Author Topic: 50% in the last four months - does this apply you? (Read 13076 times)

stockmarketer · « **Reply #25 on:** December 21, 2010, 11:32 »

I've been watching my credit count every day for the past few weeks. I might make the 40,000 goal by a razor-thin margin, or I could end up the year with something like 39,999. As for "50% in the last four months"... for me it's probably been something like 40%, but then my port has probably increased about 15% in that same period, so it's hard to say.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #26 on:** December 21, 2010, 11:44 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 21, 2010, 11:16

For those exclusives who are going to be getting big pay cuts, are you going to stay exclusive?

I can't imagine getting a 20% pay cut from a hugely successful company, through no fault of my own, and staying loyal to them.

^^Not meant to be snarky, BTW, just genuinely curious if anyone will stay exclusive at IS after being treated that way.

I bet you most will, because of being scared of seeing a much larger fall in income if they give up the exclusive benefits. It's not just the percentage, they would lose their access to exclusive-+ , Vetta and the higher prices that are charged on all exclusive files. So going from 35% exclusive to 20% non-exclusive could leave them losing 60% of their remaining income and having to hope they can make it up from elsewhere.

The exclusivity trap has been carefully designed.

nataq · « **Reply #27 on:** December 21, 2010, 11:46 »

Yes, Lisa I will stay exclusive.
I have been treated badly by other companies too - like Fotolia.
I´m not a big enough fish to change anything by getting non exclusive again, so my decisions are purely economical. I would have made the cut if I had been exclusive from the beginning of the year, so I´m pretty confident to make it in 2011. Nevertheless I still don´t like the changes at all.

lisafx · « **Reply #28 on:** December 21, 2010, 11:51 »

Fair enough, Nataq. Thanks for answering, and I sincerely hope it works out for you

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on December 21, 2010, 11:44

... So going from 35% exclusive to 20% non-exclusive could leave them losing 60% of their remaining income and having to hope they can make it up from elsewhere.

The exclusivity trap has been carefully designed.

I would have agreed with that, but some of the former exclusives who are posting here, and in their own blogs, seem to be reporting that they are doing a lot better than expected.

Some have even said (sorry, can't remember who or in what thread or I would link it) said that their downloads at Istock actually increased when they went non-exclusive.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #29 on:** December 21, 2010, 13:07 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 21, 2010, 11:16

For those exclusives who are going to be getting big pay cuts, are you going to stay exclusive?

I can't imagine getting a 20% pay cut from a hugely successful company, through no fault of my own, and staying loyal to them.

I can look at my situation two ways. (1) I'm getting a 12.5% pay cut (from 40% to 35%) - plus the harder to measure cut in ELs with loss of the 10% bonus; or (2) I'm at the same royalty level as for the bulk of 2010 - 35% - where I have had a really great year for me.

I had a few Vetta files for a part of the year (February to September). I had initially opted out of Vetta as I wanted to make diamond and figured that the download count would be higher at the lower prices. I changed my mind earlier this year, but opted out again once they required content go to Getty. I don't want to assist Getty in the drive to 20% royalties everywhere, and that's what this enforced move to Getty of Vetta/Agency is about.

So, I have no loyalty whatsoever to IS any more. I'm so angry that they couldn't be content with a thriving, growing business where both they and contributors were doing well. But I think that there's good reason to think I have one more year (possibly more, but that depends on how things play out in 2011 and whether they ever fix the search engine) to make more money than I did the year before.

So enlightened self interest says stay for a while longer. No woo yays, but we can do business.

I do have to decide what to do about illustrations though (I have a very small number) - go independent for that or leave them exclusive and take the 25% royalty that's all they qualify for now things are split by media.

jbarber873 · « **Reply #30 on:** December 21, 2010, 13:32 »

Quote from: jsnover on December 21, 2010, 13:07

Quote from: lisafx on December 21, 2010, 11:16
For those exclusives who are going to be getting big pay cuts, are you going to stay exclusive?

I can't imagine getting a 20% pay cut from a hugely successful company, through no fault of my own, and staying loyal to them.

I can look at my situation two ways. (1) I'm getting a 12.5% pay cut (from 40% to 35%) - plus the harder to measure cut in ELs with loss of the 10% bonus; or (2) I'm at the same royalty level as for the bulk of 2010 - 35% - where I have had a really great year for me.

I had a few Vetta files for a part of the year (February to September). I had initially opted out of Vetta as I wanted to make diamond and figured that the download count would be higher at the lower prices. I changed my mind earlier this year, but opted out again once they required content go to Getty. I don't want to assist Getty in the drive to 20% royalties everywhere, and that's what this enforced move to Getty of Vetta/Agency is about.

