We have an official response from kelvinjay on the iStock/Getty forum:
" UPDATE: Refunds / cancellations

Some contributors have noticed an increase in cancellations on their royalty statement this month.

A large corporate customer who licenses a high volume of content mistakenly selected these uses as royalty-bearing when, in fact, they were for comp / low-resolution image use. It is standard industry practice that comp uses, for client pitches, mock-ups, etc., are not a royalty generating license.

We subsequently met with the customer to reiterate the correct licensing requirements and reversed these transactions. Due to the customer's sizable team, some assets were selected for intended comp use multiple times, necessitating multiple cancellations

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements. Please note there is no need to open tickets regarding this issue.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused during this process."

Team comp use means all of these are reversed.

I have 30 Dollars negative income in february 

I was also in the red this month.

Let me ask you a stupid question.

Why do we actually have to pay if a customer buys pictures here illegally and against the rules?
In my world, the customer has to pay for the damage.

Long time contributor.

The explanation Getty gave is fishy to say the least.

I just don't buy it because on the strong discrepancies of the amounts paid in every transactions.

I think it is long due a deep auditory of their accounts.
Personally I don't trust their accuracy, transparency  and honesty of their statements.

Surprise - big customers get to use our files for free for some uses (planning, mock ups, etc. ) with no watermarks so if they accidentally just go live with it nobody really notices.

The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

apparently I had no sales in Feb from the US, nor have I had any US 'interactions' in the rolling month 24 Feb - 24 March.
Weird, it's usually my #2 country, if not, it's #1.
LIke everyone else, Feb sales spoiled by a slew of refunds.

Quote from: pancaketom on March 25, 2024, 11:21

The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

That's really good question.   Went and checked: Nov '23 was my 3rd best month last year on iStock, but nothing out of proportion.

Accounting certainly appears shady, but I don't think it's deliberate - whole system is set up in such a bad way it is easy for all kinds of mistakes to creep in.  Biggest thorn to me is 15% royalty which is downright disrespectful.

Agreed

Pretty funny or odd, or I ask, how do people reason out the glaring contradiction, when SS pays us more and a higher percentage, with a higher minimum, but they can't stop shouting how bad SS is or what crooks they are? "I'd never upload anything to SS, paying 10 cents is an insult."

I won't dwell on Connect which is, fractions of cents, because no one really knows what or how those images are used. Maybe for mock-ups, or maybe not. Maybe on a website, or chat, or somewhere in Asia for some mystery use, and maybe not. We don't get anything detailed or specific. Oh but we do get hundredths of a cent royalty.

BUT... for iStock when we do get the details. How do we get downloads like this? 4 cents? 3 cents?

Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/5/2024
Uploaded 5/30/2013
Gross royalty $0.04762
License Fee $0.31745
Rate 15%

File Type Editorial Image
Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/6/2024
Uploaded 10/6/2011
Gross royalty $0.03150
License Fee $0.21000
Rate 15%

Please tell me how SS is nothing but despicable crooks, and then someone explain, how iStock isn't worse?  Oh IS is much better, they pay fractions of cents, and then 3 cents or 4 cents. Really? That's better than the terrible, insulting, demoralizing... 10� 

Quote from: zeljkok on March 25, 2024, 14:58

Quote from: pancaketom on March 25, 2024, 11:21

The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?

Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.

That's really good question.   Went and checked: Nov '23 was my 3rd best month last year on iStock, but nothing out of proportion.

Accounting certainly appears shady, but I don't think it's deliberate - whole system is set up in such a bad way it is easy for all kinds of mistakes to creep in.  Biggest thorn to me is 15% royalty which is downright disrespectful.

Agreed

Pretty funny or odd, or I ask, how do people reason out the glaring contradiction, when SS pays us more and a higher percentage, with a higher minimum, but they can't stop shouting how bad SS is or what crooks they are? "I'd never upload anything to SS, paying 10 cents is an insult."

I won't dwell on Connect which is, fractions of cents, because no one really knows what or how those images are used. Maybe for mock-ups, or maybe not. Maybe on a website, or chat, or somewhere in Asia for some mystery use, and maybe not. We don't get anything detailed or specific. Oh but we do get hundredths of a cent royalty.

