IMO -

Good:
It's a new market.

Bad:
We only get 15%/20% flat rate.
It's a subs site.
No RCs
Whenever a photo is bought from Alamy and put on a newspaper website, it's on at least 20 Chinese blogs within a very few hours, max., and there seems not to be much notion of copyright protection there. I have no idea how well Getty's team deal with that.

This is quite an old article and I have no idea about its authority or current relevance:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/10/bootleg_nation.html

Don't know:
How much the current content will appeal to that market, but clearly that's what the Hong Kong lypse was aimed at - producing material for the market, and signing up local contributors.

Uh, isn't the internet worldwide?  If China wanted iStock content they can already get it.

Of course this probably halves any royalties.

if it makes them lot's of money Chinese will become iStock native language 

Yes, according to the map I get sales in China. Also, SS has contributors in China.

I've no idea how the search is ordered, but I've just tried a few searches, and the money-saving they did on inspecting keywords is biting them on the bum.

Uh, isn't the internet worldwide?  If China wanted iStock content they can already get it.

Of course this probably halves any royalties.

Yes and iStock has a Chinese version.

Quote from: Beppe Grillo on June 06, 2014, 02:03

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 05, 2014, 19:52

Uh, isn't the internet worldwide?  If China wanted iStock content they can already get it.

Of course this probably halves any royalties.

Yes and iStock has a Chinese version.

Huh?

Maybe he is referring to language where we can select language from the international drop down in the upper right.

That's Japanese.

Lolololol shows how much I know.

Quote from: Beppe Grillo on June 06, 2014, 02:03

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 05, 2014, 19:52

Uh, isn't the internet worldwide?  If China wanted iStock content they can already get it.

Of course this probably halves any royalties.

Yes and iStock has a Chinese version.

Huh?

It wanted to be ironic, because most of the Chinese people don't read or don't understand english, so I don't see how somebody can use a site in a language he does not know�

Oh, and as noted on another thread here, it's a subs site, so nothing much to cheer about. (my reply above amended).

Looks like the highest price per full-sized image would be 90yuan/image, or �8.56 / $14.40 of which we'd get 15% or 20%. As usual, the bigger the package, the lower the price.
And even that payment rate isn't fully clear in the email we got, nor in Lobo's OP, and I see others have interpreted it differently.

Content being available to buy officially is better than content only being available unofficially.

Pricing also needs to reflect local pricing. Eg - so the ratio of the price of an image vs the price of a restaurant meal would probably want to be roughly about the same whether you are in China or Manhattan. Everyone who travels knows that US and European prices for everything are arbitrary and reflect a legacy of now unsustainable wage levels and property prices.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 06, 2014, 08:53

Oh, and as noted on another thread here, it's a subs site, so nothing much to cheer about. (my reply above amended).

Looks like the highest price per full-sized image would be 90yuan/image, or �8.56 / $14.40 of which we'd get 15% or 20%. As usual, the bigger the package, the lower the price.
And even that payment rate isn't fully clear in the email we got, nor in Lobo's OP, and I see others have interpreted it differently.

You also have to remember that Fotomore will take it's share of the pie first, then Getty (80%), then the contributor. So your 20% might really only be 10% in the end. It seems Getty "forgot" to tell us that. Funny how they always get kind of fuzzy when it comes to full accounting of royalties whenever they make these announcements.

Indeed.
I wondered that myself. Lobo fuzzily said (to an indie) "You'll be getting 15% of the royalties(due to your non-exclusivity) that are generated from the sale of your images on the fotomore site."
He didn't say whether that was the total generated royalties (which his sentence implies) or the more likely (as you say), 20% of the remainder after fotomore has creamed off its share. They are really good at that sort of seemingly-innocuous statement.

Seriously, I think you shouldn't be excited with this deal. The commission will be ridiculous after Fotomore and Getty cut, sales low. In addition your images will be available for free or sold on pirate DVD in the street.
Chinese don't understand our 'problem' with copyright.

Makes sense to me.  This would concern me to.  Wonder if there will be a big protest over this? 

In addition your images will be available for free or sold on pirate DVD in the street.
Chinese don't understand our 'problem' with copyright.

This will make absolutely no difference to the availability of pirated content on the street either in Asia or anywhere else. Because all over Asia, and everywhere else, you can already buy pretty much all of the world's stock images in huge pirated collections. And all of that content is already available on the web unofficially anyhow.

The availability of pirated content is not the issue. That is not a battle worth fighting. The issue is about making content easily available in useful ways to users who want or need to find and use that content legitimately. And increasingly companies and organizations in Asia need legitimate content. You cannot buy a licence at the market - and this is about selling content as a service.

All of the world's content is already potentially available free everywhere today. We can all download pirated software, music, movies etc if we choose to. But, increasingly, many of us choose not to. The main reason we choose not to is that today it's much easier to have iTunes, Spotify, Netflix etc.

In a country where copyright is taken very lightly  ..... why would companies care if their content is 'legal' or not?

That's kind of a slur on potential customers throughout the whole region. Movie piracy is widespread in Europe and the USA where copyright is also often "taken very lightly" - but many people in Europe and the USA are also happy to pay for content. Content piracy is certainly widespread in Asia. But in many ways, the levels of piracy are probably a reflection of the sheer amount of work which gets done. And piracy represents a potential market  - eg Napster begat iTunes and Spotify.

There are growing numbers of serious professionals who will be needing properly licensed content. The same as everywhere else. And Chinese companies are trading out of the whole Asia region and throughout the world. Corporates and professionals are not going to be getting their content on crappy DVDs from the night market for the most part. The local photocopying shop is not doing their graphics and they are not all turning out rubbish for ebay. There are also huge numbers of US and European companies working directly out of China and the region. And many more represented as clients. Also international governmental organisations, NGOs etc etc. It all represents a market for legitimate content.

Quote from: bunhill on June 07, 2014, 11:16

Quote from: ShadySue on June 07, 2014, 07:33

In a country where copyright is taken very lightly  ..... why would companies care if their content is 'legal' or not?

That's kind of a slur on potential customers throughout the whole region.

Not a bit. I was careful to say, 'in a country' rather than name any particular country.

On a thread about China.

Hahaha
I'm Chinese.
We can not open istock website since last year. I have to use a VPN to keep the conection.
God knows why our goverment block istock (and getty) outside the country.Maybe nude photos?
Anyway,chinese market is not ripe. I don't know if it's good or not to open this new site to sell istock photos here.
But what is sure is , �fotomore� and its chinese name are very cheap, aren't they?