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Author Topic: iStock changing royalty structure  (Read 348635 times)

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« Reply #800 on: September 14, 2010, 11:29 »
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Heh, I just realized how much the lyrics to NIN's Terrible Lies relate to how I feel about iStock at the moment.


« Reply #801 on: September 21, 2010, 06:52 »
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I guess the dust is starting to settle on this issue, at least for now, and it seems unlikely that any form of compromise will be offered.

However the more I think about it the more certain I become that Istockphoto's greed will backfire upon them. It probably has already __ they just don't realise it yet. The primary purpose of the changes was presumably to boost the value of the business prior to the inevitable sale. Personally I believe that they have already irrevocably damaged their own brand and the community spirit on which they are built. As has been said earlier, they've turned 'crowdsourcing' in to 'crowdshafting'.

We've already witnessed the furore of reaction to the announcements and although things may be quietening down I don't see any evidence that people are feeling any differently. If anything attitudes have only been hardening as the full implications sink in. This is just the start too. This little baby is going to rear it's ugly head for months and months to come, especially at each month's end when contributors start seeing the effect in cold hard dollars. A bad month for sales, even if only for individual contributors, could unleash harsh reactions and actions long into the future.

Think about it; if you were a businessman looking to buy a microstock company how much might you have offered for Istockphoto say 3 weeks ago and how much would you offer now? I'd suggest it might be considerably less. Ok, we haven't seen the financials and, even if we had, it'll be months before we could see the actual effect of these changes on the bottom-line. Nonetheless confidence in the future of Istockphoto must have been shaken and that will likely be reflected in the price the business could achieve if offered for sale at this moment.

« Reply #802 on: September 21, 2010, 07:41 »
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I don't know that they are looking to sell the company. I think David hit the nail when he mentioned that IS was switching to mid. That would give Getty a "Traditional" agency, a "mid" agency (to compete with Alamy), and a micro/subscription (thinkstock).

I think they are also going to read a false positive as buyers use up the credits they have left before the annual new year price hike. At the end of January I think they will see the real affects of their changes as buyers don't renew their subscriptions or purchase more credits.

« Reply #803 on: September 21, 2010, 08:11 »
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I don't know that they are looking to sell the company.


Read the bottom paragraph;

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6877227.ece

It has never been in question that they will sell on, it's what H&F do, it's only ever been a question of 'when'. That story is 11 months old but business situations can change and timelines can move in both directions.

« Reply #804 on: September 21, 2010, 11:14 »
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Heh, I just realized how much the lyrics to NIN's Terrible Lies relate to how I feel about iStock at the moment.


NIN :)

Pixel-Pizzazz

« Reply #805 on: September 21, 2010, 14:08 »
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I haven't seen any discussions about the apparant necessity to regularily grow your portfolio under the new model, or the culling that will be needed to keep things managable.  Chasing ones tail, so to speak, comes to mind.

lisafx

« Reply #806 on: September 21, 2010, 15:45 »
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I haven't seen any discussions about the apparant necessity to regularily grow your portfolio under the new model, or the culling that will be needed to keep things managable.  Chasing ones tail, so to speak, comes to mind.

You're right.  I think ITLR the pressure to keep uploading will become a big issue.   It just hasn't sunk in yet.

For me, one of the things that seemed most attractive when I was considering exclusivity was the fact that you didn't have to constantly "Feed the Beast" like you do at subs sites.  I know several people who went exclusive for that very reason, too.

Now it looks like those hoping to succeed on Istock will have to work harder at cranking out images than even those of us on subs sites.

No rest for the weary in this business, it seems.   

« Reply #807 on: September 21, 2010, 19:31 »
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I think the real kicker is that you don't - and can't - know up front what you have to do in any given year to keep your royalty rate for the next year.

In some ways it will depend on what other photographers are doing and could end up with an arms race type of situation. Yuri uploads 5K new images a year, so the next tier of people up their production from 1.5K to 3K per year and so on down the line. But even if your income for this year is fine, you may still lose out on the royalty rate for the following year if enough other people did even better than you (by sheer number of uploads or by hitting enough home runs with their big sellers).

Theoretically, if enough people kept their upload totals low, there wouldn't be a feed the beast situation, but if enough people do, then the rest have to keep up.

I think the hard part is having no fixed targets to hit - they're moving and hidden (during the year) - and not knowing how your competition is doing.

