Since the thread may not last long, I thought I'd copy the OP anyway:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354492&page=1

Today as I was searching for a picture that would work perfectly in my production, I noticed that all my choices were running anywhere from $70 to $155 for a picture in the resolutions that can work for me.

As other's have said, this is a far cry from many years ago when the same picture was around $10. Case in point, I have many pictures in my archive that I purchased for less than $10 and now sell for $70 and higher.

Now, I get photographers should get paid. As a designer myself, I love to get paid. But my clients are now vetoing using iStock for microstock purchases anymore. They don't want the extra budget in their productions.

it is a real shame. I personally believe that prices should be a bit lower to encourage a higher volume of sales, AND the cut iStockPhoto takes shouldn't be anything much more than 10%. The corporate goals of Getty to their sharholders is forcing me out as a customer, but again not as me, but dealing with client budgets.

My only comment is that perhaps the designer should use the price slider to try to find less expensive images. Sounds like they are looking at only S+ and Vetta files at the prices cited.

I dont think anyone would NOT expect to see prices for things to go up...just about everything you can buy goes up in price. But greedy, massive increases are never going to fly. I dont see how getty can think going from microstock prices all the way up to the way prices were 10 years ago in such a short time would NOT mean losing buyers. Duh.

The buyer is the problem here, wanting to get images for peanuts, or a tenner.

We all say our images are sold too cheap, and when the pricing goes up we complain buyers dont want them. Catch 22. We need to make up our minds.

but if that designer were to hire a photographer to get the shot(s) they need (if that's even possible) they'd pay a lot, lot more.

How can you make that argument and be a stock photographer at the same time? In any case, it's head in the sand stuff: Stock exists, so a lot of people will use that instead of hiring a photographer; microstock exists, so a lot of people will use that rather than paying more at a traditionally-priced site.

And the problem is not the buyer, that's a disgraceful argument. Microstock was set up to provide images for the masses who couldn't afford traditional stock prices. The problem is, and always has been, that buyers don't have barrels filled with money to lavish on photographers, they have budgets that they have to work within and if an image is outside that budget they have to find it cheaper somewhere else or do without.

Istock apparently wants to go back to the days when only elite corporations could afford pretty pictures for their adverts and brochures, before some evil market-wrecking company started giving images away for almost nothing. What was its name, oh, yes, that's right, iStock.

Buyers at istock are buying there based on its original intent...microstock. They expect to NOT pay $100 or more for an image. Thats why micro was started...companies dont have those kinds of budgets anymore where they can hire a photographer or pay $100-200 for a single image.


Its a great concept for getty to think they can just, overnight, start charging those kinds of fees and get them. The reality is the economy is way different than it used to be. People make salaries today that are less than what they made 20 years ago. Why does getty imagine stock photography would be any different? Reality check.


What other industry do you know of where prices can go from $10 to $100+ dollars in a short amount of time and still retain customers. Someone is smoking the reefer.

Customers are not all clones. They are all different, with different needs and different budgets. Of course, for some Vetta could be expensive (and, btw,  now, the Agency files that now are Vetta are way cheaper than they were a week ago); other with more budget may thing that 100-150 dollars is just a little drop in the whole campaign's budget (some of my photos, and, sure, some of yours, have been used in campaings where just the price of placement of the ad in magazines excedeed 100.000 dollars)

If you can't find a suitable image for under $50, you're not looking in the right places.   

Quote from: gillian on June 21, 2013, 04:38

but if that designer were to hire a photographer to get the shot(s) they need (if that's even possible) they'd pay a lot, lot more.

How can you make that argument and be a stock photographer at the same time? In any case, it's head in the sand stuff: Stock exists, so a lot of people will use that instead of hiring a photographer; microstock exists, so a lot of people will use that rather than paying more at a traditionally-priced site.

And the problem is not the buyer, that's a disgraceful argument. Microstock was set up to provide images for the masses who couldn't afford traditional stock prices. The problem is, and always has been, that buyers don't have barrels filled with money to lavish on photographers, they have budgets that they have to work within and if an image is outside that budget they have to find it cheaper somewhere else or do without.

