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Author Topic: Google giving photos away free for commercial use and iStock agrees  (Read 256400 times)

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« Reply #1200 on: March 17, 2013, 10:57 »
+1
I thought Sean's images could be found via "tailgate" which produces no results now.

Yes, they are gone.  I can not find any of my images - the pharmacy one, the student one, or the tailgate ones.

I wish they would keep us up to date on what the deal is.

Perhaps they must remove any images that are no longer on istock since their original agreement was with istock (or their partners)? No one has seen the actual, original agreement between google and istock that started this fiasco. Just speculating...
Allegedly the agreement was between Getty and Google - allegedly iStock admins didn't know anything about it until Sean pointed it out.
It would be a very unusual agreement that required images to be pulled if the person pulled their port. iStock's IT dept could never cope would be 'extremely challenged' to cope with that!

(my bold above)
On the contrary. This is standard for all redistribution agreements, and the google/getty deal is a exactly that! Even though they call it something else.


« Reply #1201 on: March 18, 2013, 09:07 »
+1
I thought Sean's images could be found via "tailgate" which produces no results now.

Yes, they are gone.  I can not find any of my images - the pharmacy one, the student one, or the tailgate ones.

I wish they would keep us up to date on what the deal is.

Perhaps they must remove any images that are no longer on istock since their original agreement was with istock (or their partners)? No one has seen the actual, original agreement between google and istock that started this fiasco. Just speculating...
Allegedly the agreement was between Getty and Google - allegedly iStock admins didn't know anything about it until Sean pointed it out.
It would be a very unusual agreement that required images to be pulled if the person pulled their port. iStock's IT dept could never cope would be 'extremely challenged' to cope with that!

'Extremely Challenged'...that sums up iStocks IT well in general ;P

« Reply #1202 on: March 19, 2013, 10:02 »
0
As far as I know this thing was the biggest scandal in microstock's recent history. And the biggest online mobilizing of contributors against a big fish.
There are a lot of talks around about the greed of big agency and WHAT can we ( the small people ) can do about it. I was reading on another thread about an attempt to bring the smaller ( fairer ) agencies to top - but we all know that we're just small drops in a huge ocean.

I am curios if we have any INFO on how this collective online RAGE against iStock paid off in the end. How many images have been taken off or how many users quit iStock. The scandal is all over the internet, blogs and website are screaming about it - the thing is pretty HUGE for the industry.

I figure that if this HUGE fiasco that got EVERYBODY MAD, didn't cause enough repercussion from the users that could even scratch iStock/Getty a bit - I am afraid that NOTHING WILL.

I am very happy to see people that are ready to make a stand, to go all the way - quitting big agencies for smaller ones - deliberately lowering their income just for THE GREATER GOOD but everything in the end might be for nothing.

Truth is, we cannot do anything to boycott the big boys because there are simply TOO MANY contributors to take our place ( and by we I mostly mean all of you - I'm was to small of a player ).

That's why I am very curios if anybody has any idea about the bottom line of this mass 2nd Feb thing. If it was big enough - we might just have a say after all.

Stock agencies DON'T NEED CONTRIBUTORS right now. There is a HUGE AMOUNT of contributors out there, everybody has a digital camera, almost everybody has a DSLR - and people are getting BETTER AND BETTER at photography as we speak. Everything is just VERY EASY and VERY CHEAP these days. What agencies need ( and have always needed ) ARE BUYERS.

EmberMike

« Reply #1203 on: March 19, 2013, 10:09 »
+3
...There are a lot of talks around about the greed of big agency and WHAT can we ( the small people ) can do about it. I was reading on another thread about an attempt to bring the smaller ( fairer ) agencies to top - but we all know that we're just small drops in a huge ocean...

That's not true. We can make a difference with the small agencies if we try. And I don't mean just by uploading. You're right, these companies don't need more contributors. They need buyers. I've personally referred 24 buyers to StockFresh. Imagine if everyone on this forum brought 24 new buyers to a small company like that.

Microbius

« Reply #1204 on: March 19, 2013, 10:54 »
+4
.....Stock agencies DON'T NEED CONTRIBUTORS right now. There is a HUGE AMOUNT of contributors out there, everybody has a digital camera, almost everybody has a DSLR - and people are getting BETTER AND BETTER at photography as we speak. Everything is just VERY EASY and VERY CHEAP these days. What agencies need ( and have always needed ) ARE BUYERS.

Honestly, I'm sorry but you are wrong. There are thousands producing at the lower end (nothing wrong with that), but the number of contributors producing the top notch professional work that pays these companies' bills numbers in the hundreds, not even the thousands.

