How they can dare write something like this when they paying even less.
Shame on you iStock/Getty.
original communication quote:

"A Few Thoughts on the Launch of
Adobe Stock
                                                
      
Following the launch of Adobe Stock, we felt it was a good time to reach out and communicate to you our exclusive artists with some thoughts on what this means for Getty Images, iStock by Getty Images, and our valued relationship with you.

We start with the point that competition is not necessarily a bad thing.  Competition can drive us forward in better serving current and potential customers.  It can also help grow our customer base as new marketing builds awareness of the need for and availability of licensed content.  The negatives of competition come when you do not have a clearly differentiated product.

Thanks to your content and ongoing submissions, we enjoy and will continue to enjoy a clear point of differentiation superior content.  This is the very core of our customers needs.  Without great content, customers cannot produce great projects.  iStock by Getty Images is the only service in the value space that provides a meaningfully different and superior content offering.  Adobe Stock is the same content offered historically via Fotolia and many other providers.  Adding a statement that it is curated by Adobe, does not make it true.

We also enjoy the full reach and assets of Getty Images.  Only Getty Images offers a comprehensive offering to service all customers, across all projects, in all geographies �€“ creative and editorial, new and archival, global and local, premium and value.  Only Getty Images has a 700-person dedicated sales force that are experts in content licensing.  Only Getty Images has 20 years of building strong customer relationships.

Moving beyond what we believe Adobe�€™s entry means to Getty Images and iStock by Getty Images, we wanted to share some thoughts on broader implications for photographers as a whole.

With the launch of Adobe Stock, it is clear that Adobe believes all imagery is worth a maximum of $10.  We simply do not agree with this view.  Commercial and photographic experience and investments in pre and post-production do matter to quality and are only commercially viable through higher price points and, ultimately, returns to the photographers.  This is a core reason why Getty Images contributors can sell across our offerings versus a one-size fits all, every image is a commodity approach.

The launch of Adobe Stock also under-scores Adobe'€™s true focus.  Adobe is under-pricing the work of photographers to increase the overall attractiveness of Creative Cloud.  In fact, Creative Cloud customers receive an additional 40 percent discount with this discount subsidized by photographers via lowered royalties.

We struggle to understand how Adobe Stock helps to sustainably support the creation of imagery and photographers, many of which are paying Creative Cloud customers.  Instead, in current form, we only see how Adobe Stock helps support Adobe�€™s broader software ambitions at the expense of the creation of imagery and photographers.

Getty Images remains focused on licensing content with an emphasis on superior material.  We will continue to price this superior content to an appropriate premium and provide a higher royalty.  We thank you for your contributions and loyalty.  We are more committed than ever to maintain your loyalty and will intensify our efforts to compete on the basis of quality and a comprehensive offering.  In the coming months, you will see marketing, site merchandising, partnerships and other improvements that only reinforce this strategy and our intensity.

Thank you for being our partners.

Brad and Team"

That is all nonsense. Adobe has just ported their fotolia content over, nobody knows what they will charge for macro content and I doubt it will be offered at micro prices, why would they? It hasn�t become cheaper on fotolia. And so far it is not even available via adobe. Video is also not available.

Adobe is a huge company, cc alone means 4 million registered buyer accounts. And how big is the salesforce of adobe?? Worldwide?

Any indesign, photoshop etc user can now license content directly within the application.

I certainly want to have my files available with every ps user of the world.

Getty is a tiny company compared to adobe, this is not an evenly matched competition.

And adobe can't be interested in cheap if  the first thing they did was to stop marketing the dollar photo club. They could have easily integrated that content instead of fotolia. Why ask for 10 dollars if you can charge one dollar only?


And they didn't have to pay out a flat 33% or change their counting of subs which meant many artists jumped one or two levels. This saved many people years of work and will cost adobe a lot of money going forward.

It is much easier now to rise up in the royalty system of fotolia if adobe stock downloads are all counted towards total rank on fotolia.

And they don�t have a yearly ranking system, they have a total lifetime count. So once you reach a level, you don�t drop down again.

They also give you the option of exclusive images, so you can place some content there and get exclusive benefits and are still free to work with anyone else in the industry. They don�t hold you hostage like istock (and unlike getty). They simply have more confidence in themselves and their artists.

Istock doesn't even count sub downloads towards roylty rank, they are denying thousands of artists more money. And the more they shift towards subs, the lower your ranking will be, especially new artists cannot move up. you will be bronze forever,maybe after years make silver as a single artist. Sales on getty also are not counted towards istock and they only pay out 15 or 20%, not 33%.


seriously, how dare they.

I think they are desperate. Especially for new artists, what do they offer? A site plagued with bugs, payments that don�t come on time, subs and getty not being counted towards rank, eroding credit sales and only full artist exclusivity, instead of exclusive images like on getty.

They should have seriously improved their offer, at least to their exclusive artists. That would have been the professional thing to do.

All they came back with is this letter.

I have been a graphic designer and web designer for over 30 years and being able to download images within an application like PS or indesign is not really that important. It might be a convenience or might not. And ALL images are in the "cloud" (getting sick of that word) so no big difference.

It still will come down to price, selection, how well a site works, and finding the perfect content... just because Adobe's design apps have a NEW BUTTON TO DOWNLOAD files does not make me gravitate to it. Hell, it might even make the app run slower or crash.

Braddy posted to the iStock Exclusive forums (first I saw anyway). It seems pretty ironic that the Getty regime has over the years intentionally squelched the forums that were so very active prior. Even now the fairly inactive forums are moving to the Getty platform. I expect even less exclusives will follow to the new site (I've looked once). So ironically Brad is talking to an almost blank wall, of their own doing, and trying to convince it all is well. Ha!