It's always useful to try to think through why things happen. In this case, I cannot believe that Sean could be sacked without the personal approval of Klein. Anyone lower down the food chain would be inviting disaster to sack someone who may well be the second or third biggest money-spinner not just for iStock but for the whole Getty empire.

So what will Klein have taken into consideration? Obviously Sean has been pesky, highlighted the Google deal needlessly (and therefore is a loose cannon, and "not a team player"),  encouraged damaging behaviour against the company by releasing the deactivation script, takes it on himself to criticise senior management decisions and acts as a lightning rod for those malcontents. His record shows that he has no intention of amending his behaviour, in fact the Greasemonkey script shows he is getting ever more out of control. Sacking their leader would be the biggest signal iStock could give to other troublemakers that bad behaviour will no longer be tolerated. So he should go.

But what will the cost to the company be? He brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but that could just be redistributed among other submitters. His portfolio had a considerable following, so if he goes some major clients might transfer their accounts to wherever he goes next. He's in touch with the Stocksy operation, so getting rid of him will dump one of iStock's biggest assets straight into Bruce Livingstone's lap, making that danger far worse than it is already. Or he might go to SS and the others, who are stripping away iStock clients already, causing additional erosion of the bottom line. Once he's gone, he'll be able to snipe from outside and there's nothing that can be done about it, but since iStock's managers have completely failed to keep him in line, that probably doesn't matter much. Getting rid of such a major industry figure cannot pass without comment in the trade press, which could be damaging (memo to self, book major advertising campaign in trade magazines and tell them we don't want a big fuss over this) and it might spill over into the newspaper business pages, which would be a nuisance. The internet will just be a mess, so all in all the company's image will take another hit.

Cost of sacking Locke? Probably several million dollars a year in lost sales, bad publicity and transfer of business to rivals. Cost of keeping him? Continued meddling in the company's business, attacks on our policies and general troublemaking.

He can go, it's worth a few million dollars or even a few tens of millions  to get rid of him and give ourselves the freedom to do deals without being embarrassed in front of important partners. (Sheesh! The way that guy from Google spoke to me last week!) There are a lot more deals we can do that we don't need him to be highlighting and criticising.
.....
That's how I see the thought processes working, anyway

+1

wow just saw this..

very happy for you btw Sean! just make sure you are on at least 15 to 20 agencies starting from top tier of course and I am sure you will earn more than you did at IS..

in a few months time, you will realize they actually did you a GREAT FAVOR!

It must be strange going from Vetta commissions to $0.38 or worse.

Yeah, I can tell you from my own recent experiences - I didn't have many Vetty/TAC images but I miss the days when I had two large E+ sales, it completely changed a day from bad to brillant for me. Those days are gone and won't come back easily. However, today I enjoy days with five times more downloads than last month, and I only have one third of my small portfolio at other sites.

And I will also follow the same approach to split up my imagery into "microstock = goes everywhere" and a "premium = goes to one place only at higher prices" category. The cool things about being non-exclusive is that you can actually have multiple higher-priced agencies, delivering each of them with different series' to split the risks. I like those prospects.

Confirms what I have long suspected...that the over supply of art and artists means that they don't value us as much as we value them. Even the best are not safe.

At least Istock is impressivley consequent at destroying themselves.
I hope it will be perhaps one of the best things that could happen to you, who knows?
My best wishes to you Sean.

It's always useful to try to think through why things happen. In this case, I cannot believe that Sean could be sacked without the personal approval of Klein. Anyone lower down the food chain would be inviting disaster to sack someone who may well be the second or third biggest money-spinner not just for iStock but for the whole Getty empire.

So what will Klein have taken into consideration? Obviously Sean has been pesky, highlighted the Google deal needlessly (and therefore is a loose cannon, and "not a team player"),  encouraged damaging behaviour against the company by releasing the deactivation script, takes it on himself to criticise senior management decisions and acts as a lightning rod for those malcontents. His record shows that he has no intention of amending his behaviour, in fact the Greasemonkey script shows he is getting ever more out of control. Sacking their leader would be the biggest signal iStock could give to other troublemakers that bad behaviour will no longer be tolerated. So he should go.

