So my theoretical gain from istock exclusivity under the new plan could actually be even higher when compared to what my earnings would be as an independent under the new plan.

Unless of course that increase in prices for exclusive content causes enough of a migration away from iStock that other agencies show increased sales, making up the difference.  The problem with any analysis at this stage is that it has to make way too many assumptions, both explicit and implied.  Are we at the point where microstock is a zero sum game, with every gain in one place balanced by a loss somewhere else?  Will iStock's and Fotolia's and Dreamstime's price increases lead to more sales elsewhere?  Just how price sensitive are customers, or to be more precise, what percentage of customers are price sensitive enough to let their decisions be affected by these changes?  Will they go for (slightly) cheaper independent content on iStock, will they see greater value in exclusive content, or will they mostly ignore the difference in their search for content that's good enough?

I agree with you, Sharpshot.  I was annoyed when Fotolia lowered my percentage, but furious when they offered to bump me back if I just gave away a couple of dozen of my better performers to their free image pool.  How much worse would I have felt if I had nowhere else to go?  Even if exclusivity were a good deal, I'd be inclined to oppose it on the principle that competition keeps our agents at least a little bit honest.

I don't believe there's a new contributor bump, but there's certainly one for newly accepted submissions.  Images will sell well for a couple of days after they get indexed, thanks to subscribers who grab anything new that looks interesting.  After that you're at the mercy of the search algorithm, and of course your own skills at keywording.

It's difficult to know for sure, but I don't believe having the same image at multiple sites has a negative effect on my income overall.  Further, I suspect subscription buyers at sites like Shutterstock get most of their images there and don't also buy at other agencies unless they've either exceeded their download quotas (and don't want to wait for the next day's quote) or can't find an image they want at SS.  Buying patterns don't seem to overlap much for me, and unless an agency has bargain basement pricing, I don't think adding it to my upload list does me much if any harm.  Of course, your mileage may differ.

Quote from: disorderly on December 15, 2009, 19:41

I lived through the dotcom era, and was likely a lot closer to the insanity than you. 

Or maybe not.   I'm a software developer and once worked for a startup that went through $70 million before folding. 

I suspect I had a better view of management, having worked in senior roles at four startups, as well as four very large and well known computer firms.  Having been in sales or marketing at each firm, I worked closely with both product development and the corporate decision makers.  Three of the four startups never showed a profit, spending furiously to get the attention of customers well in advance of having anything those customers could use.  I also had connections to a lot more Silicon Valley firms where the patter was repeated ad nauseum.

That's generally not true of the micros, which have a handle on their expenses, know what business they're in and can see how much they're making.  The big question is how much to spend on infrastructure, on marketing and on paying suppliers (i.e. us).  Where a tech startup expects to lose money in search of market share, for a while at least, someone like Getty expects their micro investments to make money, and a lot of it.  They see it as a cash cow, and they'll milk that baby until it runs dry.  On the other hand, some of the micros seem more interested in a long term game.  They're still learning the rules of the game, including how much they can change them before we do more than squawk, but their goals are both to grow and make money.

So far December is tracking close to my BME in October.  No signs of a slowdown here, although I expect things to fall off over the Christmas break.

Been there, resubmitted that.  In my case it was a shot of a model's legs.  I was shocked at the rejection, muttered quite a bit and then resubmitted without the release.

My ports larger than yours, but I'm seeing sales in line with last month.  I expect it'll drop off to nothing around Christmas and stay that way through the end of the year, but am prepared to be surprised.  Last year I saw a 40% drop at iS from November to December.  I'm thinking it'll be less dramatic this year.

Not higher standards, but definitely different.  Shutterstock is my baseline; I submit there first and either fix or discard what they reject before going on to other agencies.  Just out of curiosity, what reason did they give?

My income at iStock has never come close to justifying exclusivity.  That may be because I generate so many images that my ports on other sites are more than twice the size of iStock, or it may be something about the kind of work I submit.  But even if I could justify it financially, I think I'd still remain independent.  I don't like iStock's rules, and what I feel is arbitrary behavior on their part.  I object to feeling powerless in a relationship, and that's where exclusivity would place me.

(In case you're curious, I'm two months away from gold and don't expect to reach it before the rule change.  At present, exclusivity would cost me 3/4 of my stock income.  No way do I believe the benefits of exclusivity would compensate me for that.)

This discussion is too theoretical to be interesting without knowing the specifics.  I'm going to guess that it's more than the concept that was copied.  Maybe the agency was out of line; maybe they weren't.  Without seeing the original and the copy, it's a case of "he said, he said". 

I was on track for a BME or maybe 2nd BME until Thanksgiving weekend.  In the end it was my 4th best month, down only 3% from October.  Year to year, things are still on a significant upswing at almost 44% over November, 2008.

The big surprise was 123RF, which moved up to #3 with more than double October's sales.

SS	26.7%	unch
iS	20.9%	+4.6%
123	14.4%	+130.2%	BME
DT	10.6%	-11.8%
Ftl	10.4%	-29.0%
BigStock	7.0%	-17.5%
SX	6.3%	-45.7%
Cres	1.7%	-15.2%
Veer	1.1%	+80.0%	BME
CanStockPhoto	.8%	+40.4%
FP	.0%	-100.0%