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Author Topic: iStock Exclusives Download Royalty Rate Targets For 2020  (Read 20656 times)

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« on: December 18, 2019, 02:40 »
+16
Getty just increased the download targets necessary for exclusive contributors on photos sales in 2020 to 8,500 downloads to reach 35% royalties and to 34,500 to reach 40% royalties. In 2019 you needed only 6,500 to get 35% royalties and 26,500 to get 40% royalties. To get 45% royalties you now need 515,000 downloads, up from 396,000 downloads in 2019. So they are basically cutting peoples royalty again and perhaps within another year or two they will make the targets so high that everyone who is exclusive will end up on a flat 20% (or less).
« Last Edit: December 18, 2019, 15:50 by iStop »


« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2019, 02:53 »
+2
Xmas ruined.

« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2019, 02:55 »
+8
Agreed, Getty how about lowering the targets instead of increasing them to keep up with inflation and rising production costs and increased cost of living for their contributors around the world? But that's not their game plan obviously. Keep lowering prices in the race to the bottom and all the while screwing their suppliers even harder every year to keep the divide between the top 1% and the other 99% growing even more.

« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2019, 03:41 »
+10
Gettyimages relation with contributors has always been based on abuse. There are people that want to be abused even if prevented again and again. But like personal toxic relationships the abuse always escalates. It does not stop or go backwards. Only the victim is responsible for saying stop and walk away.


jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2019, 04:11 »
+3
soon there will be zero professional micro stock contributor in any agency, so they will rely with amateur snapshot who could not compete with any free photos website...they are simply milking cow till it's the end of this market..it's pretty evident....i expect next year ss and as will even cut our royalty to make their manager receive their bonus....it's the same in any industry....but maybe people forgot the russian revolution own 1919? when the people are hungry we know how everything ends up.

« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2019, 05:32 »
+5
Gettyimages relation with contributors has always been based on abuse. There are people that want to be abused even if prevented again and again. But like personal toxic relationships the abuse always escalates. It does not stop or go backwards. Only the victim is responsible for saying stop and walk away.



In the case of business relationships, sure. But victim blaming is not right when it comes to personal relationships. Those situations can be a lot more emotional and complex, and walking away from abuse is sometimes easier said than done. Especially when violent threats are involved, or kids.

« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2019, 06:06 »
+9
Just leave getty and their minion istock

Problem solved and you need never have to put up with this abuse ever again

« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2019, 08:51 »
+5
Royalty targets should be gradually lowered every year to allow to be competitive in an ever growing collection.

If the size of the collection grows by 30% in a year, the visibilty of your files drops drastically if you always produce the same volume, for instance 2000 files a year.

You simply cannot outshoot the flood, artists cannot produce 30% more every year.

You can look for niches and up your quality, but even for that you have limits.

wds

« Reply #8 on: December 18, 2019, 09:21 »
+7
Wow, so in a time when downloads per contributor have in general been trending down....they are increasing targets?!

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2019, 09:22 »
+7
^^^ Yebbut that's talking about being fair to contributors. When was that ever Getty's modus operandi, or indeed any of the other micros?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #10 on: December 18, 2019, 09:27 »
+6
Wow, so in a time when downloads per contributor have in general been trending down....they are increasing targets?!
They do it every year. They need to increase their profits. It takes a lot of money to service a debt. It's a major disincentive but l don't mistake them for a company which gives a d*mn

wds

« Reply #11 on: December 18, 2019, 09:38 »
+1
You wonder how far exclusive contributors can be pushed before they just walk away from exclusivity in significant numbers.

« Reply #12 on: December 18, 2019, 10:41 »
+10
You'll make it up in volume!

« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2019, 11:00 »
+7
If you can't walk away now then you have no reason to complain! So happy I did!!!

« Reply #14 on: December 18, 2019, 11:29 »
+2
Wow, so in a time when downloads per contributor have in general been trending down....they are increasing targets?!

Actually, for me at least, the number of downloads - both actual and "recorded" (where a Getty download counts as two)  - have been trending up, for actual by about 4% and for recorded by about 7%;  what's going down is revenue.

I looked at my stats and this is apparently because the number of downloads at 20% royalty (Getty) has gone up at the expense of the number of iStock downloads at 30% (my rate).

Now I don't work very hard at it so it's no surprise to me that I'm never likely to reach the 35% rate again - but I really can't see how anyone could possibly increase their downloads by 30% a year anyway, unless perhaps they've only just started.