There aren't many prepared to put in the work to get to that level

If you want to see what effect contributor action has had take a look at IStock's Alexa figures. Most non exclusive contributors have stopped sending buyers there, as well as not buying there themselves.

« Reply #1205 on: March 19, 2013, 10:55 »
+5
I think we managed to persuade more buyers to use other sites.  So it was a success.

« Reply #1206 on: March 19, 2013, 11:06 »
+9
What would make a difference would be a couple of high-profile cases of buyers getting into legal trouble by using images they got on Google Drive. 


« Reply #1207 on: March 19, 2013, 13:44 »
+4
If you want to see what effect contributor action has had take a look at IStock's Alexa figures. Most non exclusive contributors have stopped sending buyers there, as well as not buying there themselves.
A few other signs of success:
-lots of MSG posters are suddenly asking questions about submitting to sites other than iS, some have said that they are newly independent escapees from iS
-at SS, review times are longer than they have ever been, and the whole submission/review process seems to show signs of being stressed (I have been there since 2005 and I have never seen anything like it), could be caused by a flood images as ex-iS exclusives submit their whole ports to SS? DT review times are also very long.
-iS has hired a consulting group apparently to try to find out what is wrong (they might not have done that if nothing is wrong)
-some MSG posts have said that forum participation at iS has fallen dramatically. I wouldn't know, I started at iS in 2005 and am a gold illustrator, but I don't submit there any more or go to the site very often.

« Reply #1208 on: March 19, 2013, 15:56 »
+4
Had a photo approved at iStock in 2 hours yesterday.  Normal wait has been as long as 6 days and recently about 3 days.  The queue is not very long.  Looks like not many are uploading.  There is a distinct lack of activity in the forums.

« Reply #1209 on: March 19, 2013, 15:59 »
-2
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« Last Edit: May 12, 2014, 15:17 by Audi 5000 »

« Reply #1210 on: March 19, 2013, 16:00 »
0
Was it an editorial file? They seem to be lightning fast with them.

« Reply #1211 on: March 19, 2013, 17:58 »
+1
What would make a difference would be a couple of high-profile cases of buyers getting into legal trouble by using images they got on Google Drive.

What would make a difference also... some big buyers that are paying for years istock, with its rising price, saw that Google in a single deal had got some thousands of images at low price. So what I expect is, someone going istock and tell them, who wants lower prices or they go by other agencies with lower prices. And this is what seems happened. Getty pushed the rock down the hill, it is moving but not as they expected. At the end this deal for istock is worse than they expected.

« Reply #1212 on: March 21, 2013, 08:21 »
+1
That is absolutely awesome news.

To be honest I made some calculations of my own - let's say a "good" contributor has what - 1000 images @iS at least ( right ? ) and a top one has over 10K. However the top ones ( over 10K ) are like ... 100 or 200 ( correct me if I'm wrong ). I mean Arcurs has like ... 40-50K images so let's assume that the top contributors have in average about 15K images. So 200 x 15K = 3 mil images. But let's assume that half of those ( and I think could be more ) - are not watching this forum ( or others ). I have friends that did not even hear about the iStock/Google deal and they are contributors for years.  So the word went out to the contributors of 1.5 mil image holders. Out of those 1.5 images - let's assume that 1 mil ( and that is just being optimist ) was taken off the site. So we have 1 mil images taken down ( although I am pretty much afraid that's way too optimistic ). Let's say the others have also pulled off another million images - we have 2 mil. Although I am afraid not even 1 mil images have been taken off for real ...Not to mention most contributors HAVE NOT closed their account or deleted their photos. Many of them considered quitting exclusivity as a way to "punish" iS/getty so their folio is still up there, just that they made it available in other places also. I perfectly understand and salute the initiative, but most of the people are thinking about themselves pretty good before they pull the trigger on a money bringing alternative such as iStock.

Now on the buyer's perspective. They log in - look for a specific image - even if the top players have left - it's very likely that HE WILL FIND the suitable image he was looking for from the remaining users. So the sale is still made, money doesn't stop coming in. That is where the big problem is. Yes of course, iStock took a pretty nasty hit. Regarding quality of contributors, I think mostly it all comes down to QUANTITY rather then QUALITY in itself. Considering the iStock acceptance policy in the past years, it's safe to assume that if an image IS UP THERE - it's very likely that is of a GREAT QUALITY technically. It's maybe something about my images but I get an acceptance ratio on iS which is less than 50% of what I get from SS ( which is the second most pretentious agency in my book ). I get pretty much everything accepted on DT and FT. So from a buyer's perspective, it doesn't really matter WHO uploaded the photo, it's very likely the one he will get from iS - is of a GREAT QUALITY. So all in all, what does a TOP Contributor bring to the table and a bunch of other smaller ones don't already have there?