So, I have no loyalty whatsoever to IS any more. I'm so angry that they couldn't be content with a thriving, growing business where both they and contributors were doing well. But I think that there's good reason to think I have one more year (possibly more, but that depends on how things play out in 2011 and whether they ever fix the search engine) to make more money than I did the year before.

So enlightened self interest says stay for a while longer. No woo yays, but we can do business.

I do have to decide what to do about illustrations though (I have a very small number) - go independent for that or leave them exclusive and take the 25% royalty that's all they qualify for now things are split by media.

Are you allowed to go independent for different media? Does that count for video too?

ShadySue · « **Reply #31 on:** December 21, 2010, 14:14 »

Quote from: jbarber873 on December 21, 2010, 13:32

Are you allowed to go independent for different media? Does that count for video too?

Video has always been a separate exclusivity deal, i.e. you could be exclusive in 'photos and vectors' but independent in video, or vice versa.
Yesterday's news
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=284422&page=1
...is the logical (at last) one (considering the RCs are unfairly counted separately over each medium) that you can be exclusive in both photos and vectors, independent in both (as at present) or exclusive in one and independent in the other.
However, the question has been raised (by our very own JoAnn) that in the scenario where someone wants to be exclusive in photos but independent in vectors, but the other agencies require a jpeg of the vector to be uploaded with the vector, and whether that would break photo exclusivity (as 'photo' has always included 'raster illustrations', confusingly).
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=284872&page=1
Looks like, as usual, they didn't think it through before the announcement.

Gannet77 · « **Reply #32 on:** December 21, 2010, 14:32 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 21, 2010, 11:16

For those exclusives who are going to be getting big pay cuts, are you going to stay exclusive?

I can't imagine getting a 20% pay cut from a hugely successful company, through no fault of my own, and staying loyal to them.

^^Not meant to be snarky, BTW, just genuinely curious if anyone will stay exclusive at IS after being treated that way.

The thing is, it's a royalty cut, not a pay cut; with Exc+, Vetta, price rises and all that, it's going to be a few months before I can tell if it actually is a pay cut or not, and if so, how much. Only then can I decide.

lisafx · « **Reply #33 on:** December 21, 2010, 15:05 »

Thanks JoAnn and Gannet77 for the replies. The wait and see approach seems to make sense in your cases. I have just been surprised by some of the people I am reading in the Istock thread who are talking about taking cuts from 40% to 25 or 30% yet still seem to be planning on staying.

Quote from: jsnover on December 21, 2010, 13:07

I do have to decide what to do about illustrations though (I have a very small number) - go independent for that or leave them exclusive and take the 25% royalty that's all they qualify for now things are split by media.

As I remember, illustration was one of the reasons you went exclusive, wasn't it? Seems like illustrators have gotten a particularly raw deal in the last year - omitted or pushed to the back of searches for awhile, and now required to come up with way more RCs. It's really good they will be separating illustrations for photography in the exclusivity agreement now.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #34 on:** December 21, 2010, 17:36 »

Quote from: lisafx on December 21, 2010, 15:05

Thanks JoAnn and Gannet77 for the replies. The wait and see approach seems to make sense in your cases. I have just been surprised by some of the people I am reading in the Istock thread who are talking about taking cuts from 40% to 25 or 30% yet still seem to be planning on staying.

Quote from: jsnover on December 21, 2010, 13:07
I do have to decide what to do about illustrations though (I have a very small number) - go independent for that or leave them exclusive and take the 25% royalty that's all they qualify for now things are split by media.

As I remember, illustration was one of the reasons you went exclusive, wasn't it? Seems like illustrators have gotten a particularly raw deal in the last year - omitted or pushed to the back of searches for awhile, and now required to come up with way more RCs. It's really good they will be separating illustrations for photography in the exclusivity agreement now.

As they say, that was then, this is now!

I spent the first half of 2008 reacquainting myself with illustrator and uploading vectors - and planning to become exclusive (which I did in August 2008). However somewhere in the spring illustrations started to show up at the back of the bus in searches and new files were getting a huge boost in the best match. I stopped illustrating and stared uploading a bunch of photos that I hadn't processed from the previous 6 months. Since then, illustrations have received one raw deal after another at IS, so that old idea stayed dormant.

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Author Topic: 50% in the last four months - does this apply you? (Read 13076 times)

stockmarketer

BaldricksTrousers

nataq

lisafx

Jo Ann Snover

jbarber873

ShadySue

Gannet77

lisafx

Jo Ann Snover

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