but those ones are not the one we signed

Quote from: Mars on February 14, 2013, 11:58

Did anyone read the agreement thoroughly?  Anyone keep a copy.  It seems really fishy, doesn't it?

The agreements are there on their website for anyone to see:
http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_exclusive.php
and
http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_non_exclusive.php

Different asas for different media linked from the above pages.

Fascinating, isn't it? I even pointed out in their forum that it was strange behaviour for a distributor and nobody came back and said "we're an agent". Maybe their lawyers pointed out they were doing things a distributor couldn't do so they had a little rewrite.

Oh, this is news to me.  Last I hear they had switched from being our "agent" to our "distributor".  Now they have switched back again?  I can't keep up.

In addition to all the good (mostly) reasons listed in this thread, I think this action was a direct answer to the Feb 2 deactivation revolt. You want to deactivate your images? We don't care. And to show you how little we care, we are going to throw away over 12,000 of our best sellers.

The reality of the situation is that they do care.  They operate at slim margins and throwing away their best sellers in a very competitive market puts them at a distinct disadvantage.  If we all pulled our best selling files it would not take long for the rest of our customers to follow.

In addition I think the sites forget that many of us work in companies or fields that purchase images every day and by consistently slitting our throats they slit their own.  I have not bought an image from IS in over a year (bigstock is now off my list as well) and on top of that I convinced our marketing director to buy images elsewhere.  In the past the company I work for (44,000 sales professionals strong) bought huge numbers of images to produce sales materials for a very large international company. With the latest developments IS has permanently lost me as a customer and I am not alone in my disgust as a customer as you can see from the top post on the previous page.

So now they are back to being our agent

The ASA still says distributor at the beginning of section 3

Grant of Authority

    The Supplier hereby appoints iStockphoto as Supplier's exclusive distributor to sell, license or sublicense Exclusive Content to third parties worldwide and to collect and remit funds in connection with those endeavours on the terms set forth in this Agreement. For all Exclusive Content, Supplier grants iStockphoto:

http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_exclusive.php

And the same for non-exclusive
http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_non_exclusive.php

Quote from: Blammo on February 14, 2013, 12:33

So now they are back to being our agent

The ASA still says distributor at the beginning of section 3

Quote

Grant of Authority

    The Supplier hereby appoints iStockphoto as Supplier's exclusive distributor to sell, license or sublicense Exclusive Content to third parties worldwide and to collect and remit funds in connection with those endeavours on the terms set forth in this Agreement. For all Exclusive Content, Supplier grants iStockphoto:

http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_exclusive.php

And the same for non-exclusive
http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_non_exclusive.php

OK, that's clear now. They can be whichever they want to be, according to convenience.

If I remember correctly they changed the ASA back in August of 2011, which Sean was even questioning the "Distribution Partners" back then

I do not want my content sold on any site where I do not receive the royalty for my brand that I have established here on iStockphoto. I don't trust outside "partners" or distribution channels, and I do not wish the value (to me) of my content being diluted by having my share of my royalties split a dozen times before it gets to me.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333754

Also, the $12 is the contributors share of the deal.

Quote from: cmannphoto on February 14, 2013, 16:27

If I remember correctly they changed the ASA back in August of 2011, which Sean was even questioning the "Distribution Partners" back then

Quote

I do not want my content sold on any site where I do not receive the royalty for my brand that I have established here on iStockphoto. I don't trust outside "partners" or distribution channels, and I do not wish the value (to me) of my content being diluted by having my share of my royalties split a dozen times before it gets to me.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333754

Also, the $12 is the contributors share of the deal.

Thanks for posting that.

How do we know the $12 is a 'share' and not a payment for the rights without seeing the contract or the 'special licence' or even the terms on Google Drive?

So we have the new ASA agreement that deemed iStock a distributor rather than an agent (or both) on Aug 29 and we have  Google asking it's users to curate the collection for Google Drive on Aug 9. 

https://plus.google.com/+GoogleDrive/posts/6p2e3FTeKL4

Interesting.

First be careful of the years, the ASA change was in 2011 and the Google Drive link you posted was in 2012.

The $12 "royalty" was discussed by several people in the two threads started by "mr_erin"

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350491

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350613

ETA: from the original Google Drive thread on page 11
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350439&page=11

As for the thread about the new ASA, I don't have time right now to read all of the 38 pages right now but this post got my attention and is questioning the same thing I am.  I'm not sure if it was addressed in a later post but I will sift through it all a bit later. 

There also was a Q&A summary from that thread:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=333842&page=1

According to the Wayback machine, the published ASA is exactly the same as it was in Jan 2012. Whether or not that is exactly the same as the pop up we were forced to sign is unclear.

As someone has already said, the ASA uses both "distributor" and "agent" as such, it contradicts itself if those two terms are contradictory.

Interestingly when you change from exclusive to non-exclusive you are not asked to sign a new ASA. This in itself would present some issues I would think. Perhaps someone who has some idea about the law can comment.

Seems like those inconsistencies in the TOS create loopholes big enough for a decent lawyer to drive a Mack truck through. 

Quote from: PixelBytes on February 14, 2013, 19:31

Seems like those inconsistencies in the TOS create loopholes big enough for a decent lawyer to drive a Mack truck through.

I'm sure that was perfectly intentional.

A lot of iStock's behave and a lot of their terms aren't legal, but none of us costributors can fight against this robbery alone. Also why some of us needs the income by them.
If stocksy is only nearby the idea they offer, the whole situation and market will change. I waited since more than a year for any of the marketplayers to come up with this simple idea ... but none of them moved in the right direction. There's no way to offer pictures for nearly less then nothing and gain money.
And no customer cares about prices between dollars or Cents. 5 years ago they bought them for a hundreds or thausands of Dollar.
Internet defines new ways and new possibilitis of efficencie... but nothing is not the answer or the price for creative work.
The wave that all development in society inherents stopt at 0,09 Cent per Picture, reached by Istock. This record woudn't be beaten anymore. They pay for this record by their own termination. Gratulations to IStock. Rest in peace.

Interestingly when you change from exclusive to non-exclusive you are not asked to sign a new ASA. This in itself would present some issues I would think. Perhaps someone who has some idea about the law can comment.

That's quite mind-bogglng.

.......  They operate at slim margins ......

Context leads me to believe this is a reference to iStock's margins.  How does anybody outside iStock know anything about their margins?  Are they published somewhere?

Regards