So it would seem that the trend is for sales to move from the iStock platform to the Getty platform, where they may sell for more but only earn a flat 20% for the contributor.  As an Exclusive, I'm never likely to drop to 25% on iStock - at least, not for some time yet - but my revenue will continue to decrease even as downloads increase.

So not much to look forward to there.

« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2019, 11:31 »
+8
I left iStock almost 3 years ago. Their history is like the boiling frog experiment unfolding in real life. I have no sympathy for those who accept such a despicable treatment.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2019, 14:10 »
+1
I left iStock almost 3 years ago. Their history is like the boiling frog experiment unfolding in real life. I have no sympathy for those who accept such a despicable treatment.
So, I get 30% from iS. I understand that's about the same as the average at SS. I don't know about Adobe, can anyone enlighten me?
Getty is a bunch of foetid dingoes' kidneys, but the rest aren't much better; and I probably get a higher average rpd than most on SS and Adobe also. That isn't saying much, my sales are way down and my rpd way, waaaaaay down from a few years back, but I don't see that I'd do better elsewhere.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2019, 14:44 by ShadySue »

drd

« Reply #17 on: December 18, 2019, 14:37 »
+3
Intellectual Property is the oil of the 21st Century (Mark Getty)

« Reply #18 on: December 18, 2019, 15:38 »
+4
So they basically raised the royalty rate targets by nearly 25% across the board this year. As the OP said, if they do this for a few more years (each year), then it wont be long before everyone will struggle to hit targets in the future to even earn a 20% royalty. But at the same time it seems many contributors are losing about 20%-30% in total stock photo income year on year because of Getty's constant cutting of royalty free image prices, more Getty buyers moving over to subscription plans and away from credit packs, the massive growth to the overall size of the Getty collection each year because of millions more new pictures being added every day, and the fact that they are now going to dump their entire rights managed collection in with the royalty free collection thus, increasing the number of royalty free pictures exponentially even more. Pretty soon I don't think it is going to matter what royalty rate anyone is on anymore. Whether it is 20%, 30%, or 45%, any royalty rate percentage of $0 in sales will still amount to $0 in income for contributors.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2019, 15:40 by CraigMiller »

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #19 on: December 18, 2019, 15:44 »
+1
I left iStock almost 3 years ago. Their history is like the boiling frog experiment unfolding in real life. I have no sympathy for those who accept such a despicable treatment.

Yes I don't expect one tear for my choice to stay with IS. On the other hand I do have sympathy for the loyal exclusives who keep working for the small advantage and gains over us 15%ers. While every year Getty cuts and nips a little more from the exclusives.

I left iStock almost 3 years ago. Their history is like the boiling frog experiment unfolding in real life. I have no sympathy for those who accept such a despicable treatment.
So, I get 30% from iS. I understand that's about the same as the average at SS. I don't know about Adobe, can anyone enlighten me?
Getty is a bunch of foetid dingoes' kidneys, but the rest aren't much better; and I probably get a higher average rpd than most on SS and Adobe also. That isn't saying much, my sales are way down and my rpd way, waaaaaay down from a few years back, but I don't see that I'd do better elsewhere.

Percentages aren't the only way to look at earnings, in fact, they might be one of the worst. You can't spend a percentage.  ;)

Hypothetical: You drop Exclusive on IS, and upload everything to SS, AS and Alamy. Yes I know you already do some on Alamy, but just for example. Just using the poll from here, you'll make estimated,  double what you do now on IS. That's money in the bank, not a pretty sounding percentage number. Volume does matter?

I don't know what SS pays "percentage" we don't get that personal information very clearly. I do know my RPD is currently lifetime 75, and Adobe is 89, and Alamy is RPD $51 Net and probably going down (only made $225 there this year, so money not RPD would make more sense?) My point is, SS and AS have more volume for me, than IS and SS makes much more than AS because I have nearly ten times more images.

Maybe another way from my results. I make far more a month on SS, than I do on IS, without even doing the math. But that's absurd and I make more in one day on SS sometimes than I do a month at IS. My case is an extreme, and pretty lame as a statistical example.

Here's my final answer  :) Ask Sean how he feels about the differences in return. I know he was one of the top ten for years on IS, but now that he's off there and working the non-exclusive sites, maybe he can tell you what you might expect? I know we all have different images and markets, yours vs yours?

And maybe you are better off staying exclusive, less work for the peanuts we get for our effort? I don't claim to know anyone else's finances nor would I say, I know what you should do. Just looking at ideas and differences. No way to promise or predict if your same images will sell better or worse on other sites? What's your current and lifetime RPD on IS? (ask yourself, I'm not prying into your finances) That might tell you something.

