It's just harder and longer to do than what I can achieve. Lately I thought about paying a designer who is used to work with Istock images, to do the isolation job at least. But designers are busy people lol. Those pictures have been removed from SS 2 months ago when they removed most of the cars images. That was also a reason to go with IS, because they were in my best sellers on SS.

I didn't given up on those images yet, but yes I wish that Istock accept the collage/concept images. I have done a couple that goes through, but they never sold more than 10 times. Istock buyers really like untouched images I think.

I would save your time and money Vonkara.  I'm pretty sure Istock has been rejecting and removing all shots where cars are the main focus for awhile now. 

Quote

what happens when they change the requirements for the next level, or cut the commission, or change the meaning of "credits.?"
I think the only way to keep the agencies honest is diversity.  Why do you think DT is pushing so hard for exclusivity?  Or, why is iStock making it so much more lucrative?
All rules and calculations are subject to change.

The way I have started to look at it all is that it's all a crapshoot. There are pitfalls if you do go exclusive and there are pitfalls if you don't. You just have to pick one and go with it and hope for the best.

How much time it takes to feed 6 or 7 agencies ?

I would go exclusive and spend time shooting more photos.

As for the putting all eggs in one basket : this is the last thing to worry
as istock is owned by Getty ... if Getty goes bankrupt than the whole
stock industry will follow, so with istock you're pretty safe and you
know they pay on time.

The concern isn't so much about what happens if Getty goes bankrupt, the concern is what happens when the current owners sell Getty and the new owners realise that its quite feasible to increase profits further at the expense of contributors. Canisters will have been moved once without any hitch - whats to stop them from changing the % that's attached to them?

Unfortunately similar moves by the competition mean that there's nothing stopping IS now anyway.

Personally I think its time that contributors had a good discussion about developing more contributor friendly alternatives - not just another discussion thread on here, but something face to face.

And who's stopping iStock from paying new contributors just 5% of a sale ?

Nobody, and i'm sure contributors will still apply anyway as 5% of a 1$ sale
is still better than 5% of zero sales.

It's an endless rat race to the bottom.

People will stop contributing once they spend more than what they earn,
but there's still an infinite supply of amateurs and Flickrs willing to join
micros at ANY price.

The concern at the moment is that iStock appears to have gone mad and to be attempting hara-kiri by urging its customers to go away and save money by joining a cheaper sister site. Look at the long Thinkstock thread over there (too long, too many irrelevant posts, but it is important).

Just as exclusivity starts to look alluring, IS shoots itself in the .... head.

What did you expect ?

Only small specialized agencies respect and care about their photographers.

But the golden days of stock are gone forever and small agencies are
closing the doors one after the other.

Now it's all about producing industrial quantities of images and hope they sell
well.

RM agencies are doing the same but at least they let you decide if you
want to join or not their special deals, discounts, and distribution sales.

For instance the very same image can sell for 500$ in USA and for 5$ in China or Bolivia,
up to you to opt-in or opt-out.

Alamy has deals with UK newspapers paying peanuts, it's not unusual to get paid less than 10$
when making a sale this way and we're talking about national newspapers selling millions of copies.

Quote

What did you expect ? Only small specialized agencies respect and care about their photographers.
But the golden days of stock are gone forever and small agencies are
closing the doors one after the other.

This is totally what I expected from istock/Getty. That's why I have been independent up until this point. Which is proving to be a smart decision on my part.

I'm not convinced that the golden days of stock are gone forever...people still need to buy images for print and web. What's gone is respect from big business for the person who is generating the income for them...they are trying to starve us and push us down so that we will be grateful when we are offered $.25 for an image. After all, we're in a recession, we should consider ourselves lucky we even have a job/micro sales at all!

The only thing that will close the doors of the smaller-than-Getty agencies is for people to keep falling for the crap the Getty's are dishing out.

Getty has the long-term vision we often lack.

They know their job and they know there's nowadays an infinite supply of
cheap images and new contributors willing to get back only 20% of a 1$ sale.

Who can blame them ?
Photographers are to be blamed, not Getty.

It's insulting selling at 0.25$ but what should i say when i make a 5$ sale for
an image printed on The Guardian sold as RM ?

RM prices will soon become "mid-stock" if this trend keeps going.
And microstock will reach the bottom of the barrel and start digging...

Quote

RM prices will soon become "mid-stock" if this trend keeps going.
And microstock will reach the bottom of the barrel and start digging...

