Maybe this is why the article is down?  I was pretty sure you would be available to comment here within a few minutes of this article being posted so I wondered why they couldn't find you for comment.

Taken down for poor journalistic standards!

Ow yes, the parts from your blog are correct, but they made some stuff up about contacting you, so the Getty comment could be made up as well.

His editor might have seen what he wrote and told him to take it down before Getty would.

How did he manage to publish without approval from his editor?  And he was lucky the editor was first; I suspect there are others who would have been more direct than the editor...

Regards

Looks like the link is working again.  It still says "Locke couldn't immediately be reached for comment".  I'm pasting the langauge below in case it changes.

Bruce Livingstone, who founded microstock powerhouse iStockphoto more than a decade ago and left it in 2009, is trying again with a new stock-art sales venture called Stocksy.

And he's doing it at a time when iStock is, if not necessarily vulnerable, the target of criticisms that it's out of touch with the army of photographers who contribute the imagery it licenses. To succeed, a microstock needs lots of customers licensing its photos, videos, and other works, and it needs a lot of contributors supplying a steady stream of fresh material.

It's these contributors Livingstone appears to be aiming to attract. The site describes Stocksy as "a stock photography cooperative owned and operated by artists," and it says contributors will have a stake in its success:

Our purpose is to create sustainable careers, ownership, and a long-term professional and equity strategy for our members.

Stocksy pays the highest royalty in the industry as well as dividends and patronage performance returns to artists, 50 percent on regular sales and 100 percent of extended licenses. By design, Stocksy pays out all profits to artists. In addition to paying dividend and patronage fees to artists on a yearly basis, each member of the co-op owns real equity in the company.

Livingstone declined to comment for this story.

Stocksy will face plenty of competitive challenges, and not just from iStockphoto, which since 2006 has been part of old-school stock-art firm Getty Images.

The microstock industry's growth was fueled by the abundance of low-cost, high-quality digital cameras and the Web, which provided a quick way to reach a global marketplace. Now there are dozens of microstocks around, including Fololia, Dreamstime, and Shutterstock, which is confident enough of growth that it went public in 2012.

But iStockphoto evidently is a source of talent for new microstocks. A case in point is photographer Sean Locke, who with 12,781 images and more than 900,000 sales is one of its top five contributors and a person who earned nearly all his income from sales through the company.

A week ago, iStock said it is terminating its relationship with Locke. According to his blog post on the subject, iStock was displeased with Locke's actions involving a Getty Images licensing deal with Google and with the fact that Locke had begun working with another stock-art firm.

"They also knew (somehow!) that I had joined this new stock site, even though it was closed to all but a relatively small group, and declared that this was against the 'spirit of the exclusivity agreement,'" Locke said.

Contributors often sign exclusivity contracts that pay them higher royalties if they agree to sell their imagery only through one microstock. Shutterstock founder Jon Oringer thinks exclusivity is bad -- "As a microstock photographer it just doesn't make sense to be exclusive to any one agency," he said in a January blog post -- but it's common. Now, though, Locke said he's moving his portfolio to multiple iStock competitors.

In a statement, iStockphoto laid the blame on the termination on Locke's helping a competitor:

In addition to other factors, Mr. Locke was actively recruiting exclusive iStock contributors to work with a competitive venture which is directly at odds with his relationship with iStockphoto. Given these actions, we made the decision to part ways with Mr. Locke under the terms of his exclusive agreement. We are excited to continue to work with the tens of thousands of contributors committed to the continued success of iStockphoto and Getty Images -- and wish Mr. Locke the best in his future endeavors.

Locke couldn't immediately be reached for comment about the recruiting issue. In his post, though, he said the severed relationship was liberating.

And the strong relations with contributors from iStockphoto's early days have faded, said Lee Torrens, author of the Microstock Diaries blog.

"iStock's soul is long gone," Torrens said. "They wiped out the entire content team, which was what kept the community functional...With the absence of leadership, old-time exclusives [exclusive photographers] are starting to jump ship. That probably doesn't hurt customers, but it bruises their reputation inside the industry."

