I don't want to start another discussion about the pitiful royalty rates because despite everything January still saw good earnings consistent with previous months but these 'Premium Access' sales are annoying and confusing me.

Like the one with 'extended' rights that earned only $0.15 compared to the 'basic' and 'standard' ones that generally earned two or three times that.

Then I have another that says the usage is 'Editorial rights only for text books interior and cover', something that would probably warrant and EL anywhere else yet also paid only $0.15 and just to be confusing says it has a date limitation up to December this year which implies... that they're going to destroy all the printed books at the end of the year?

I see one television broadcast licensed until November that earned $0.09 but then a couple licensed until only the end of February that earned almost $3 each. At any rate still far lower than you would expect and less than other sites would give you for such usage.

Premium access sales made up a grand total of 14% of January's earnings compared to the old $20, $40 and one time $60 sales that I used to see for what I assumed were extended licenses.

Is there any way to opt out of these ridiculous sale types?

@OP: Where are you seeing the uses reported for your premium access files? I see premium access files in my iS report, but no uses. What you're seeing is more like RM reporting - are you a Getty RM supplier, and is this what you're talking about? Mine just say "Premium Access - Time Limited" but no usage details.

Actually, looking at the horrible indecipherable text file (it's not visible in the pdf file or todayis20, AFAICS) I do see that the 'trials' which were run netting $0 (duplicated by real sales) say things like "10/28/2016-10/27/2017 Newspaper Advertising (Online & Print),Territory: Worldwide,80,000 Royalty-Free Stills: Signature Content Only, Commercial and Editorial rights - Signature Content Only, Indemnification: $250,000 per image,Users: Unlimited, Reproduction/Sync: Unlimited number of uses per download, in perpetuity, Archive Rights: In perpetuity, within context of original use.   Limited to terms of the Premium Access agreement   ILLINOIS   0.000000000"
But the sale for which I received an amount was only "Limited to the terms of the Access Agreement"
Maybe they're trialling a sort of hybrid RM/RF model such as Alamy uses. If files are designated RF on Alamy, buyers can buy them as non-exclusive RM for whichever use they want for a lower fee than they'd pay for RF.

If you really are talking about iStock/micro RF, actually you might not get very much more for these uses:

Shutterstock ordinary licence (you'd get 38c or less):
"Printed in physical form as part of product packaging and labeling, letterhead and business cards, point of sale advertising, billboards, CD and DVD cover art, or in the advertising and copy of tangible media, including magazines, newspapers, and books provided no Image is reproduced more than 500,000 times in the aggregate"

Incorporated into film, video, television series, advertisement, or other multimedia productions for distribution in any medium now known or hereafter devised (each a "Production"), without regard to audience size, provided the budget for any such Production does not exceed USD $10,000"

But no, you can't opt out of them. I did notice that premium access is now making up a larger proportion of my sales. I'm guessing Premium Access means they pay Getty a fee (which we don't share) to get access to all Getty's files at a price which often, but not always, is lower than a credit sale would be, even lower than 'normal' iS subs.

Here's the Skinny: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/resources/premiumaccess

If you know other places where you would definitely get more, why not only submit to these?

BTW, my premium access sales netted me as low as 6c in January, so those who think Getty is trying to woo exclusives have got it all wrong. And no, I'm not uploading there, to save anyone asking. Eight months and counting.

I am not sure what you mean by "not get very much more for these uses". 25c is a huge percentage more than 15c. 38c is more than double. And these aren't anything like the lowest sales I have been getting on IStock.

It is the difference between $15000/year and $38000/year or $1500 per month and $3800 per month.

These differences are huge. If you aren't making sub sales in big volume then this model isn't going to work for your portfolio and you need to get on macro. If you are selling in volume the difference between 15c and 38c is MASSIVE and the difference between 38c and 2c is absolutely insane.

The OP wrote: "I see one television broadcast licensed until November that earned $0.09 but then a couple licensed until only the end of February that earned almost $3 each. "
9c is much lower than 38c, but $3 is much higher, so you'd need to look at average rpd. I got the impression the OP was thinking he'd get an EL for television or book cover use at other micros, and was pointing out that this probably would not be the case.

I'm not advocating uploading anywhere for cents; essentially I gave up on iS when they started selling subs netting me 75c. For a while, I was only uploading photos I was taking anyway, then I decided not to even waste time on that.

I'm really sorry but these sort of sales are increasingly what istock is sending our way. Wait until the new payment structure really kicks in in the next few months. There is no way to opt out. Expect much, much more of the same and worse. I think getty sees istock content as for just this sort of thing.

This is not just iStock by any means. This is what getty contract photographers have been seeing for years now. When Premium Access was launched it was a very small percentage of the monthly downloads and most sales were for regular (ie higher) amounts. Every year there are more PA sales and less regular sales.

What's even more frustrating is that many/most of the PA sales have big company names attached (ie, MTV, Viacom, Time Warner, etc.) and the amounts are pitiful. These amounts are often far lower than microstock rates.

@OP: Where are you seeing the uses reported for your premium access files? I see premium access files in my iS report, but no uses. What you're seeing is more like RM reporting - are you a Getty RM supplier, and is this what you're talking about? Mine just say "Premium Access - Time Limited" but no usage details.

I've never uploaded anything to Getty directly, never been invited to. The premium access sales are all listed as coming from Getty though yes which is why I was wondering if there was a way to opt out specifically from them.

I imported the txt into Excel and spent some time stripping out all the nonsense fields I didn't need and rearranging them to the point that I could actually read the thing. The field labelled 'Rights: Use Territory/Duration' only ever says 'Limited to terms of the Premium Access agreement' but the field next to it 'Rights Usage' gives some specifics for maybe about 20-30 of the premium access downloads I saw in January. Lots just say Basic or Standard and are actually higher than the others.

They seem to range from specific territory licenses to worldwide, short date ranges to year long ones, editorial only, commercial and editorial, single use, multiseat, print, broadcast, online only, outdoor advertising - all with lengthy and specific descriptions of the allowed usage that I can't imaging Getty would spend even a second bothering to police once it's sold anyway. Most of them are reported twice once with the actual cost and earnings and once with a negative cost and no earning just to be extra confusing.

The thing that's annoying me somewhat is that the terms of that usage seem to have nothing to do with the amount paid.

I see one that says Industry: Publishing. Territory: Worldwide. But with rights for only 'one use per download' with it ending at the end of January. That earned $0.68.

Then I see another with unlimited use for a year for newspaper and online advertising that earned $0.17 - less than just a basic subscription sale would earn. I don't really see what the point in these very specific licenses are when most of them cost about the same as a subscription sale and for a lot of them it looks like a subscription license would have been fine for that purpose. I don't want to leave Istock because the earnings from Thinkstock and Istock itself are on a par with other stock sites despite the low royalties but getting fleeced by Getty like this isn't fun.

I'm sure things have always been like this and it's only now that we can see the specific licensing that it looks dodgy and maybe it is too early to say if this is the massive reduction in royalties from sales like this that it looks like. The largest single sale I've seen on Istock was one at about $67 that reported two months after the date of sale from the partner program and I have no idea if that, or the partner program sales ranging from $10-40 I saw at least some of pretty much every month are still possible. In January the highest was less than $3. Edit: just noticed one at $6.36 but that is not Premium Access apparently.