactivating 150 images (roughly 15% of my total).

Quote from: dhanford on January 24, 2013, 16:41

Quote from: jsnover on January 24, 2013, 16:26
Here's a post from absolutely_frenchy saying his 662 images and illustrations will be gone on D-Day

She's female and a gifted illustrator and photog.

Before JoAnn edited her post I was going to mention that the last time I met Absolute_Frenchy she was a beautiful, brown-eyed girl. Relieved that she hasn't actually had a sex-change.

Not good for Istock when such loyal, committed and long-term contributors lose all confidence with them. They'll be a few more yet too.

Stopped contributing and deactivated 11 images. 100%

I have a small portfolio, mostly vectors (635).  I dropped my photo exclusivity crown and deactivated my photos with people in them.  Only 9, but that is a start.  I will deactivate the last 8 photographs on D-Day.

I stopped uploading in mid 2011.  I thought, when the last image I submitted had 250 views, I would start up again. But the image sank quickly and then the counter broke... Reading the forums and looking for a sensible time to start submitting again has been a frustrating task.  So many site issues over the last few years! 

Since the discovery of the Google Drive deal, I think contributors are being strung along in the forums.  The forums are filled with criticisms about how badly iStock is run. There are posts about legal actions stated to be taken by contributors over the Google deal.  There are long time contributors with announcements of dropping their crowns and questions by artists who want to deactivate photos from their portfolios.  Typically, these posts would be deleted, immediately.  I believe iStock is allowing this to happen to buy time to prepare a statement. Sure, there will eventually be some announcement, but I feel certain it will only dig further into it's artist's pockets and diminish our rights.

I am planning to drop illustration exclusivity soon and have no plans to upload any more work.  I'm just watching for the timeframe.  Since I have no other experience with any other micro-stock suppliers, I need to figure out what will be the most useful sites for illustrators.  - Best of luck to everyone and especially those that depend on the income.  I hope this bullsh@t precedent is stopped in it's tracks.

@ Dhandford, check out the Envato marktplaces, and Graphic Leftover. Those sites are geared towards vectors and illustrations. Also, I believe vector artists do well on Shutterstock. Shutterstock should be your first goal, as they make you the most money for sure.

Quote from: Poncke on January 29, 2013, 20:01
@ Dhandford, check out the Envato marktplaces, and Graphic Leftover. Those sites are geared towards vectors and illustrations. Also, I believe vector artists do well on Shutterstock. Shutterstock should be your first goal, as they make you the most money for sure.

Poncke, thank you so much for the information, I will look into all of this! 

Quote from: dhanford on January 29, 2013, 19:44
I have a small portfolio, mostly vectors (635).  I dropped my photo exclusivity crown and deactivated my photos with people in them.  Only 9, but that is a start.  I will deactivate the last 8 photographs on D-Day.

I stopped uploading in mid 2011.  I thought, when the last image I submitted had 250 views, I would start up again. But the image sank quickly and then the counter broke... Reading the forums and looking for a sensible time to start submitting again has been a frustrating task.  So many site issues over the last few years! 

Since the discovery of the Google Drive deal, I think contributors are being strung along in the forums.  The forums are filled with criticisms about how badly iStock is run. There are posts about legal actions stated to be taken by contributors over the Google deal.  There are long time contributors with announcements of dropping their crowns and questions by artists who want to deactivate photos from their portfolios.  Typically, these posts would be deleted, immediately.  I believe iStock is allowing this to happen to buy time to prepare a statement. Sure, there will eventually be some announcement, but I feel certain it will only dig further into it's artist's pockets and diminish our rights.

I am planning to drop illustration exclusivity soon and have no plans to upload any more work.  I'm just watching for the timeframe.  Since I have no other experience with any other micro-stock suppliers, I need to figure out what will be the most useful sites for illustrators.  - Best of luck to everyone and especially those that depend on the income.  I hope this bullsh@t precedent is stopped in it's tracks.

I agree. I'm amazed by the people saying they will give it "just another few months" or "until the end of the year".
If IS had wanted to fix all the problems, they would have done it long ago.
IS is over, for most contributors. They just don't want to accept it.

My tally so far:  5 images

Many more to be deactivated.  Someone can add me to the tally spreadsheet if they want, for at least 200 images.  It will probably be many more than that, but I will update the final tally here later.

I really agree IS is over and over. Deactiveted just 3 plus many more in D-day.

I've deactivated all of mine already, told them why and asked them to immediately remove my images from their partner sites, which they seem to have done. I'll wait till next month in case there are any more pp sales and then close my account. Having images at IS is not worth the risk.