Another photographer given the boot is Rob Sylvan, who also is author of "Lightroom 2 for Dummies." "I am very glad that I quit when I did and am no longer reliant on them as a source of income. I would urge any other iStock contributor to make sure you have a solid backup plan in place, and any exclusive contributor to start working on an exit strategy," he said in a comment to Locke.

iStockphoto said Sylvan "is identified as an administrator of a competitive venture's social media page, which, again, is directly at odds with his relationship with iStockphoto."

Some seeds of Locke's discontent were sown by the Getty deal with Google Drive, under which photographers' works could be used on Google Apps' online services for tasks such as word processing and presentations. The deal granted Google Apps users rights to 5,000 images, but they can be downloaded to a local computer and have copyright information and other metadata stripped out.

Locke objected to the Google Drive deal on iStock's forums, and a ruckus ensued with many photographers objecting. iStock scrambled to pull together its explanation as users howled.

Yesterday, iStock told CNET News it hopes for at least some changes to the Google Drive deal: "We can confirm that contributors were paid royalties for the use of their content in the license deal with Google. We are working with Google to refine the implementation which we believe will address some of the concerns raised by contributors."

Stephen Shankland
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and has also covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux, other open-source software, and science.

Quote

In the current structure, iStock issues a license of your content (a sublicense if you will) to a customer. The agreement is between iStock and the customer. There is no legal relationship between the contributor and the customer.

That's the mechanism by which if someone uses editorial content commercially and someone/entity in the image sues, the contributor doesn't have responsibility for the buyer's use.
From CR responding to my email regarding just such a case (which hasn't been resolved yet):
" I would like to address a concern that has been brought up in the past in regards to a client using an editorial use only image for commercial purposes and the impact this may have on the contributor.  We do review these cases on an individual basis, but in general assuming the contributor has absolutely no involvement with the user other than the fact that the contributor has uploaded the file to iStock and the user downloaded it from iStock and used inappropriately, the contributor is not be responsible for the user�s fault.  You as the contributor have authorized the use of your uploaded "editorial only" files to only those uses deemed permissible by iStock.  If the user is in breach of it, then that is the user�s fault as it is against both iStock�s and the contributor�s wishes."

But in fact, that's just like retail goods. If your camera doesn't work or your beef lasagne has horsemeat in it, the consumer's recourse is with the retailler, and the retailler's recourse is with the wholesaler, and so on back down the chain. (Under UK consumer law, I can't speak for anywhere else.) The consumer would not expect to have direct contact with the camera factory or food processing plant.

An unhappy photo licence buyer would have to contact the agency/distributor so sort any dispute, not contact the artist directly. It's part of what we pay them a high percentage to do.

If google bought an agency could it just set it own price and use all photos? Pay out one royalty and "own" heaps of images? If it did would it be better to use exclusive images other agencies don't have. Google could kill the market quicker than all the agency managers combined. No that won't happen, they have not bought an agency!?? The big thing is we should be able to opt out but it may be a one off sale of images looks good to IS and buying an agency (or all its images) may look good to google. Even though they do not own the images the way it is going they treat it as such. Not many in IS forums speaking loudly any more. Guess getting rid of Sean worked. We have to trust agencies but that trust is often misplaced. Stolen images, refunds, selling at a price with conditions we never agreed to. What next?

 Good luck Sean you deserve better and I do hope you images are not buried when uploaded to other agencies. It will I am sure be for the best for you but it is harsh at the moment.

If google bought an agency could it just set it own price and use all photos? Pay out one royalty and "own" heaps of images? If it did would it be better to use exclusive images other agencies don't have. Google could kill the market quicker than all the agency managers combined. No that won't happen, they have not bought an agency!?? The big thing is we should be able to opt out but it may be a one off sale of images looks good to IS and buying an agency (or all its images) may look good to google. Even though they do not own the images the way it is going they treat it as such. Not many in IS forums speaking loudly any more. Guess getting rid of Sean worked. We have to trust agencies but that trust is often misplaced. Stolen images, refunds, selling at a price with conditions we never agreed to. What next?

 Good luck Sean you deserve better and I do hope you images are not buried when uploaded to other agencies. It will I am sure be for the best for you but it is harsh at the moment.

Maybe it worked shutting them up, but we dont know how many will pack up and leave. Only when we know that number, we know if sacking Sean really worked.

