I'm speechless.

crap

And yet another confirmation for me to not join that site.

^ I don't think IS cares a s*it about what we contributors complain.

They have to pay for the last istockalypse somehow!

This is off-topic but I think semi-related.

Last month, I got a .70 charge on my car insurance. A one-time, this-month-only charge. So I called my agent and asked what that could possibly be for. Typically, if you get an increase, the increase stays from then on. And a piddly little .70? She hemmed and hawed around and just kept repeating it was just an increase. I could see she wasn't going to explain it. My thinking? How much extra money do you think State Farm Insurance would bring in in one month if they just charged all of their policyholders $.70? It's easy to slip pennies by the masses. No one will complain.

Sound pretty familiar.

That's a scam that has been going on for a while now at many companies.

Quote from: Risamay on March 09, 2011, 17:23

"We do not plan to do another mass pull of royalties like this again."

Again as in [never] ever? Or again as in because they don't anticipate any additional fraud? Or because they realize what a load of crap it is to do it at all, again. Or ever.

That statement leaves more questions than reassurance or answers.

I read that to mean that at the moment, they don't have plans to pull any because they are not seeing massive amounts of fraudulent downloads in late Feb or March so far, but I don't doubt for a moment that if they see large amounts of fraudulent downloads in the future they won't hesitate for a moment to revive that dormant plan and will pull back more royalties without a second thought.

I hope someone pigeon-holes them into a concrete answer, because it's BS that we should have read into policy like this what we will, rather than *know* exactly what is meant.

You know, when I read this I don't even know what to say anymore.  I jumped a few years ago after a lot of himming and haaaing to go exclusive becaus eit was supposed to be better.  And I have to say the first year or 2 were decent. But the stuff that has been going on since the fall has me about a pube away from dropping the crown.  I didn't get hit too bad during the first one, but with Jan and Feb being the way they were, it is just another slap in the face from iStock.  Hopefully this one won't be too bad, because in all honesty Feb was the worst month I had in YEARS. 

I am really debating dropping the crown at this point, but what I am scared of is that my files are going to get absolutely burried and never see the light of day again.  That, and the fact I don't know if I can stomach giving them 84% of the cut by going non-exclusive again.

On the other hand, you know things don't look good when you see old school iStockers bailing either... It almost seems like the old saying, even the rats are jumping ship.

I'm finding particularly entertaining at least one contributor who, during the first round, claimed they felt wrong about keeping the money and that they didn't mind giving it back because it wasn't theirs to begin with. And now ...

sh*tty. I hope you're indeed able to prevent this kind of thing en masse. I understand it's probably a fine balance between protecting our images while not making customers jump through hoops to buy from iStock. I'm glad you're looking at changing the policy for situations involving fraud that contributors end up paying for in lost work and lost income already received. let's hope the measures you put in place make royalty refunds unnecessary in future.

What a flip-flop!  

ETA: My bad. It's back to the status quo in record time - with some impressive inner-post acrobatics, to boot!

I think this fraudulent activity has been dealt with relatively fairly. though I believe contributors should receive some compensation for the inconvenience. I discussed this with a friend tonight. in hashing it out, I used an analogy that the gallery where my work is sold gave thieves my work because they paid with bad cards. in addition to losing my work, which is now out there on the black market...I am told by the gallery owner that I need to pay them back royalties on the bad purchase of my work.

I hope TPTB understand that many contributors won't accept this again. we want to feel our work is safe above all else. and we're already paying you as our agent to ensure that is the case.

I certainly don't want to keep fraudulent royalties. I don't believe fraud should be positively reinforced in any way. and at least from my POV, it's not the money that bothers me. it's the insecurity I now feel whenever I get sales, and the insecurity I feel about my work being stolen. I don't want to keep paying for mismanagement of my work. and I think it's fair to say that the second wave of royalties refunds is a big red flag, as if the first one wasn't. anyways, I'm sure it's no picnic on the HQ end either. guess it is what it is.

BI-WINNING!

Anybody remember the last piece of GOOD news from IS?  I can't. 

If your Getty its never been better....

I think the critical part of that statement is "We don't plan to..."

Plans can change

Yes, I think it means that this has been dealt with now so there won't be any more surprises from Dec/Jan/Feb but if a major fraud happens again next month it's a whole new ball game.

Quote from: dehooks on March 09, 2011, 21:55

Anybody remember the last piece of GOOD news from IS?  I can't. 

If your Getty its never been better....

If you're Hellman & Friedman, owners of Getty, it's better still....

Someone made the comment in the istock thread that these guys don't know how to run a business. I think they're actually brilliant businessmen. In what other industry can you treat your suppliers so badly and have them still keep coming back for more?

I get an increasingly sickening feeling dealing with istock and being a contributor there. I'm in no position financially to cut ties with any of the microstock companies I work with, but I'm certainly not contributing anything new to istock ever again. What an absolutely disgusting group of people they are.

I can handle a lot. You can't be in microstock without a thick skin, between how these companies treat us, the industry perception that we're contributing to the demise of professional stock imagery, etc. I've never been someone who took any of it personally or thought about leaving this business. But istock is certainly making it hard to not feel like an idiot for doing business with them. And today is no exception. Now I get to wait for that email to hit my inbox and tell me how much money they'll be taking back from me.