If so many contributors will go down why nobody is asking to lower the RC targets?
I can't see any discussion of this issue on iStock's forums.

I believe someone started a thread on RC targets on istock and it was taken out. We still have two months until the year's total so I'm thinking people will be waiting till then to really discuss it. You usually find people are still "hopeful" that they can meet their targets at the last minute. I don't believe the wind has gone out of people's sails on this. If at years end a majority of people are going to be down a percentage and istock/Getty wants to hold firm on those targets ("sorry folks but rules is rules") then there will be a s***storm. The real problem is that istock isn't keeping up it's part of the contract with exclusives. As an exclusive, I expect fair representation of my work and a fully functioning website to sell it on. Well, take a good look at the list of "bugs" we've had month after month. You think this doesn't cause us to loose sales and customers? Along with a slow website, Klein himself admitted that people were having problems with the functionality of the istock site trying to purchase images. That's why they hired the design group. Here's a screen shot I took in July from a search in istock.

This "bug" lasted till Oct. Does somebody want to tell me this site is running fine and we aren't loosing sales? We also have the problem of transparency - how do I know my images are being pulled up in searches in the best possible way? Do other contributors have "special deals" to ensure optimum search results? I can't tell you about search results, but I can tell you certain contributors have gotten some pretty good exposure on the istock website. Case in point - CSA images. Take a look at the istock website home page (if you log out) and you'll find a CSA image of a black cat promoting Halloween in the bottom right corner. And guess what illustration is used to promote their "Christmas Cheer" - why surprise folks! It's another CSA image! An istock exclusive should expect the company to step up to it's obligations. I'm keeping my part of the contract with istock, they need to keep theirs by having a website that works. It's as simple as that.

...  How can a brand new image with no data on it ever be considered the best match for a particular keyword?  ....

Depends on the keywords and the volume of matches.  I'm at positions 1 and 2 with images approved in the last couple of days for "sacrificial virgin".

I wouldn't hold your breath in anticipation of any relaxation in the RC targets.

Getty are $2.6B in debt (that's close to 3x annual earnings) with revenue falling, thanks to H&F and Carlyle. I don't think they'd have the balls to reduce royalties yet further (although I'm sure they'd like to) as it would probably prove to be counter-productive and would hasten the departure of more exclusives.

But every year since the RC system was introduced, changes/caveats/etc have been made long after the targets were announced.

Hope this year will be no different - non exclusives and exclusives have reported big drops in their RC earnings as a result of iS/Getty's policies this year.

IMO the RC system is too unpredictable and complex.  It causes problems for iStock and for contributors.

If they really want to streamline the site, getting rid of the RC system and returning to something simple like canisters or even just a flat percentage for everyone would go a long way.

There are a lot of sites out there that are much cheaper than SS and yet SS is the one with the strongest growth.

Istock was market leader for a long time, losing their position was entirely their own fault.

As long as they keep looking "elsewhere" for excuses and don't take responsibility for their own company, they won't recover.

But at least in the last 3 months they seem to be at least trying to do something with istock, but it all feels like the company is being run by somebody outside of the industry,or on a very long distance remote. Their decisions don't feel like "organic"business decisions. Maybe it will improve in time,who knows. But SS will keep pushing full speed ahead with an experienced team and long term goals.

I will be dropping from 18 to 17%. My downloads are back to a similar level  like when I was exclusive, but royalties are extremly low. However I am seeing an uptick in video and extended licenses.

2014 will be a very interesting year.

I agree your first comment is clearly true, yet SS is doing exactly the same thing Istock did with TS.  They are slashing prices at BS to push customers to BS where the majority of submitters will be paid a lower royalty than they receive at SS.

Recently Bigstock was offering 85% off BS prices which already undercut SS pricing. At the time it was .16 per image on a 1 year subscription.

I just checked and SS raised pricing at BS from .16 per image to .21 per image as of today . As contributors we need to speak up when sites devalue our content and take gross advantage of its contributors by paying them sub par royalties.

Pricing 11/3/2013

SS 1 year 25 images per day = 9125 for $2388 or .26 per image

BS 1 year 20 images per day = 7300 for $1589 or .21 per image

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/why-is-shutterstock-sellng-our-images-for-1cent-each/msg349529/#msg349529

I woke up this morning to find that Bigstock have a promotion offering 85% off all their plans - or $99 for 1800 downloads! Having done the calculations this means that my images could be sold for less than 1C per image! This is astoundingly low and I certainly don�t feel happy about being sold so cheaply. Shutterstock surely can�t expect us to stay quiet about this?

Quote from: ShadySue on November 03, 2013, 13:03

Be careful what you wish for. A flat percentage might be lower than you'd consider acceptable.

Yes, it's very unlikely as it'd be a difficult one - to be confident that they wouldn't lose top contributor(s), the flat percentage would have to be 45% or more.

Sounds ridiculous in the context of iStock, but 55% commission should be enough to allow an agency to survive and grow.  iStock might find it would change their fortunes for the better.

Of course, 55% should be enough.
But bear in mind that they could shaft the riff-raff while still keeping their special deals with the faux-exclusives.

I remember when they paid out that "dividend" there were even people complimenting the investors on how clever they were and what a fantastic way to do business this was. Real wall street brilliance and all that.

I�ll never understand how burdening a business with useless debt can be "clever".

If they had invested those 2.6 billion into the business instead - where would Getty be now? They might have been able to pay themselves millions out of a real dividend that comes from profits earned.

They are lucky the interest rates are still so low. If they ever go up...