Quote from: Xanox on February 15, 2013, 10:40

@ ADMIN :

I'm Xanox from the Alamy forum, it seems Alamy is as ruthless as Getty as i've been banned from their forum and our thread about Sjlocke and istock has been deleted without any warning.

Considering their forum is moribund and soon to be phased out from now on i'll stick here in read-only mode.

Cheers
Xanox

Same as Zanox?

As I said, pretty sure he is Zanox/ Stocktard, and is already out of read only mode and posting.

If google bought an agency could it just set it own price and use all photos? Pay out one royalty and "own" heaps of images? If it did would it be better to use exclusive images other agencies don't have. Google could kill the market quicker than all the agency managers combined. No that won't happen, they have not bought an agency!?? The big thing is we should be able to opt out but it may be a one off sale of images looks good to IS and buying an agency (or all its images) may look good to google. Even though they do not own the images the way it is going they treat it as such. Not many in IS forums speaking loudly any more. Guess getting rid of Sean worked. We have to trust agencies but that trust is often misplaced. Stolen images, refunds, selling at a price with conditions we never agreed to. What next?

 Good luck Sean you deserve better and I do hope you images are not buried when uploaded to other agencies. It will I am sure be for the best for you but it is harsh at the moment.

I don't HAVE to do anything. 

Quote from: Poncke on February 16, 2013, 03:23

Maybe it worked shutting them up, but we dont know how many will pack up and leave. Only when we know that number, we know if sacking Sean really worked.

Indeed.  The IS forums are deathly silent at the moment.  I'm not sure whether that's because people are scared to post, or have decided that enough is enough and it's time to move on.  We used to say that we only complained because we were passionate about iStock - I don't see that many contributors passionate about it anymore.  I, for one, will be handing in my crown within the next week or so, once I've looked at all of the alternative options.  I don't have a large portfolio by any means, but it's performed well and it's sad to give it all up after 9 years with them, but I just don't want to be tied to a company that treats people like this.

Sean, I'm truly sorry that this has happened to you.  You've done so much to help us, your fellow contributors, as well as iStock itself, over the years that it must feel like the biggest slap in the face.   As everyone says, I'm sure that in a year or so's time you'll look back and realise that it was the best thing that ever happened to you, but in the short term it will be tough.  Good luck.

Well said. I'm sure that exclusives giving up their crown is likely to be the biggest 'unintended consequence' of Getty's action against Sean. Getty makes less money on sales of independent licenses (although arguably they may be more profitable) and they will also be gifting hundreds of thousands of excellent images to their competitors.

Maybe the Getty managers have recently bought SSTK stock? Seems to me that SS shareholders will be amongst the major beneficiaries of their actions.

"Are you sure exclusivity in microstock is such an added value considering istock is making less money than shutterstock and that many top sellers like Yuri are not exclusives ?"

IS makes makes considerably more money, afaik.

So, are these the lessons one can take away from this?

- Never, ever, ever (ever) sign an exclusive agreement with anyone in business. Really never, ever . . . ever. The fact that you are working for yourself is risky enough - increasing your risk by having only one income partner is just plain stupid. Somewhere in all of this is the Universe saying: "I told you so".

Request to the (old) new guys

- To those who take over from iStock after their now inevitable fall into obscurity. Stocksy or whatever -  FTP and an easy upload system so we can bulk send our images straight from Photoshelter. Oh, and a flat structure - thanks. No silly canisters and pyramid contributor schemes.

Quote from: gostwyck on February 16, 2013, 10:39

Maybe the Getty managers have recently bought SSTK stock? Seems to me that SS shareholders will be amongst the major beneficiaries of their actions.

Only if the presumed major defection of exclusives (which has yet to be proven) leads to a similar defection by buyers. I think that istock's prices and a growing awareness of cheaper alternatives is more likely to be the factor that shifts buyers, not the movement of files out of exclusivity. Let's face it, most exclusive files already have counterpards on SS and on average exclusives are no better than independents on any site with tough inspections.

If there is no difference between IS exclusives and independents on other sites,  then why is there a price difference?  If everyone is selling Mercedes or Fords, then why would other sites leave so much money on the table?