Everyone, exclusive or independants, have more chance of selling a fridge to an eskimoe, then reaching their targets. Its a confidance-trick just to make you more productive.

If we became more productive, our targets would be raised pdq. That's the real con-trick.
LifeLesson 001: never exceed your targets - the b*stards will think they're too low.
So from the firm's point of view, totally counter productive.
The old levels were far more likely to make us more productive, and co-operative.

It's up to agencies to remove the files.
No one is going to take take down their own images. It's just another case of it being rational for the individual to leave them up but damaging to the industry as a whole.

So you subscibe to lagereek's ludicrous proposition that buyers say, "Oh, look, there's a photo of a Dwarf Bittern that has only sold once in four years, so I'm not going to buy a photo of a studio model on a white background, or a mega-fantabulous modelreleased photo of an oil rig"?
I thought the idea of a 'general' stock agency was to try to reach as many markets and meet as many needs as possible?

It's back down again. Will it be gone again quicker than a thread to Lobo's padlock?

Quote from: ShadySue on June 04, 2011, 17:29

I'm almost  too embarrased to admit this  , but I have no idea how to thumbs up/down threads there. 

Dont be embarrased, its useless knowledge anyways
On the right hand side of each post next to 'permalink' there's a thumbs up and down symbol you can click.

Oh, I remember seeing permalink before. It must be removed, with the thumbs, if you're Lobotomised: I did a 'Find:permalink' to be sure.
 

I wouldn't mind if they just deleted everything that doesn't sell after a year and they accepted more images but that's not happening.

I sure as h*ll would. One day someone else might want a photo of a Dwarf Bittern, and I need the RCs.

Be sure you let the putative model know how widely the images may legally be used (to promote any product, e.g. Viagra, or cause (e.g. religion or politics etc.), include some worst-case scenario examples, and explain that the images can be manipulated heavily in their end use. Doubly do this if not paying 'models'. E.g. if the person is a well known supporter or opposer of a cause, they could appear in adverts for the opposite point of view. The terms of use usually say they can't imply that a person endorses the product/cause, but of course that's subjective. Also that the images may be misused, and usually the worst that will happen is that the agency may issue a cease and desist.
Also be prepared that if you get a model from e.g. Model Mayhem, they may not show up.
But hey, there are lots and lots of models pics out there. 

Exept Shutterstock, there, everything will eventually sell.
Why is everyone so dead against throwing away old garbage, you all like to sit there and watch them? thinking, Oh! I too that masterpiece back in 2005. Or is it just paranoid delution that it will sell and you might be short of a few cents.

Why 'paranoid'?

Sorry, hit quote instead of modify.

-------------
Kelly Thompson on 8th September 2010 - http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322&page=1
But, we expect to see our total royalty payout increase by more than 30% next year, from $1.7-million per week to well over $2-million per week. Make no mistake, the total amount of money iStock contributors are making is going up.

I wonder if he would provide independently audited figures at the end of the year to see if his speculation worked out.
Still, even if so, it wouldn't hide the fact that they were making even more off the back of our efforts.

Here's how the targets are demotivational:
I'm almost halfway to the 30% target at the moment (that's not good because we have three slump months coming up). So I guess I could push a bit more to try to ensure I stay on 30%. But I'm realistic enough to know I'll never reach 40,000, so I'd be far better to focus my energy on Alamy or on getting into that other agency (huge time investment on producing work that wouldn't 'fit' onto iStock - and possibly not Alamy - if rejected, and totally dependent on getting at least 'decent' natural light).
Obviously iStock couldn't GAFF: I could delete all my files and they'd barely notice. But if everyone did that, they'd notice. Of course, that's not likely to happen: what's more likely to happen is that more people drop exclusivity, and they'd gain even more (unless that person had a lot of V/A.)
It may be that they're going to introduce non-exclusive V/A soon (we know that Agency is already not totally exclusive), following P+. They'd rather pay out the lower non-exclusive commissions, because of that thing I still don't understand about how profitability (%age) is more important than profit (bottom line).

Quote from: Freedom on June 04, 2011, 04:48

Quote from: franckreporter on June 04, 2011, 04:42

now i have the 25% but in march i reached the 30% , so someone know when will be the updates of the rate of earning...

in my schedule tab continue to appear 25% and the update still missing...

If I were you, I'd email support. Since RC is a new thing, I doubt anyone knows the answer here. Please let us know.

I wrote on the istock forum soon after the announcement of joize, but I had no answer ... I tried to rewrite this morning, before it was the 24 in Canada, but  ( L O B O ) canceled me the request 2 times threatened to ban access to the forum because he thinks no one at that (it was only 23.30) have been able to answer me ....

I wonder, at least the question could leave, instead of deleting it.

Patience, poppet: I've got an outstanding Support ticket from February, and it's only asking why I don't get the official emails despite being opted in. It's disappeared from my open Tickets list, but we've been assured   that doesn't mean they've been deleted. (My earliest visible open tickets are two Scout tickets raised on 13th March).
In any case, they've promised to back date any increases.
The second post from Joyze in that thread says:
"What happens if I�ve already reached the next level in these new targets? � We�ll be retro paying the royalties. Next week we�ll announce the schedule of when you can expect the retro pay and we�ll also announce when all of the information will be changed on the website."

Do as you will. I had a sale of a file overnight which had also sold on Wednesday - weird when it only has 9 sales altogether (in 3+ years) and only one sale in the past year.
Whoops, it is suddenly (for goodness knows what reason, but no V/A in the search) the top file in the best match that would most likely be used to find it. So ha, not 'garbage', just best match shenanigans. A different pic earlier in the week which had its first sale (L) in four years.
I delete occasionally, but generally don't. You can never tell: I was never happy with the light on a particular photo, but took months before I could get it in better light. I meant to delete the original, but by the time I noticed that I hadn't, I realised that it was out-selling the one with, to anyone's eyes, the better light and background. There's just no telling.

Sorry to hear you will proly be dropping to 25%, don't you think its worth putting in some more effort in order to keep your 30% ?
I would also consider dropping exclusivity if I where you...

Thank you for your concern.
For the past 3-4 weeks it's been constant rain or heavy overcast (we had twice the average May rainfall), so I'm back to the usual 'flat light' rejections. Yesterday was glorious blue sky, but harsh harsh light, and back to heavy overcast today.
Then there were the 40+ files I had to resubmit because of the false 'caption' rejections: all were accepted with exactly the same captions as were originally rejected, but still the waste of time, patience and goodwill - I did get an apology for these in the end, but didn't make up for the lost time.
Not jumping to submit exclusivity (but keeping a watching eye [1]). I'm hearing that people who do non-studio work (like me) have poor acceptance rates on the other micros, and two 'new independents' (non model, non studio) I'm following are thinking about going back to independence.
My tutor suggested  a particular agency for the sort of non-stock editorial-type work I've been doing recently, and I'll look into it, but you need a huge portfolio of all new, all different work to even be considered, so that would take a lot of time.
[1] I suspect the medium-term plan (perhaps it's too kind to imagine they actually have a plan) is to have iStock as only Vetta and Agency, and the rest will be dumped into Thinkstock.