BUT... for iStock when we do get the details. How do we get downloads like this? 4 cents? 3 cents?

Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/5/2024
Uploaded 5/30/2013
Gross royalty $0.04762
License Fee $0.31745
Rate 15%

File Type Editorial Image
Type Regular
Month 2024-02
Sales date 2/6/2024
Uploaded 10/6/2011
Gross royalty $0.03150
License Fee $0.21000
Rate 15%

Please tell me how SS is nothing but despicable crooks, and then someone explain, how iStock isn't worse?  Oh IS is much better, they pay fractions of cents, and then 3 cents or 4 cents. Really? That's better than the terrible, insulting, demoralizing... 10� 

Brutal, how is this even possible? 3 to 4 cents comissions?
What the heck?

I wouldn't be surprised if all agencies are ripping off their contributors since they all have become to greedy.

Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

IStock states that they pay out almost 2 million a week.
Presumably that's a similar number of sales. So mistakes can happen ...
You probably don't even notice smaller ones and they are simply covered up.

Nobody can check the sales system.

Nobody can check the sales system.

Yeah that's the thing. How do we know, how can anybody check that without direct involvement?
We don't, and we can't.

Not even speaking of something intentional. But on a technical level. Consider a database with hundreds of millions of records. All the programming and scripts that involve connecting all the commission variants from different kinds of subscriptions, direct sales, credit packs, premium access, Getty library, iStock library, Thinkstock library or any other weird thing they set up in the past.... Consider all those API's from partners or customers with direct access. There's a lot of it than can go technically wrong, from database corruptions over api's not working to misprogramming that nobody ever discovers and when they do can take weeks or months to fix... Consider all the internal teams and divisions having access and manipulation rights on the database intervening to their own needs creating side-effects for others... The way Getty or any other big agencies operates their data must be very complex.

I'm not very technically involved, but from my work experience from more service managing related positions I can assure you that data or transactions in likewise constructions gets lost. And very often, when discovered, the consideration is made: what costs more? Accepting the data-loss, or trying to fix the issue and also restore data loss or perform corrections, wherever possible. There are cases where data loss is accepted as a more cost-efficient way to deal with the issue. There are a lot of cases too where the issue does gets fixed, but it can takes months to do that due to the complexity of the issue, and the complexity of the company itself (often dealing with off-shore programmers who might be competent people on a technical level, but have no clue at all about the system that they are trying to fix, they just write code)

I'm pretty sure that in this whole mess, a unreported sales happen. And they can percentage-wise be considered as the exception, we're still talking about quite the volume.

Have you received your February payment?

according to the profile page i made my first 2 video sales on istock this month.  i hope they're not both returns!  fingers crossed.

Brutal, how is this even possible? 3 to 4 cents comissions?
What the heck?

I wouldn't be surprised if all agencies are ripping off their contributors since they all have become to greedy.

Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

IStock states that they pay out almost 2 million a week.
Presumably that's a similar number of sales. So mistakes can happen ...
You probably don't even notice smaller ones and they are simply covered up.

Nobody can check the sales system.

3 or 4 cents has been going on for some time at IS. Check their forum, I think some people have been as low as 2� and that's not Connect, that's a iStock or Getty download.

All agencies have their best self interest to pay us what we are due and not cheat. If someone ever found out there were unpaid downloads, that were paid for and licensed, there would be one heck of a lawsuit, which could destroy the business.

Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?

Alleged, claimed, unsupported, unless you believe everything you read on an Internet Forum, without any proof?

Correct, nobody can check the sales system. We can't anywhere or for many other business in life. There has to be some trust? If anyone works on a commission basis, they have to believe that the company they work for, is going to be honest and report everything. Otherwise, why start?

I noticed that, as usual, the people who claim SS is a bunch of crooks and insulting us with 10�, don't have an answer to why they are not just as insulted or worse for 3� downloads and connect sales, from iStock? But people flocked away from SS in protest, and formed a coalition, tried a boycott, and two years later can't stop writing hate messages... still work for IS? 

As a note: I still work for both. Yes, I'm insulted, but I'll take the money.