In my opinion, as I said before - the biggest impact on iStock business since the Google deal was in the buyer's section. I suppose that many, after reading about the hype created, decided not to purchase from iStock on a general principle, thinking that IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO considering they are Jerks to their contributors. Others that have read about it, simply got the idea NOW that there could be other great alternatives so rushed into the competition. iStock was pretty clear about how they don't really care much about contributors considering their policy of closing TOP accounts in left and right.

So all in all - it was a success, probably not just because a lot of users simply jumped boat ( and I have my suspicion that there were not that many as we all like to believe ) but rather of what happens to a lot of buyers as a result of all the hype around the web. And that's where it really hurts. Probably this whole FIASCO on the forums, blogs and everything created a much bigger mess than they anticipated.

It's great to see WE ACTUALLY HAVE A SAY in things. Considering this is probably the biggest THING in microstock recent history ( or entire history ) it's up to us to really make something about that COUNTS, because if this doesn't make it happen, what will ??

« Reply #1213 on: March 21, 2013, 08:29 »
0
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« Last Edit: May 12, 2014, 15:17 by Audi 5000 »

« Reply #1214 on: March 21, 2013, 08:32 »
0
Had a photo approved at iStock in 2 hours yesterday.  Normal wait has been as long as 6 days and recently about 3 days.  The queue is not very long.  Looks like not many are uploading.  There is a distinct lack of activity in the forums.
The queue is normal, it's at about 70,000 images waiting approval.  It's been like that for a long time now.

That's interesting news.  How does one get this information?  I must say that I was astounded at the quick turnaround.  Obviously I jumped to the wrong conclusion.

« Reply #1215 on: March 21, 2013, 08:35 »
0
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« Last Edit: May 12, 2014, 15:17 by Audi 5000 »

« Reply #1216 on: March 21, 2013, 08:47 »
0
A few other signs of success:
-lots of MSG posters are suddenly asking questions about submitting to sites other than iS, some have said that they are newly independent escapees from iS
-at SS, review times are longer than they have ever been, and the whole submission/review process seems to show signs of being stressed (I have been there since 2005 and I have never seen anything like it), could be caused by a flood images as ex-iS exclusives submit their whole ports to SS? DT review times are also very long.
-iS has hired a consulting group apparently to try to find out what is wrong (they might not have done that if nothing is wrong)
-some MSG posts have said that forum participation at iS has fallen dramatically. I wouldn't know, I started at iS in 2005 and am a gold illustrator, but I don't submit there any more or go to the site very often.

SS review times are 'normal' as far as I'm concerned, sometimes very quick (a few hours) and sometimes a bit slow (2-3 days). Only 88K images have been approved in the last 7 days which is on the low side, previously they were regularly approving 110K+ images per week. There's nothing whatsoever to suggest that they are 'stressed'.

« Reply #1217 on: March 21, 2013, 08:53 »
+2
SS review times are 'normal' as far as I'm concerned, sometimes very quick (a few hours) and sometimes a bit slow (2-3 days). Only 88K images have been approved in the last 7 days which is on the low side, previously they were regularly approving 110K+ images per week. There's nothing whatsoever to suggest that they are 'stressed'.


I respectfully beg to differ, I have two batches (both editorials) sitting there since Feb., 25th and another since March, 8th, respectively. There is also a thread on this in their forums: http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129097

I've been with SS since 2006 and this is the first time I'm waiting longer than seven days for commercial or two days for editorial photos - something is definitely different than it was before...

« Reply #1218 on: March 21, 2013, 09:20 »
-1
I just had several videos approved within a week. I am exclusive to video there, but previously i hade waited over 4 weeks...so big improvement a great surprise.

« Reply #1219 on: March 21, 2013, 09:35 »
0
My opinion was that not enough images were taken down - so I simply calculated the most optimistic scenario possible with the 1 mil figure. 1 mil out of 15-20 mil - is still not that much to hurt a company this huge. So if you guys say it's really actually 50K proves my point even more. We actually know about 2-3 top contributors that have quit ( or have had their accounts closed ) - so there's the 50K. Where do you get the 50K figure ? I'm not saying it's not true, just curious what you base your answer on. I still say that this is like a drop in an ocean no matter if it's 50K, 70K or even 200K. My bottom line was that we should do something MORE than that if we want the efforts to count.

