With the new changes resulting in a pay cut for almost everyone what will you be doing?  

When I was non-exclusive, Alamy made more money for me than IS. However, Alamy is too lame in collecting money and too lenient in granting refunds so I don't get paid until a few months after reaching the payouts, if there was no refunds.

In comparison, I get regular payments from IS (I have similar size of ports with IS and Alamy). Therefore I do not consider Alamy as a regular source of income. I am as upset as everyone else about IS now, so don't get me wrong. It's just naive to think Alamy as a quick alternative if you need a regular source of income.

Quote from: traveler1116 on September 08, 2010, 16:51

With the new changes resulting in a pay cut for almost everyone what will you be doing?  

Continuing with my policy of focussing more on editorial shots to send to Alamy.
Also, when swithering where to put an image, it'll more likely to go to Alamy now.
Sadly, I have to admit that that's a triumph of hope over experience, though last week I got more from one sale at Alamy than I did all week at iS. First time, though. And with three payments pending, I haven't actually had any money yet.
I'll keep a watching brief and make other decisions further along the line.

deleted the worst 10% of my port, will take out another 20% and leave the rest to sit.

I am stopping uploading, 17% is too low for me. Much like crestock they want the best and pay the worst. The time I was spending on istock will go into panthermedia and a few others that I have been neglecting and I will put more time into some macro collections that I have put off.

Plan to refocus and create better, high-sales potential images for Veer, DT, SS, 123, and BigStock. Will also explore other agencies mentioned here. will stay away from IStock for the time being. (Made my lightboxes there private.) Will add blogs, lightboxes, and other valuable side content on other sites. Will also recommend other sites to photographers and designers I meet. Will also recommend that nobody choose an exclusive contract, and offer this situation as a good example of why such deals are not good for artists.

With regards to Istock: no more uploads from now on. If there are no significant changes ("commissions below 20% are unsustainable" ) then I will start deactivating my files start of next year.

I'll continue with the other agencies and will also try to focus a bit more on Alamy. I am not depending on my stock income (which is small) in any way, so I can afford to upload where I still feel treated fairly (or fair enough) without looking too much on the short term returns.

stop uploading!

Plan to continue with IS Getty but prepare portfolio to be re distributed. See that new agency model is beginning to seem inevitable but that parts and conditions not yet be in place. Could be guild of smaller independent agencies. Thinking follows:

Believe most IS exclusives see sales broadly in line with earlier estimates for year ahead. Will probably calm dissent. The owners have considered the Getty opportunity to create a tipping point. Remember that IS once posed a threat to their model. They consider possibility that they precipitate a new model by creating a tipping point.

Expect to see continuation of gradual but continual organization and redistribution of content on different brands at Getty. Getty is a machine system - there are many different points at which to adjust ebb and flow to affect profitability of different parts according to different markets conditions over time. Getty is a machine. IS is one of interfaces. Content distribution on brands will see constant revision. Same at algorithms etc. All content is not equally profitable. Content value depends from which hole it is sold out through.

When Getty has been public company, was struggled because stock price has suffered in part as a result of unrealistic market expectation / poor growth (opinion). No way of knowing whether emphasis on growth plans for a future sale (or IPO) - but do not see the stock side of Getty broken up and sold as different marques. Different divisions are integral to the whole. Editorial branch, who knows - they keep it for kudos ?

Over and out

(25% for everyone. 2 years.)

As an exclusive, I'll wait and see - after all, until the end of year nothing much will change (I don't sell much Vetta and not very many ELs, so any loss there won't be a lot).

Come January, assuming iStock don't reconsider the new terms, chances are I won't have made the target to stay on my current royalty level - and the bottom line is, if I start to make less year-on-year I'll probably drop exclusivity and try to make it up elsewhere.

I allready removed my portfolio at IS. 100 pics only, beacuse uploading there was such a pain in the ass.
I'll never use tem again, and I wil activily campain every where that no one shuold nor contribute nor buy images there, as they treat thier contributers like slaves.

I will then focus more on Alamy, SS, DT FT etc.

I belive this is the end to IS, as the leading microstock agency. In a year or 2 they are just an otner stockagency.

Buyers wil migrate to the other sites, at content leaves IS, og stops coming in to IS.
Buyers don't want to support an agency which take a 85% commision.

I'm just a small fish in the big pond but I will stop uploading to istock and I removed all my pending photos. Will probably delete my port when i can figure out how. This hurts because istock was my Number 1 earner.

One other thing I'm doing in my effort to not promote iStock anymore is that I yanked my SXC.hu images. When Getty acquired StockXpert, they got the free site SXC as well and use it to funnel traffic to iStock.

If anyone has images at SXC, you might think about changing that.

I deleted all my audios and canceled audio exclusivity. I also found the list of most popular audio libraries rated by artists, and learned that Istock has almost the last position in ratings from artists. I also learned that I can sell RF audio even if I am a member of PRO, which Istock didn't allow. This opens many doors for me to sell RM audio and to enjoy even performance royalties. What surprises me is that musicians have only bad words for Istock...so bad that I can't even quote them here. Generally, even before this mess, musicians had an opinion that Istock is very bad for artists.

Regarding my photos: I will leave them for now, to see how the situation develops. And if sales drop till the end of the year I will consider deleting my port. Upload and submission process is to complicated if sales are poor.

Unfortunately, I live in a place where people don't buy stock images very often, so I can't have direct influence on buyers.

Edited: Actually, I got more than 50 referrals on Istock, and all are buyers of course. I could ask them for their opinion