.

I dont understand why our sale commisions are so low in image sales? e.g. one images are sold to 1 credits equally $10 but our sale commision only $1.5, what about other $8.5 ?... I wonder is it so costly to being agent to selling our images? why our earnings are limited by only 15% or something like very low amounts on image sales ? I dont know is this a good sample but I get 60% sale commision from 3d model sale on a 3d model sale site which is in the wery similar sale sector and which has wery similarly sale contours.

In the earlier days of iStock being a number one success, they sold such volume that contributor income was nice - even with low percentages. Even earlier, before Getty, the percentages were a bit better but not a lot.

With the Getty purchase of iStock (while iS was on top), Getty effectively dropped the commissions and used that money to pay back the Getty investors. Now that iS is no longer the top microstock agency the lower sales AND lower commissions are obvious to us contributors. But Getty is tight for money and can't see a way (or doesn't want to see a way) to advance the contributors. Further, there are so many contributors that positive changes would hardly be felt by us in the ranks. So Getty business decisions keep us in bad times while they struggle with their own bad times.

While your explanation is accurate, it isn't the full picture. It explains the overall low commissions but not why it needs to be 15% for non-exclusives. We can't forget that the iStock exclusivity system rewards people signing up their imagery for exclusive distribution by paying out higher commissions. As a matter of fact, 35 or 40% of royalties is more than what you earn at most other places (though even someone at 40% does not really get 40% any more given the lower rates for GI sales and the unknown percentages for the subscription sales).

But Getty/iStock still have to compete with Shutterstock (which pays out somewhere between 25 and 30% if I read their financial statements correctly), and the cost of marketing has been rising the tighter the market gets. So they could not really afford to pay out more to contributors than Shutterstock does. So they have to pay out lower royalties for some people to be able to pay out more than average for their top exclusives.

Simply said: In a way, non-exclusive contributors subsidize the exclusive contributors for their decision.

because there are no unity among the crowdsourced contributors.

I was thinking about it but how do we do that?

Quote from: madman on August 19, 2015, 03:16

I was thinking about it but how do we do that?

Convince five people to stop uploading their images to whatever agency sells best for them. If you can manage to do that, I'm sure you can manage the rest.

I am ready to participate in something like this, let's open a topic about this formation and announce to everyone. I am ready for this...

Negative posts are deleting immediately written their own forum, most stock contributors do not know this forum, so I learned much later too, need to promote that there is such a discussion forum.

Therehave been many cases were artists pulled files in a collective effort. Over the getty google deal, because of dpc etc...I think fotolia lost 7 million files in 4 weeks.

with dpc it worked, the place will be closed down. But not every agency will react in a positive way.

If the management is capable of listening, then you don�t need to withhold files, if they have no vision nothing the contributors say or do will stop them from heading full steam into all the walls they can find. Sometimes they even build walls to crash into...

That is why it is so important to have more than one marketplace to sell through, because all agencies have good times and times they drive you crazy.

Quote from: madman on August 19, 2015, 03:16

Quote from: JPSDK on August 19, 2015, 02:17

because there are no unity among the crowdsourced contributors.

I was thinking about it but how do we do that?

We have discussed it before and it proves that whereas Europeans, Asians and South Americans are not so afraid of unions, and can use left wing means and fight for their rights, even when having losses, Americans are paralyzed by fear and stick to individually providing for their family and all that lonely old song.

"El pueblo unido jamais sera vencido". As we said when I was young 30 years ago. We believed it, saw the good results, and built things up. Now its lost knowledge in the post modern hedeonistic society.

You are wrong. There are a lot of unions in US. Their problem is that they are as much in bed with the big government as big corporations are. Both seek favours and preferential treatment.
In a lot of areas, jobs are impossible to get unless you become a union member.
Unions pressurize politicians to regulate as many jobs as possible, to prevent newcomers to compete with union members, on the job market.
Unions pressurize politicians to impose minimum wage laws, thus preventing inexperienced young people to gain the skills necessary to be promoted to better jobs. Moreover  restrictions imposed by unions make black market and illegal hiring attractive.
Nothing wrong with people getting together to negociate better deals, but not when politicians interfere with the process, with the free market and other liberties, only to get these union votes.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

why don't we invest in OUR stock site?

did you mean that, we must create a new site shaped by the contributors?

We know how to do pictures and videos but web programming & marketing I don't know if we can do it 

madman - yes
ShadySue - i don't think symbio is now a threat to big agencies
Sebalos - that is why i said about investing.
Maximilian - prices similar to other sites but higher percentage for us, there would be a lot to discuss. maybe to avoid hassle with inspecion of each file we could for example accept only trusted contributors considering their portfolio.

I have no plan just the idea but if you say it is bad let's stick to the topic, sit in a circle and hold hands; my name is Anna, last month i've earned 2grands less than in the same month last year.
Your turn now 

Quote from: spamowanka on August 20, 2015, 05:13

madman - yes
ShadySue - i don't think symbio is now a threat to big agencies
Sebalos - that is why i said about investing.
Maximilian - prices similar to other sites but higher percentage for us, there would be a lot to discuss. maybe to avoid hassle with inspecion of each file we could for example accept only trusted contributors considering their portfolio.

I have no plan just the idea but if you say it is bad let's stick to the topic, sit in a circle and hold hands; my name is Anna, last month i've earned 2grands less than in the same month last year.
Your turn now 

We could start with a market. Also no buyer would join.
But we could use a trick.
Many images are used for prints.
We are many, we can upload a max size of 4000 pixels to SS, FT and all others.
We will earn the same and we could also start a contributor collected marktplace.
Once a customer needs an image size for printing then he is forced to buy this from our contributor page.

One idea. Now your turn.

you can come up with a thousand ideas but without Millions to invest in marketing nothing will happen, not even going to talk about the thousands of contributors at those agencies (over 60 Million pictures), at this moment we only follow agencies or leave