Istock apparently wants to go back to the days when only elite corporations could afford pretty pictures for their adverts and brochures, before some evil market-wrecking company started giving images away for almost nothing. What was its name, oh, yes, that's right, iStock.

If the buyer doestn want to pay a fair price, then the buyer is the problem. Sorry, but thats not a disgraceful argument. Buyers can make or break a business.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 04:40

The buyer is the problem here, wanting to get images for peanuts, or a tenner.

We all say our images are sold too cheap, and when the pricing goes up we complain buyers dont want them. Catch 22. We need to make up our minds.

No, it doesnt matter what we want. The buyers are the ones complaining and leaving, as they rightly should. Heres an idea...why dont the micro sites work together, like many other industries, and all make a move to slowly raise prices on all their sites? That way, everyone keeps their piece of the pie, and everyone wins, assuming those price hikes are shared with contributors. The answer, of course, is that it will never happen...because of greed.


And every time someone like getty cheats the contributor, they get even more contributors! Again, blame is being placed on contributors when the problem is the greedy corporations. Raising the prices that much doesnt seem like the right answer to me.

Did I just walk into the twilight zone? I have seen so many comments complaining about buyers expecting top quality images for peanuts, and now all of a sudden they are rightly doing so by demanding a lower price or walk away?

The world upside down. Is it true what they say, photographers have no business acumen?

Quote from: cclapper on June 21, 2013, 04:58

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 04:40

The buyer is the problem here, wanting to get images for peanuts, or a tenner.

We all say our images are sold too cheap, and when the pricing goes up we complain buyers dont want them. Catch 22. We need to make up our minds.

No, it doesnt matter what we want. The buyers are the ones complaining and leaving, as they rightly should. Heres an idea...why dont the micro sites work together, like many other industries, and all make a move to slowly raise prices on all their sites? That way, everyone keeps their piece of the pie, and everyone wins, assuming those price hikes are shared with contributors. The answer, of course, is that it will never happen...because of greed.


And every time someone like getty cheats the contributor, they get even more contributors! Again, blame is being placed on contributors when the problem is the greedy corporations. Raising the prices that much doesnt seem like the right answer to me.

Did I just walk into the twilight zone? I have seen so many comments complaining about buyers expecting top quality images for peanuts, and now all of a sudden they are rightly doing so by demanding a lower price or walk away?

The world upside down. Is it true what they say, photographers have no business acumen?

The world is certainly upside-down, however it is not the photographers who are being greedy but the agencies who take up to 85% of the purchase price. That is where the problem is.

If we had the standard agency agreement for digital products (like app's, music downloads and e-books), with 70% going to the content creator and 30% to the selling agency, then photographers might actually have an incentive to create.

Oh, and under the agency agreement, the content creator also gets to set the price that their product is sold at too __ not the agency.

Imagine how the microstock world could be under those terms.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:24

Quote from: cclapper on June 21, 2013, 04:58

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 04:40

The buyer is the problem here, wanting to get images for peanuts, or a tenner.

We all say our images are sold too cheap, and when the pricing goes up we complain buyers dont want them. Catch 22. We need to make up our minds.

No, it doesnt matter what we want. The buyers are the ones complaining and leaving, as they rightly should. Heres an idea...why dont the micro sites work together, like many other industries, and all make a move to slowly raise prices on all their sites? That way, everyone keeps their piece of the pie, and everyone wins, assuming those price hikes are shared with contributors. The answer, of course, is that it will never happen...because of greed.


And every time someone like getty cheats the contributor, they get even more contributors! Again, blame is being placed on contributors when the problem is the greedy corporations. Raising the prices that much doesnt seem like the right answer to me.

Did I just walk into the twilight zone? I have seen so many comments complaining about buyers expecting top quality images for peanuts, and now all of a sudden they are rightly doing so by demanding a lower price or walk away?

The world upside down. Is it true what they say, photographers have no business acumen?