What I am saying is that in this business ( and mostly all of them to be honest ) it all comes down to SALES not how many images it holds. iStock is pretty huge now whether we like it or not, so for them it doesn't really matter if there's 20 mil images up there, or 18 mil or 25mil. The sales will KEEP COMING IN simply because there are TOO MANY contributors so any buyer is very much likely to find what he needs.

I was happy to see you guys have a positive and optimistic feeling about what happened on Feb 2nd or around the Google deal events and I really want to believe WE HAVE SOME SORT OF SAYING in things like this.

But let's think about it for a second, this was one of the lamest stunts in the industry. If you ask ALL contributors about it, I'm sure that more than 95% would genuinely NOT BE OK with it. Seems that this thread has 43K views, to be honest I don't understand how that works really, since the forum has only 32K users - I suppose the guests are counted in there also as I know that as a registered user you only bring that number up with 1 no matter how many times you visited the thread. So let's optimistically assume that over 40K people have seen this thread, there are also other threads in here ... Also there are numerous blogs, websites, facebook groups etc and other forums where these things are shared... we could say this had a pretty big exposure worldwide.

Bottom line : if this whole "historical and groundbreaking" scandal didn't manage to create a bigger impact than 50-70K images taken down, where do we stand really ? What can be done in the long run then ... This is what worries me...

Just that the wait times on the other agencies have increased, it could also mean that a lot of iS users decided not to be exclusive anymore so they rushed to upload their big folios at SS and others. I still don't understand something - why does a company as big as iStock want exclusives ? Maybe I'm thinking small here, but if each agency has about 15-20M images - who cares about exclusives ? I think the decision of NOT BEING AN EXCLUSIVE anymore - doesn't hurt iStock that much as it does the actual exclusive user that's gone non-exclusive now.

lisafx

« Reply #1220 on: March 21, 2013, 12:58 »
+1

Bottom line : if this whole "historical and groundbreaking" scandal didn't manage to create a bigger impact than 50-70K images taken down, where do we stand really ? What can be done in the long run then ... This is what worries me...


Yeah, I have to agree here.  I thought we would see more results from the feb 2 protest.  I will admit I am disappointed nothing seems to have changed yet.  But I do think this is a long game and the real damage to Istock may not be fully apparent for a few months or a year. 

Just that the wait times on the other agencies have increased, it could also mean that a lot of iS users decided not to be exclusive anymore so they rushed to upload their big folios at SS and others. I still don't understand something - why does a company as big as iStock want exclusives ? Maybe I'm thinking small here, but if each agency has about 15-20M images - who cares about exclusives ? I think the decision of NOT BEING AN EXCLUSIVE anymore - doesn't hurt iStock that much as it does the actual exclusive user that's gone non-exclusive now.

It looks like Getty has come to the same conclusion as you that exclusive content isn't that important anymore.  At least judging by they way they've treated their exclusives the past year or more.  However I think they have made a big mistake by not supporting and retaining their exclusives. 

This is one of the areas where the effects are not going to be obvious for a few months.  The advantage to Istock of having exclusives was that they had a very large pool of good content that was not available anywhere else.  Now that much of that content will be available via their (cheaper) competitors, Istock's remaining buyers will have one less reason to stay there. 

And lets be honest, the exclusive content was one of the LAST advantages Istock had.  Their customer service and site functionality have tanked at the same time their prices have skyrocketed. 


« Reply #1221 on: March 21, 2013, 13:06 »
0
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« Last Edit: May 12, 2014, 15:17 by Audi 5000 »

« Reply #1222 on: March 21, 2013, 13:11 »
0
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« Last Edit: May 12, 2014, 15:16 by Audi 5000 »

lisafx

« Reply #1223 on: March 21, 2013, 13:19 »
0
I'm pretty sure they still want exclusives, maybe something good will come out of the survey and from some long time exclusives leaving.  They are still paying a much higher royalty rate than Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, and 123RF among others.

I hope you're right.  I am sure you are in a better position to know what they're up to than I am.

If they do want to retain exclusives they are doing a pi$$ poor job of it lately.

(edited for spelling)
« Last Edit: March 21, 2013, 13:58 by lisafx »

« Reply #1224 on: March 21, 2013, 13:22 »
+2
We certainly didn't get any feeling they wanted to keep exclusives. Maybe they want to keep some but not others?


 

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