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Author Topic: iStock changing royalty structure  (Read 348665 times)

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vonkara

« Reply #325 on: September 08, 2010, 13:59 »
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Never a dull moment.  ;)

I wish microstock was very dull...

Rob locked the thread at istock, says an announcement will be coming within 1 hour.

Anyone want to take a guess at what it will be?

I'm guessing nothing new. Changes are slated to go ahead as originally planned.

Let be hopefull, they have a chance to not start the 3rd world war. But my guess is, Istock is surrounded by a mixture of the west Canadian fuel industry and owned by American capitalists. Nothing will change or maybe in worst


macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #326 on: September 08, 2010, 14:00 »
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From Sylvanworks (copy paste)...

OK, the folks at HQ have been reading the responses and have been putting together a reply. I'm going to lock this so everyone can catch their breath for a few minutes. I've been told the response will be posted within the next hour

never say never ... i've read yesterday on TechCrunch that the users of Digg.com mounted a rebellion and left Digg in droves for their direct
competitor Reddit.com .. Digg now is dead and worth nothing, and all this in just one week !

« Reply #327 on: September 08, 2010, 14:02 »
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never say never ... i've read yesterday on TechCrunch that the users of Digg.com mounted a rebellion and left Digg in droves for their direct
competitor Reddit.com .. Digg now is dead and worth nothing, and all this in just one week !

What's Digg? Is that a shovel company?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #328 on: September 08, 2010, 14:03 »
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It's all so tedious and time-wasting.
First the subscription scheme, then the partner project and the Thinkstock fiasco.
Now this.
:-(

« Reply #329 on: September 08, 2010, 14:07 »
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It's all so tedious and time-wasting.
First the subscription scheme, then the partner project and the Thinkstock fiasco.
Now this.
:-(

You missed the canister changes, that never ended up happening but still caused a controversy. I think we'd all rather have those canister changes and this load of crap.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #330 on: September 08, 2010, 14:09 »
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never say never ... i've read yesterday on TechCrunch that the users of Digg.com mounted a rebellion and left Digg in droves for their direct
competitor Reddit.com .. Digg now is dead and worth nothing, and all this in just one week !


What's Digg? Is that a shovel company?


www.digg.com

now is simply a sort of interactive RSS aggregator.

but until 2 years ago it was said to be worth 1 BILLION $ !

they had 30-40 million monthly users ... now i guess they're 1% of that ...
it was impressive how the rebels coordinated themselves and *removed coarse language* it up for real.

it gives us hope that people somehow can still change the world, i hope facebook
and myspace follow the same fate soon ....

« Reply #331 on: September 08, 2010, 14:14 »
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Just shows that going exclusive anywhere sets you up to be used and abused. Sure, independents are going to get a pay cut, but we have multiple outlets. It will have an effect on my income, but not as bad as the great majority of exclusives on iS! I have actually recommended going exclusive on IS to some people just starting out because it offered a better return on a small portfolio. To anybody who followed my foolish advice, I apologize. Diversify.

« Reply #332 on: September 08, 2010, 14:16 »
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Just out of curiosity what is the downside here to video?

Sorry I find it here,  http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=861
« Last Edit: September 08, 2010, 14:22 by Zeus »

« Reply #333 on: September 08, 2010, 14:20 »
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Well - I for one stopped uploadting til IS long ago. The process simply became way to time consuming.

Today I woted with my feet and culled the remaining 100 pics I had there. I'll never work with someone only offering 15% cut.

I'll now consentrate more on my Alamy and DT acount, and then some Fotolia now and then.

I will also do whatever I can to tell buyers about the rotten IS policy, and try to divert as many as possible away from IS, by posting stories on blogs an websites, as well as mailing buyers direcly.

I suggest, that you folks do something similar.

It's about time they are given a smack in the butt they can feel!

« Reply #334 on: September 08, 2010, 14:22 »
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Video now has to get 1,250,000 Redeemed credits per year to stay at 20%. The table with the breakdowns is here. http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=861

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #335 on: September 08, 2010, 14:24 »
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It's all so tedious and time-wasting.
First the subscription scheme, then the partner project and the Thinkstock fiasco.
Now this.
:-(

You missed the canister changes, that never ended up happening but still caused a controversy. I think we'd all rather have those canister changes and this load of crap.
I already mentioned that earlier in this thread, but the thread is so long, it's impossible to read and retain everything.
I counted that as 'breach of trust' (because we'd been promised we'd be grandfathered in), parallel to istock emailling their top buyers suggesting they might move to TS, after promising us that PP customers were "new".
It's just impossible to have any trust in their declarations now.

« Reply #336 on: September 08, 2010, 14:27 »
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BLA BLA BLA BLA ....

nobody of you will leave iStock.
you invested too much time and resource on it and now you're "locked in".

i predicted all this a long time ago, and i'm sure the entry-level royalties
will be lowered again in the future ... 10% ?  5% ? why not ! there's a fool
born every minute isnt it ?

p.s.
if you sell a fine-art photo in an art gallery you never get less than 50% of the sale,
and these guys spend real money in order to make an exibition, calling people by phone,
sending printed invitations ... getty instead doesn't move a finger, it's all computer automated
and the product is a digital download and pretends a whopping 85% !

you better flip burgers at McDonalds than getting 15% of YOUR work.





I will. You all have my word.