The world is certainly upside-down, however it is not the photographers who are being greedy but the agencies who take up to 85% of the purchase price. That is where the problem is.

If we had the standard agency agreement for digital products (like app's, music downloads and e-books), with 70% going to the content creator and 30% to the selling agency, then photographers might actually have an incentive to create.

Oh, and under the agency agreement, the content creator also gets to set the price that their product is sold at too __ not the agency.

Imagine how the microstock world could be under those terms.

We had our chance.  Several sites paid 70% commission but most people wouldn't use them because they didn't have enough buyers.  They couldn't get buyers because not enough of us uploaded our portfolios and had a bit of patience.  I think all the problems we have now are of our own making.  Why are people still uploading all their images to istock?  They have the lowest commission percentage and all the other sites can see that's fine with us.

Without another penny going to the photographer!  This is another big problem with the RF license - people can download their own digital libraries with a single subscription and then use those images in perpetuity without paying another cent.  Great for the designer, very bad for the content producer.  RF images really need an expiration date so they self destruct after an agreed period of time.  It isn't right that someone can continue to make money selling designs with our images for years and years without paying any other royalties.  The RF model really doesn't work for photographers in the long term.

Sub  images do have an expiry date ... unlike RF licenses from Istock for example. Here's an excerpt from SS's ToS under the YOU MAY NOT restrictions;

18.Stockpile, download, or otherwise store Images not used within six (6) months of the expiration of the subscription under which you downloaded the Image. If you fail to use an Image within such six (6) month period, you will lose all rights to use that Image.  

http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml

TS subs are the same.
Has anyone every heard of SS or TS going after a buyer for using an image after their sub had expired? How on earth could they police that on such tiny prices? And that's something the content provider would have virtually no chance of guessing.

Buyers can make or break a business.

No they can't. It's management decisions that do that. If the buyers go away and the business sinks its because a lousy management couldn't pitch its product at the proper level, or got its sums wrong and just generally misunderstood the market that it was meant to be supplying.

Buyers at istock are buying there based on its original intent...microstock. They expect to NOT pay $100 or more for an image. Thats why micro was started...companies dont have those kinds of budgets anymore where they can hire a photographer or pay $100-200 for a single image.

and then they should leave this business, it's a disgrace there are so many pretentious cheap ass-s fly by night "companies" around.

just leave the rock bottom biz to students and their stolen Flickr images, nobody will notice.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:21

 If the buyer doestn want to pay a fair price, then the buyer is the problem. Sorry, but thats not a disgraceful argument. Buyers can make or break a business.

I got a two minus for that. I guess those two 'photographers' agree that selling an image for 0.16 cent is a fair price then and that any buyer opposing to pay anything more is not the problem.

Give me break.

0.16$ ? i would go as far as saying 1$ nowadays wont get you too far even in places like India or Cambodia !

last time i was in Delhi with 1$ i could barely get a bowl of rice and it was in a hole in the wall in one of the roughest areas, i can tell you ... even poor indians will refuse to move a finger for 0.16$  and the beggars easily score 5-10$/day with tourists.

buyers must wake up and shut the F up.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:21

 If the buyer doestn want to pay a fair price, then the buyer is the problem. Sorry, but thats not a disgraceful argument. Buyers can make or break a business.

I got a two minus for that. I guess those two 'photographers' agree that selling an image for 0.16 cent is a fair price then and that any buyer opposing to pay anything more is not the problem.

Give me break.

I guess it's your lack of understanding of basic business concepts that is getting you the negative votes, not disagreement over the return to photographers being lower than it often should be (not that I voted you down myself).

I don't think anywhere sells images for 16c, though some agencies sell the cheapest licence for about $1 and  skim off 85% as the middle-man's cut.  Apparently you don't consider that to be a problem.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:21

Buyers can make or break a business.

No they can't. It's management decisions that do that. If the buyers go away and the business sinks its because a lousy management couldn't pitch its product at the proper level, or got its sums wrong and just generally misunderstood the market that it was meant to be supplying.