But what will the cost to the company be? He brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but that could just be redistributed among other submitters. His portfolio had a considerable following, so if he goes some major clients might transfer their accounts to wherever he goes next. He's in touch with the Stocksy operation, so getting rid of him will dump one of iStock's biggest assets straight into Bruce Livingstone's lap, making that danger far worse than it is already. Or he might go to SS and the others, who are stripping away iStock clients already, causing additional erosion of the bottom line. Once he's gone, he'll be able to snipe from outside and there's nothing that can be done about it, but since iStock's managers have completely failed to keep him in line, that probably doesn't matter much. Getting rid of such a major industry figure cannot pass without comment in the trade press, which could be damaging (memo to self, book major advertising campaign in trade magazines and tell them we don't want a big fuss over this) and it might spill over into the newspaper business pages, which would be a nuisance. The internet will just be a mess, so all in all the company's image will take another hit.

Cost of sacking Locke? Probably several million dollars a year in lost sales, bad publicity and transfer of business to rivals. Cost of keeping him? Continued meddling in the company's business, attacks on our policies and general troublemaking.

He can go, it's worth a few million dollars or even a few tens of millions  to get rid of him and give ourselves the freedom to do deals without being embarrassed in front of important partners. (Sheesh! The way that guy from Google spoke to me last week!) There are a lot more deals we can do that we don't need him to be highlighting and criticising.
.....
That's how I see the thought processes working, anyway

Very good perspectives. But in addition to the reasons you gave I think iStock perhaps saw another opportunity for some added knock-on benefit in the timing of getting rid of Sean.

This benefit being the fact that Sean had helped the Ground Hog day crowd in deactivating their images with an automated script which was perhaps even pivotal in the success of some of the file exodus taking place to begin with.

So Getty wanted to show everyone that removed, or is thinking of removing files, that nobody is going to threaten them with this tactic now or ever again. And to prove it they set an example by terminating 12,000 files themselves and pushing out one of their most successful contributors. This in their mind shows everyone that they are in control and they don't care if people pull a few hundred or even thousand of their own files or not. Thus they figure removing the head from the chicken, in this case Sean, that they will prevent any future attempts contributors might plan to threaten them with on file removal.

Personally I think the repercussions of what they did to Sean is going to blow up in their face 10 fold in the long run. But hell, they saved their egos, proved that no one contributor is too important to lose, and in the process showed everyone who is boss. Or so they think.

Meanwhile I wish Sean all the very best and have no doubt he will land on his feet 110%.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 12, 2013, 01:45

That's how I see the thought processes working, anyway

Thanks.  It helps me to have an outside view of things.

An idealistic view of things doesn't fit too well in the corporate world. They expect money to be the lever that will move anything, so anybody who refuses to be manipulated by it is a destabilising influence. Playing strictly by the rules isn't enough,  you have to do what you think they would like you to do. too. out of fear of the power their control over your earning-potential gives them.
I've been in a similar situation and it's going to take you a long time to come to terms with it. The important thing right now is to plot a sensible course for the future not to obsess about the past. Hopefully you were wise enough to set aside a lot of what you earned and so can readjust gradually to new circumstances. Unlike others here, I'm afraid I doubt if you will quickly return to your current earnings level and I think it would be foolish to plan on that assumption. Better to plan for a much lower income in the near to middle-term and perhaps be pleasantly surprised than to do it the other way round.
What's happened to you is, of course, exactly the risk that kept some of us out of the exclusivity program all along. Hopefully those who are exclusive have taken steps to cushion themselves against something like this, particularly those who rely on the income to live.

.

...it will be difficult to get buyers to pay a fair price if you're selling the same images for a pittance on the sub sites...

And yet many people make their living on that "pittance" while still seeing good single-image sales at SS and elsewhere.

Is it still a pittance when it adds up to thousands of dollars every month?

Quote from: ShadySue on February 12, 2013, 08:59

...it will be difficult to get buyers to pay a fair price if you're selling the same images for a pittance on the sub sites...

And yet many people make their living on that "pittance" while still seeing good single-image sales at SS and elsewhere.

Is it still a pittance when it adds up to thousands of dollars every month?