Only if people keep believing that "the inevitable is going to happen and we can't do anything about it" and keep taking less and less for their work, while the agency takes more and more.

They've the buyers, we don't.
That's why we are getting screwed.

There's no way i can invest millions in marketing to find the buyers myself.
What do you suggest ?

A photographers' strike ? A boycott ?

"It's insulting selling at 0.25$ but what should i say when i make a 5$ sale for
an image printed on The Guardian sold as RM ?"

Hello there Macrosaur!

I'd be a bit annoyed, their minimum rates is around �70 for a small head shot. Then, having got over my annoyance I'd have realised I'm small fry, my picture wasn't exclusive, and their budget for pics is shot to pieces.

I can't blame them, however as yet I don't believe the Uk newspapers have taken to using lots of Macro - deals with Alamy, yes, but not large volume macro. Why not?

Rgds Oldhand

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 08, 2010, 07:36

The concern at the moment is that iStock appears to have gone mad and to be attempting hara-kiri by urging its customers to go away and save money by joining a cheaper sister site. Look at the long Thinkstock thread over there (too long, too many irrelevant posts, but it is important).

Just as exclusivity starts to look alluring, IS shoots itself in the .... head.

What did you expect ?

Only small specialized agencies respect and care about their photographers.

What I didn't expect is that Getty would go out one morning and shoot its prize milch cow. It's nothing to do with respecting photographers, it's about taking a valuable ultra-successful business and adopting a policy that seems designed to wreck it and reduce the parent company's income. It seems irrational, which is not what I expect from Getty.

Your suggestion that Getty wants to flood the micro market with a pile of point and shoot subscription trash gives me some hope that a better-quality midstock market will emerge for those who want something better than rubbish. Of course, if Getty has wiped out istock in the meantime, it won't be them.

I think some of you should stick to shooting photos and stop speculating over what the largest photo industry company is going to do because it seems you guys are all about conspiracy theories ...

Jon Klein has more of a grasp on the industry and it shows ... ... its just easier to complain

Did you actually bother to find out what they did to themselves on Friday?

In case you don't know, Istock sent a "contact sheet" to all its customers on Friday advising them that it might save money if they stopped using iStock and started using Thinkstock instead.

How does that fit in with the "Istock knows what its doing" theory? And why do you, ichiro17, think I would hate everything Istock does?

Jon Klein has more of a grasp on the industry and it shows ...

Was that the same bloke who was in charge of Getty when their share price went from over $90 to about $25 in just over 2 years and ended up with them being sold on the cheap to H & F?

Actually I largely agree with you but I do believe that a cock-up is being made in the way Thinkstock, etc is being handled __ to say the least. They already had a worthy, established and profitable 'sub site' in StockXpert, complete with over 4.5M images. Surely it would have been easier and quicker to have modified StockXpert to the business model they wanted than start over again?

My own impression is that there are different camps with different responsibilities within Getty and that one side, in pursuit of their own ambitions, is not concerned with 'unintended consequences' on other parts of the business. I think the extraordinary silence from TPTB at IS on the subject of Thinkstock speaks volumes. I suspect they despise it every much as we do.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 08, 2010, 11:08

Quote from: macrosaur on February 08, 2010, 07:46

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 08, 2010, 07:36

The concern at the moment is that iStock appears to have gone mad and to be attempting hara-kiri by urging its customers to go away and save money by joining a cheaper sister site. Look at the long Thinkstock thread over there (too long, too many irrelevant posts, but it is important).

Just as exclusivity starts to look alluring, IS shoots itself in the .... head.

What did you expect ?

Only small specialized agencies respect and care about their photographers.

What I didn't expect is that Getty would go out one morning and shoot its prize milch cow. It's nothing to do with respecting photographers, it's about taking a valuable ultra-successful business and adopting a policy that seems designed to wreck it and reduce the parent company's income. It seems irrational, which is not what I expect from Getty.

Your suggestion that Getty wants to flood the micro market with a pile of point and shoot subscription trash gives me some hope that a better-quality midstock market will emerge for those who want something better than rubbish. Of course, if Getty has wiped out istock in the meantime, it won't be them.

I think some of you should stick to shooting photos and stop speculating over what the largest photo industry company is going to do because it seems you guys are all about conspiracy theories ...
 

Thinkstock is not a theory

Denis

F&H just want to pump up the balance sheet ready for a profitable sale, why would they care about contributors?