« Reply #337 on: September 08, 2010, 14:33 »
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Quitting exclusivity is a huge step, likely to lead to a major loss of earnings. Getty will get to keep a larger slice of the pie (maybe they even want to drive out a heap of the lower-ranked exclusives, who knows?). It would take a lot of people including some big names for this to have a real impact. As usual, the pain would be on the submitters' side.

Reducing uploads is futile, we did it to Fotolia with absolutely not effect whatsoever. After a little while, everybody drifts back.

Removing content - would they even notice? I guess it would appear as a blip in the stats report. Which content do you remove? The 20% that makes 90% of your money, which might actually hurt them? Or the 80% that makes 20% of your money, which they might be happy to see removed from their servers?  They already progressively remove it themselves, which says they don't really want it.

Making a stink might work. If you can drive buyers away that would certainly hurt them (and I am pretty sure they will delete the porfolios of anyone they catch doing that) but they would probably never get those buyers back, which would hurt submitters in the long term, too. Of course, if it taught them and the rest of the industry a lesson the cost in lost sales would probably be worth it in the long run. It is also about the only thing a small group of activists could do without the support of the masses.

Oh don't be such a pathetic defeatist idiot. As a 'group' we have forced agencies to backtrack or temper down their announced plans on several occasions. It just needs a big enough stink to be made.

We were mainly unsuccessful the last time with Fotolia only because the issues concerned policies that had actually been in place for years but without us noticing or being aware. It was not a new initiative on FT's behalf. The current issue with Istock is very different.

Ultimately Getty/Istock want to make more and more money. If we collectively give them such a kick in the nuts ... by not uploading ... with email campaigns ... with as much negative publicity as we can generate ... etc, etc, etc ... then we will ultimately be successful.

We should never forget that WE ARE ISTOCKPHOTO. Without us they literally don't have a business. Theoretically Istock, if offered on the open market, might be worth up to $1B right now. We have the power between us to reduce that valuation to zero virtually overnight __ but we have to have balls, stick together and do what is right for our long-term future.

If we let Istock get anyway with this then you can expect other agencies to follow their lead fairly soon afterward.

vonkara

« Reply #338 on: September 08, 2010, 14:40 »
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Ultimately Getty/Istock want to make more and more money. If we collectively give them such a kick in the nuts ... by not uploading ... with email campaigns ... with as much negative publicity as we can generate ... etc, etc, etc ... then we will ultimately be successful.


We could use our creative network "friends" to do the email campaign. Though, even by stopping the uploads, the Istock collection will remain one of the biggest. But I thought the "friends" mass mail could be a nice way to reach a lot of Istock users

« Reply #339 on: September 08, 2010, 14:41 »
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Just shows that going exclusive anywhere sets you up to be used and abused. ... Diversify.

Yes it does. I actually blame the absurdly loyal woo-yaying exclusive masses for the situation we all now find ourselves in. Independents can easily just stop uploading to Istock for months, probably without us even noticing it. It is not so easy for exclusives with all their eggs in the Istock basket. Istock knows the power it has over them and is now abusing that power hoping that such is the exclusives commitment they will have little choice but to suck it up.

Give up your stupid little crowns and get back your independence.

« Reply #340 on: September 08, 2010, 14:43 »
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Ultimately Getty/Istock want to make more and more money. If we collectively give them such a kick in the nuts ... by not uploading ... with email campaigns ... with as much negative publicity as we can generate ... etc, etc, etc ... then we will ultimately be successful.


We could use our creative network "friends" to do the email campaign. Though, even by stopping the uploads, the Istock collection will remain one of the biggest. But I thought the "friends" mass mail could be a nice way to reach a lot of Istock users

Use your CN to try to organise an attack on iStock and you will be off the site faster than your feet can touch the ground. It's a clear breach of the terms of service.

« Reply #341 on: September 08, 2010, 14:43 »
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No announcement yet but they are deleting any threads that ask about it or are negative in nature - not just locking - deleting.

Welcome to FT... Oh wait this isn't FT???

« Reply #342 on: September 08, 2010, 14:44 »
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Using the creative network won't work, they will just delete it and remove you from the site.  They have made no secret that they can read your site mail whenever they want.

Ask Paul Cowan, he's been down that road before.

« Reply #343 on: September 08, 2010, 14:46 »
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It's just occurred to me that there are probably more people waiting for this announcement then were waiting for the last "F5" announcement.

« Reply #344 on: September 08, 2010, 14:49 »
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It's just occurred to me that there are probably more people waiting for this announcement then were waiting for the last "F5" announcement.

They keep us hanging around to create the impression that "our man" is engaging in fisticuffs with "getty's man" to extract the minimal concession that they have to announce if they are going to say anything. In fact, the pair of them are having a beer together in the corporate executive lounge and discussing Tiger Woods.

« Reply #345 on: September 08, 2010, 14:51 »
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It's just occurred to me that there are probably more people waiting for this announcement then were waiting for the last "F5" announcement.

They're flying in Karl Rove.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #346 on: September 08, 2010, 14:51 »
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no no no you must send a press release to newspapers and TV and then to TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Slashdot, Register, and all the other IT/ICT websites.

as i see there's definetely something news-worthy :

"Angry Istock photographers rebels against new draconian paycuts and menace to leave out in droves feeling scammed by Getty"

... something like that.

« Reply #347 on: September 08, 2010, 14:56 »
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Rob posted in the original thread that it's almost ready - that was 15 minutes ago.

« Reply #348 on: September 08, 2010, 14:58 »
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« Reply #349 on: September 08, 2010, 15:00 »
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For the last "F5" announcement, press "F5" !!!
 ;D


 

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