I have no doubt some do, think Yuri.  But just look at what the average contributor that fills out the poll here makes.  Last I checked it was around $1300 a month and some have speculated that microstock group IS the top of the microstock community.  At Istock it would not surprise me if Sean still has days that get close to that or beat it.   The other main issue, maybe even more important, is that when submitting to the top 20 agencies there is no way to have your work policed.  In effect you have to give up on protecting your IP.  We've seen the issues Istock has had, many of those issues are present at the other stock sites but no one has taken the time and effort to examine them like Sean has at Istock.  Look at the thread about partner programs, how many of you have gone through to read the license for every partner program you have images selling at?

Quote from: ShadySue on February 12, 2013, 08:59

Probably true, and Sean does have a family to feed.
OTOH, it will be difficult to get buyers to pay a fair price if you're selling the same images for a pittance on the sub sites. I guess splitting the images could make some sense, maybe putting the more generic shots onto some other sites.

But I have every confidence that Sean has more business sense in his pinky toe than I have in what passes for a brain.

You still don't understand the concept of 'microstock'? It's a low-price/highvolume thing. That's how it works.

As an independent contributor, SS generates about 50% of my monthly microstock income (with BigStock adding another 3-4%). Without the 30% or so that IS and the PP (combined) currently generates, presumeably the situation that Sean will find himself in, then SS's contribution would actually be 75%. That's how important SS will probably be to Sean's income until another player like Stocksy makes an impact. That's also why Yuri, Andres, MB, etc are all 'selling their images for a pittance on the sub sites'. Because it works.

I'm hoping that someone at Getty will have enough sense to get around the table with Sean over the remaining 25 days, discuss it properly, and resolve the issue to the benefit of both parties. What has happened is madness.

Gostwyck, what you are missing is that not all files are equal.
Yes, some files will sell many times over and make more money as microstock/subs. Others will sell much less often but can command a higher price. The trick is to work out which is which.
I know IS didn't always get it right with Vetta/Agency, but they had the right idea. It was very worthwhile to have those V/A files, especially in the early days when they seemed to have the pricing right.
As I seem to keep on saying, it's a pity they wrecked it.

Quote from: tickstock on February 12, 2013, 10:46

...The other main issue, maybe even more important, is that when submitting to the top 20 agencies there is no way to have your work policed.  In effect you have to give up on protecting your IP.  We've seen the issues Istock has had, many of those issues are present at the other stock sites but no one has taken the time and effort to examine them like Sean has at Istock.  Look at the thread about partner programs, how many of you have gone through to read the license for every partner program you have images selling at?

The IP protection issue is moot. There was a discussion here just a couple of weeks ago about an istock exclusive having problems with protecting their work and istock wouldn't help them. It's an empty promise that istock doesn't back up.

As for partner programs and spreading my work out, frankly, I'm not concerned about it. I'll gladly trade the warm and fuzzy feelings of having all of my work under one roof for the increased earnings. And I have zero doubt that I earn far more by spreading my work around than I would if I were exclusive.

That's how this business works. You can have your IP "protection" (or whatever you want to call the empty promise istock provides) and greater control over licensing, or you can have more money. At least that's how it works out for me, and I suspect for a lot of people.

As for the money, well, it's not just Yuri making thousands per month on subscription sales.

The IP issue is not moot.  I don't know the problem you are talking about with that one contributor but my point was that when you have images being licensed on 20 different sites and 100 partner sites all with different terms there is basically no way to even know that your images are being used incorrectly.  At least having an image sold exclusively (don't just think Istock, think stocksy, Alamy, Pond5 even) at least you can send a DMCA notice when an image is used incorrectly if the agent won't do anything.  I have had no problems with Compliance Enforcement though. 

The IP issue is not moot.  I don't know the problem you are talking about with that one contributor but my point was that when you have images being licensed on 20 different sites and 100 partner sites all with different terms there is basically no way to even know that your images are being used incorrectly.  At least having an image sold exclusively (don't just think Istock, think stocksy, Alamy, Pond5 even) at least you can send a DMCA notice when an image is used incorrectly if the agent won't do anything.  I have had no problems with Compliance Enforcement though.

Good to hear it's worked well for you.

I just prefer more money over having a better means of tracking image misuse. I send out a few DMCAs every month, and I'm sure other misuses slip through the cracks, but I'm fine with that. I won't sacrifice earnings for better compliance enforcement.