Pixel-Pizzazz

« Reply #808 on: September 21, 2010, 19:47 »
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I haven't seen any discussions about the apparant necessity to regularily grow your portfolio under the new model, or the culling that will be needed to keep things managable.  Chasing ones tail, so to speak, comes to mind.

You're right.  I think ITLR the pressure to keep uploading will become a big issue.   It just hasn't sunk in yet.

For me, one of the things that seemed most attractive when I was considering exclusivity was the fact that you didn't have to constantly "Feed the Beast" like you do at subs sites.  I know several people who went exclusive for that very reason, too.

Now it looks like those hoping to succeed on Istock will have to work harder at cranking out images than even those of us on subs sites.

No rest for the weary in this business, it seems.    
I looked with my eagle eye at one of the fan'boys' accounts and it seems that out of 5000 some images about 1/2 are not performing (some roughly 2500 without even one sale) - and many others that only have only 1 or 2, etc.  If heavy handed culling to purge the non-perfomers comes down, as I'm guessing is inevitable, I think they will be lucky not to lose 1/2 their folio to make room for fresh new files.  That would result in a huge loss of the market share (the number of uploads they have relative to the entire library) that they currently enjoy by retaining so many files. I think they are in for a rude awakening and may soon have to face the reality that their perceived past 'success' had more to do with 'the numbers game' than any real knack for making useful stock.  The numbers game charade is soon to be no more, IMO.

Pixel-Pizzazz

« Reply #809 on: September 21, 2010, 19:49 »
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Sorry this is totally off topic...

Why is it so hard to type when replying?  The lines of text jump up and down and are most of the time hiding underneat the bottom of the input window?

Does anyone know why this is and how to avoid it.  It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!

« Reply #810 on: September 21, 2010, 19:57 »
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It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!
If you are using FireFox/Win, the input box script on this site (the old SMF) is very resource intensive, which doesn't go well with the huge memory leaks in Firefox. Remedy: restart your PC or (better) kill the FireFox process three with the task manager (ctrl-alt-del). Do not close FireFox the conventional way in Windows since it will stay in memory.

Pixel-Pizzazz

« Reply #811 on: September 21, 2010, 20:04 »
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It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!
If you are using FireFox/Win, the input box script on this site (the old SMF) is very resource intensive, which doesn't go well with the huge memory leaks in Firefox. Remedy: restart your PC or (better) kill the FireFox process three with the task manager (ctrl-alt-del). Do not close FireFox the conventional way in Windows since it will stay in memory.

Thanks for the quick reply.  I use IE8.  It seems to only happen when there is more text than can be readily seen in the input window.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2010, 20:32 by Pixel-Pizzazz »

« Reply #812 on: September 21, 2010, 20:05 »
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It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!
If you are using FireFox/Win, the input box script on this site (the old SMF) is very resource intensive, which doesn't go well with the huge memory leaks in Firefox. Remedy: restart your PC or (better) kill the FireFox process three with the task manager (ctrl-alt-del). Do not close FireFox the conventional way in Windows since it will stay in memory.

The same thing happens with me using IE8 on WinXP. Very annoying.
You can make it go away by clicking the 'Compatibility View' button at the end of the address bar - it's the broken-sheet-of-paper thing next to the 'Refresh' & 'Stop' buttons.

Pixel-Pizzazz

« Reply #813 on: September 21, 2010, 20:30 »
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It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!
If you are using FireFox/Win, the input box script on this site (the old SMF) is very resource intensive, which doesn't go well with the huge memory leaks in Firefox. Remedy: restart your PC or (better) kill the FireFox process three with the task manager (ctrl-alt-del). Do not close FireFox the conventional way in Windows since it will stay in memory.

The same thing happens with me using IE8 on WinXP. Very annoying.
You can make it go away by clicking the 'Compatibility View' button at the end of the address bar - it's the broken-sheet-of-paper thing next to the 'Refresh' & 'Stop' buttons.
THANK YOU!  That did the trick!

« Reply #814 on: September 21, 2010, 22:08 »
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I haven't seen any discussions about the apparant necessity to regularily grow your portfolio under the new model, or the culling that will be needed to keep things managable.  Chasing ones tail, so to speak, comes to mind.
That is going to be a nightmare. Even for the uber-creative prolifics.

