^ I believe in general, but may be wrong in the specific instance, that the agency rules about "logos" are about "logos" which would be specifically registered as trademarks. The point being that trademarking an image as a logo would be part way towards claiming ownership. So, for example, the original brilliant Twitter logo by Simon Oxley was probably not technically a logo. Because it was a royalty free vector from when he was with iStockphoto. IIRC.

Many small vineyards often running on very little money will use a design on the labels which though it may superficially look like a logo may not actually be a logo in the sense of being trademarked.

If the wine is any good perhaps you can get her to send you a few crates to make you go away

Which of the microstock companies have deep enough pockets to survive this price war Yuri ? Which do you predict will be bought out and which do you think will close over, say, the next 18 months ?

We've done just that for our current contributors and they're making more sales and $$ with us than they did on their own. Plus it's non-exclusive so there's no risk of tying up images for years on end. They can continue with their own placements or place elsewhere etc

That makes sense because your selection is essentially a best-of. And a best-of selection is most likely to rank better. Even more so if you move stuff which gets zooms or sales to a best-of best-of pseudonym. I guess that one potential downside for a contributor would be that their own pseudonyms will likely end up containing only their non selected images - so their own pseudonyms will not benefit from the improved ranking which their best images garner.

This is assuming that people are not posting the same images to Alamy both via yourselves and via their own accounts.

But - great that people are trying different approaches and seeing what works best for them.

Quote from: bhr on July 22, 2013, 04:09

2 sales reported last week netted me over $120 each. Both are showing as paid but not yet cleared. Different clients and uses. Returns would be quite a let down !

Last month I had a 50% refund on one of my best value sales of last year, almost 11 months after it sold. Queried it and was told the client hadn't used it and they'd allowed the 50% refund after such a very long time as they are 'key clients'.

Bad news for you but seems fair if they did not use it. Editorial schedules do change. One thing I have noticed is how far in advance these uses are often booked - eg a sale in May for a magazine article at the end of the year. I guess it shows how far into the future a use can be planned and priced.

Out of interest - did the refund take place after the payment had cleared?

Someone looking to steal and perhaps re package content would likely want the largest sizes possible - but I cannot think of a reason why anyone would fraudulently purchase ELs.

Here's another theory or possibly reality to some extent.

5000 contributors who earn $100 USD in PP earnings on a monthly basis. Money invested at 1% on a daily basis with 30 days per month using a few keystrokes

5000 x 100 = 500,000
500000 x 1% = 5000
5000  x 30 = 150,000

$150,000 USD  per month for doing nothing but not pay out to contributors.

Q: Where on earth can you get 1% **DAILY**  on $500,000 ?

If only.

I mentioned on another thread that are remarkable parallels between "indie" artists/photographers and "indie" authors. Reading this thread only reinforces that the reasons creators might go indie, plus the challenges and rewards of doing so, are almost identical.

Just a few minutes ago, on a blog for writers that I subscribe to, I read the following post (which I've edited only for length). Substitute "artist/photographer" for "writer" and you've got a good argument for going indie. Substitute "Leo" for "our friend and colleague Wil Kinghan" and you'll see we all have an ally in this game.

Most successful self publishing authors will be mostly selling through trusted e-commerce marketplaces - ie the Amazon Kindle store and, to a lesser extent, Nook and and Apple iBooks. Not from their own sites.

eBook sites can afford to take a much smaller commission probably because of their economies of scale and partly because of cross subsidy. The ebook business is also largely consumer rather than business orientated  and is relatively low friction.

It happens all the time with food stock shots. They appear on the menus and websites of restaurants, hotels, pubs, takeaway shops, etc, presumeably to illustrate the quality of food available.

But would you typically ever choose to eat in the sort of places which have pictures of food on the menu ?

if that one is jointly for exclusives and non exclusives then shouldn't the others also be exclusive / non exclusive together - in terms of the logical consistency ?

Why do someone elses images appear in the "kamo" search

because those images have kamo as a keyword.

Please search for Spotify and Royalties - then maybe you will stick to buying rather than streaming.

The #1 link when I did that search is this site which, whilst not uncritical, is all about how this is potentially a good deal for new artists. It is a long article and worth reading.

According to this item the model will likely never be able to pay a high royalty rate per stream but that artists have the opportunity to make a good income provided they can get users to listen to their tracks. And that the outlook for new artists is good as these services spread into new international jurisdictions, increase membership and become more ubiquitous.

Long story short, this is the volume argument again. Unlike with stock photography subscription models (so far) however, these models actually count and pay for use (and effectively discourage casual piracy). I have no idea whether these are strong or complete arguments or indeed the extent to which this is usefully analogous to the world of stock photos.

Also - because these music subscription models are potentially so well integrated into the world of social media it makes it possible for artists to build an audience. All of the music which I have discovered this year has been via Flipboard thanks to Twitter and RSS ... in terms of sales, listening for free, has this month translated into a 1 complete album download from iTunes and a CD of the same album from Amazon because I wanted to give my mother a gift wrapped copy. Since I never almost never listen to the radio and seldom watch TV I would have limited opportunity to discover music any other way other than via people being able to blog or report recommendations online.

I've seen artists setting up stores in Second Life

people are still on Second Life ?

However some of the decline is due to digitial vs print.  I go to  web site with an istockphoto on the front page that hasn't changed for 4 years.  If this was a magazine they would never keep the same image etc

I see very much less traditional stock photography being used vs even a couple of years ago. We get much less mail through the door. The banks and other financial institutions we deal with no longer send us nearly so much printed material. Partly because they are no longer trying to tempt us to borrow money (they would rather play all that QE money on the markets). We get very little junk mail these days. The stuff my partner gets tends to be from retailers she actually uses and invariably contains only commissioned content.

Online I am seeing much less typical stock photography. What I am seeing is a big increase in the use of editorial and what used to be called walkabout stuff - eg at the sites and newsfeeds I am subscribed to via RSS and Twitter. Much more CC content and much more stuff from sites like Alamy, flickr etc

On a personal level, I have not bought a magazine or any other printed material at least since the iPad came out. We no longer buy books either.