If the buyers demand lower prices, who's the problem then?

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

The buyer mentioned in the OP was complaining about images costing from $70 to $155.  Do you think that's far too low?  I think that's too high for microstock.

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

"Market forces" is the shorthand term. It's a compromise between the terms you and I are ready to supply at, the price and cut the middle-man thinks he can get away with and the amount the buyer is willing to accept. It varies according to who you are dealing with. I had a top-end Fortune 500 company contact me about an image they had found on iStock or SS asking if I could upload a close-up. I shot it again, uploaded to Alamy and they bought it for $530 (and someone has bought it since for another $77). That's great - but it was a special need that only I was in a position to meet (and I'd prefer that one of the world's top 40 companies wasn't buying microstock).  Alamy obviously spotted that they had the cash, too, since I think that is the second-highest sale I've had there.

No, it doesnt matter what we want. The buyers are the ones complaining and leaving, as they rightly should. Heres an idea...why dont the micro sites work together, like many other industries, and all make a move to slowly raise prices on all their sites? That way, everyone keeps their piece of the pie, and everyone wins, assuming those price hikes are shared with contributors. The answer, of course, is that it will never happen...because of greed.
...

Isn't that why the book publishers are being taken to court right now?  Banding together to set prices?   

I agree with several people here, the problem is the royalty %.   I am fine with providing photography for a low cost market - my production costs correspondingly low (I am not hiring models or renting studios), but I would much rather get $5 or $7 for that $10 sale instead of the $1.50 I get now.     

I understand the agency should get a cut for marketing, providing the purchase interface,  quality control and legal paperwork.   But is that worth 85%? 

I would guess the downward slide will eventually hit bottom enough to drive out many of the high production value folks out of the micros and on to somewhere else.   Dunno how low it will have to go before it hits that point, though.    This micro industry is still relatively young, I imagine it will  consolidate and settle out at some consistent level.   

The individual photographer has to decide if they are going to ride it out and hope for the best, or keep changing and finding new avenues for income.    There appears to be a resurgence in "mid" stock niche agencies as well as the grassroots Symbiostock project going on right now.  Who knows what will catch on and find that hole in the market like iStock did back in the day.   

As far as I understood they wanted images costing less then a tenner. I just sold an RF image on Alamy for 255 dollar. I guess thats fair, for me and for the buyer. Unfortunately I only get 30%.

No, I think you've read that wrong.  They mentioned they used to pay around $10, not that they want that price now.  They were complaining at the $70 to $155 that istock want for the images they want now.

Quote from: Mantis on June 21, 2013, 06:31

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on June 21, 2013, 04:51

Quote from: gillian on June 21, 2013, 04:38

but if that designer were to hire a photographer to get the shot(s) they need (if that's even possible) they'd pay a lot, lot more.

How can you make that argument and be a stock photographer at the same time? In any case, it's head in the sand stuff: Stock exists, so a lot of people will use that instead of hiring a photographer; microstock exists, so a lot of people will use that rather than paying more at a traditionally-priced site.

And the problem is not the buyer, that's a disgraceful argument. Microstock was set up to provide images for the masses who couldn't afford traditional stock prices. The problem is, and always has been, that buyers don't have barrels filled with money to lavish on photographers, they have budgets that they have to work within and if an image is outside that budget they have to find it cheaper somewhere else or do without.

Istock apparently wants to go back to the days when only elite corporations could afford pretty pictures for their adverts and brochures, before some evil market-wrecking company started giving images away for almost nothing. What was its name, oh, yes, that's right, iStock.

Paul,

I would reciprocate by saying that what did buyers do before digital? I was involved on production photography in a previous life and it was nothing to pay $1500 to $2000 for a two hour shoot.  The point I made above is that while the micros "invented" the cheap image model, we supported it by uploading and uploading and uploading.  Now buyers have become accustomed to paying peanuts, and the micros continue to create price wars, and we continue to support it.  If micros weren't around buyers would still be paying much higher prices and this topic would be moot.  I think we need to ask ourselves, what is the definition of cheap? $70 an image? .28 cents an image? Will a buyer be coming into a forum a year or two from now saying, I am going to xx agency because I couldn't fine any images for .15 cents, .28 cents is just too much?