« Reply #815 on: September 21, 2010, 22:14 »
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I think the real kicker is that you don't - and can't - know up front what you have to do in any given year to keep your royalty rate for the next year.
Seems like the new model all but guarantees burnout. And unlike the old model, you can't really take a sabbatical or healthy inspiration-break and continue to reap top benefits from all the hard work you did (consistently or not) in years past. That's just bananas. Don't the kids at the top know/understand that quality creative work isn't really an on-demand, high volume, 24/7 kind of skill/talent? I would hazard that such a skill/talent is rare, indeed. And that when you push artists too far they break/down and/or their work suffers. Which isn't good for either the artists or the business of selling their work.

« Reply #816 on: September 21, 2010, 22:41 »
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Hi Marisa :)

« Reply #817 on: September 21, 2010, 23:57 »
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Seems like the new model all but guarantees burnout. And unlike the old model, you can't really take a sabbatical or healthy inspiration-break and continue to reap top benefits from all the hard work you did (consistently or not) in years past. That's just bananas. Don't the kids at the top know/understand that quality creative work isn't really an on-demand, high volume, 24/7 kind of skill/talent? I would hazard that such a skill/talent is rare, indeed. And that when you push artists too far they break/down and/or their work suffers. Which isn't good for either the artists or the business of selling their work.

Actually, I'm thinking it will make less difference because the levels are so vast that it will be hard to make a change unless you're near one end of it. If you upload 0 files or 1000 files during the year, you will probably still be at the same level at the end of the year. Now, whether the level moves on you is another story.

« Reply #818 on: September 22, 2010, 03:51 »
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Why is it so hard to type when replying?  The lines of text jump up and down and are most of the time hiding underneat the bottom of the input window?

Does anyone know why this is and how to avoid it.  It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!

Thanks for bringing this up and also to Sharply for resolving it! I thought it was just me.

« Reply #819 on: September 22, 2010, 12:49 »
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Hi Marisa :)
Hey chica :)

I'd successfully avoided reading or posting in these forums for years, but as I approach un-exclusivity, it has been recommended to me by several friendly iStockers that I follow along here. But my god, without a Lobo, it's like the Wild West over here! It's the very model of mayhem :)

I'll do my best to behave ...

« Reply #820 on: September 22, 2010, 12:50 »
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Seems like the new model all but guarantees burnout. And unlike the old model, you can't really take a sabbatical or healthy inspiration-break and continue to reap top benefits from all the hard work you did (consistently or not) in years past. That's just bananas. Don't the kids at the top know/understand that quality creative work isn't really an on-demand, high volume, 24/7 kind of skill/talent? I would hazard that such a skill/talent is rare, indeed. And that when you push artists too far they break/down and/or their work suffers. Which isn't good for either the artists or the business of selling their work.
Actually, I'm thinking it will make less difference because the levels are so vast that it will be hard to make a change unless you're near one end of it. If you upload 0 files or 1000 files during the year, you will probably still be at the same level at the end of the year. Now, whether the level moves on you is another story.
Good point.

Pixel-Pizzazz

« Reply #821 on: September 22, 2010, 13:22 »
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Hi Marisa :)

Hey chica :)

I'd successfully avoided reading or posting in these forums for years, but as I approach un-exclusivity, it has been recommended to me by several friendly iStockers that I follow along here. But my god, without a Lobo, it's like the Wild West over here! It's the very model of mayhem :)

I'll do my best to behave ...

Lobo is actually around these parts (pieman) - but it looks like he's only been lurking this month.  In any event, his big stick is pretty much flaccid here   :D
« Last Edit: September 22, 2010, 13:36 by Pixel-Pizzazz »

« Reply #822 on: September 22, 2010, 20:07 »
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We get those 'redeemed credits' shoven into our faces but there's no way to keep track of them? Mine keep going up with small random amounts now and then on a random timeframe, but they seem in no way related to my sales. I guess i have to take 'their word' that in the end the amount will be correct? "Their word", ha! (hahaha!)
This is seriously annoying me some extra though >:( Anyone managed to keep track of their RC's, found a pattern, anything?

rubyroo

« Reply #823 on: September 22, 2010, 20:14 »
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So far, mine are consistently updating the day after the sales.

« Reply #824 on: September 22, 2010, 22:00 »
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So far, mine are consistently updating the day after the sales.
Really?! Hmm.... strange, mine have updated 3 or 4 times after 'the announcement', every time for a fraction of the amount i sold. Maybe time to shoot a mail to support.


 

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