My RPD on SS and AS are mostly subs, it's not like I get all kinds of ELs or others that pump up the numbers. So mine are base numbers for some pretty average images.

wds

« Reply #20 on: December 18, 2019, 16:11 »
+3
I left iStock almost 3 years ago. Their history is like the boiling frog experiment unfolding in real life. I have no sympathy for those who accept such a despicable treatment.
So, I get 30% from iS. I understand that's about the same as the average at SS. I don't know about Adobe, can anyone enlighten me?
Getty is a bunch of foetid dingoes' kidneys, but the rest aren't much better; and I probably get a higher average rpd than most on SS and Adobe also. That isn't saying much, my sales are way down and my rpd way, waaaaaay down from a few years back, but I don't see that I'd do better elsewhere.

If you are saying you are exclusive on iS and get 30%. The difference is, you would be getting revenue from 3 or more agencies vs. 1. You'd have to do the math.

« Reply #21 on: December 18, 2019, 16:17 »
+5
The recent Seattle Times article said Getty isnt really seeing revenue growth any longer. But if they increase the royalty targets for iStock exclusives by 25% then they will probably increase their own revenue by at least 20% on the iStock collection. So if they cant grow revenue from buyers anymore it seems they are happy to take it from the contributors instead in order to show their investors there is still some (perceived) areas of growth in their business.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #22 on: December 18, 2019, 17:02 »
+3

Here's my final answer  :) Ask Sean how he feels about the differences in return. I know he was one of the top ten for years on IS, but now that he's off there and working the non-exclusive sites, maybe he can tell you what you might expect?
Sean's port and mine are polar opposites, so I'm afraid his experience would be extremely different to mine. E.g. I don't do models.

Quote
I know we all have different images and markets, yours vs yours?
I do know that two people who submit similar subjects to me to SS don't do well there, even though they combined ports to get to higher levels quicker.

My intention still is, as I've said often before, that when I finally get sick of iS, I'll probably give up on micro altogether, and donate my wildlife pics to charities I support. As always, reserving the right to change my mind. I have caring responsibilities, so almost no time to shoot nowadays. I know I'm always on here, but that's mostly on my very long commute, or at night.

« Reply #23 on: December 18, 2019, 18:45 »
+2
^^^ Yebbut that's talking about being fair to contributors. When was that ever Getty's modus operandi, or indeed any of the other micros?

Sue, you mentioned checking out Adobe and here's some info you may find of interest:

Adobe's blog https://medium.com/adobetech/evaluating-addressing-position-bias-in-adobe-stock-search-9807b11ee268 about how they are changing things to account for how placement on the page in addition to what page your image lands on effects how it is seen and taking that into consideration in ranking images (i.e. "position bias"). It shows an appreciation for how new images and even older images are fighting for position and an interest in opening things up so that more than just the "top sellers" get seen. Sure, their primary focus is to give buyers more diversity in what they see, but it also helps contributors. And it shows they are adapting to the realities of the market.

Mat, their contributor liaison here, answers questions and replies to messages, so you have a real person to deal with consistently.

Adobe had a different kind of target this year (and last), which I think shows what a difference there is between the companies' attitudes toward their contributors. I'm a very small fish at Adobe, but I qualified for the free Adobe CC Photography program (PS & LR subscription) for a year by getting 300 images accepted in 2019. It was a bit of a challenge because I shoot a lot of editorial, which they don't take, and I didn't read about it until October, so I uploaded most of the files in the past 10 weeks. But it was a realistic goal even for small contributors like me, and was open to everyone, not just the big fish.  (Except Illustrators aren't getting what they need - Illustrator or the full program- so they need to make that right).

I'd encourage you and others who are thinking about it to check out Adobe. I do better sales wise on SS and even on Alamy, but I had fewer than 200 images on Adobe until this year, so it is not a fair comparison. I'm hoping now that I have more than doubled my portfolio there I'll see better results. There are plenty of big fish here to give you advice.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2019, 18:56 by wordplanet »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #24 on: December 18, 2019, 19:00 »
0

Sue, you mentioned checking out Adobe and here's some info you may find of interest:
I didn't really. I only asked what the average percentage is there.
Like I said, I have virtually no time to make more images now. I also don't know anyone with my sort of port there, particularly location, to know if there would be any point me submitting (I don't have models, I don't have a studio, I live in the boonies: none of these is going to change).
Thanks anyway.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2019, 19:04 by ShadySue »


 

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