OK so it's our fault. Nobody should ever have supplied the micros. So why are you here?

If the micros didn't exist some buyers would pay more and a lot of others would do without. I remember the pre-digital days when adverts were full of crummy line drawings that would make people laugh these days.  Why? Because small advertisers couldn't afford better. THAT was the market microstock was invented for.

I never said I wasn't supporting the part of the problem, I am.  Your points are valid, but all I am suggesting is that the critical mass supply has created allows micros to offer cheaper and cheaper and cheaper images, while we (me included) continue to support it.  Buyers become accustomed to the pricing and that perpetual motion is difficult, if not impossible to reverse.  Now, I have done a lot less micro lately and have been working on my underwater work, but positioning it in RM.  I have also taken a more rigorous approach uploading to POD sites.  So in a way I am hoping I can phase out of micros, but that will take time.

I am really tired of hearing the iStock invented microstock myth. Ron Engh must get a laugh out of that. Before the internet photographers maintained an inventory of stock photos. Designers maintained a list of photographers. The internet helped a lot but we were still either mailing slides or cds. There were plenty of galleries online to browse images and you could contact the photographer direct. I was selling stock locally for about $50 bucks a use. The small business that couldn't afford a big agency bought local. In the 90s I even made some book deals for multiple images. And in 2007 a buyer from outside the US license one of my images directly (RF) for $1,000, so there was a range. They were still cheaper then the big stock companies. One day a designer said he wasn't going to pay $50 bucks anymore because he could get everything from istock for a buck. I said not my photos. I eventually joined micros because the prices were rising. And the main reason was that it was open source. It was always difficult for a part time photographer to get with an agency. I used to read Photographers Market and most agencies wanted an initial submission of thousands. With open source I no longer had to market myself. Microstock was as much about open source as low prices. So now Getty has lots of price levels and I am thrilled that they just moved some more  of my photos to Getty where they will sell for $600. And they do sell. People who want my images pay the money. Oh yeah just hire a photographer for a $100 bucks and get a peregrine falcon in flight. Not going to happen. An isolated paper clip, yeah. There is room for all price levels. I have not seen a decrease in revenue, despite the fact I am not very active. I can pay my mortgage and bills now out of my microstock earnings now even though I have less downloads. No complaints here and I have a few images in the PP program for those on a low budget. Oh yeah I do have a complaint. I saw one of my images being used widely in ads as the lead photo in an international marine industry convention. I only got $12 bucks for the download. I am sure they would have paid a lot more if they had to.

Yep.

Quote from: sharpshot on June 21, 2013, 11:42

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 11:33

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

The buyer mentioned in the OP was complaining about images costing from $70 to $155.  Do you think that's far too low?  I think that's too high for microstock.

That's only for exclusive content, nonexclusive images cost similar amounts on Istock and Shutterstock.  Around $15 at Shutterstock for the largest size, Dreamstime is $8-21 and $17-30 at Istock.  I don't know how most nonexclusives feel now, should Istock lower the prices for their content?  Some people seem angry that they lost their more expensive P+ content and others say they are priced too high, either way it goes someone will say this is the reason Istock is failing.  They are priced too high and too low.  I'm glad the buyer sees some value in exclusive content and if the clients need those images what else can they do but pay, some people will opt to use less perfect images and some will pay.  It depends how badly they want/need the image, remember most people are licensing these images in order to make a profit from them.

As an indy I am not too concerned about the price IS sells my images for as long as they are within or above the range of other sites, what I am concerned with is the amount I get for a sale - the commission %, and IS pays the lowest of the low there. Now with dropping prices I can look forward to even lower $ and lower RC which will lead to even lower %.

I'd much rather sell an image for 5$ and get $2.50 than sell it for $10 and get $1.60 let alone sell it for $1 and get .16