If you aren't already, i would suggest passing the message around to all your fellow microstockers and directing them to this thread. All of the friends in your istock creative network would be a good start i think.

Wow, funny how times changes eh? a few years ago, everyone was praising istock and now everyone wants to sue them

Ive only got small port with only a few photos and mostly video, but if they were to pull the same trick with video i would be extremely mad and the worrying thing is down the line they could even be considering it.

Thanks for sharing your results. Your experiences are pretty much the same as my own in dealing with these different agencies. I have also had the 30 minute review time from fotolia which i found amazing but as you quite rightly stated their rejections are strange.

I would also pursue the 123, revo, clipdealer they all bring in an occasional sale from time to time for me and i have a small port of around 170. A year ago i gave up on clipcanvas through lack of sales although as always your own personal experience may be different.

My biggest disappointment for 2012 was P5, they were such a good earner up until summer and then my sales literally went off a cliff. I believe this is because of the global crisis but also their Achilles heel is that they accept almost anything and a lot of contributors take advantage of this and upload a tonne of crap. And also they have recently added photos and 3d models which also is flooding the search IMO.

Anyway, i have lots more ideas for videos in 2013, its just finding the time to make them.

Good luck.

I already mentioned this in another thread but their main search bar excludes video from being directly searchable. Although if you put 'footage' into the search it does bring back some results with mixed pricing. To me this says they either haven't gone 100% live with footage or they are not taking it seriously.

Plan B is we buy it out and set things right? 

Where did you see clips being sold on their site? The search option for videos isn't showing on my end.

I'm non-exclusive at istockvideo and my sales have dropped to the bottom recently. I used to do really well there a couple of years ago but I'm not holding out much hope anymore. Anyone else a suffering non-exclusive there?

Is it possible that all stock agencies could help you out in terms of legal aid/advice seeing as if the ruling comes out in their favor they could then go after every single other agency out there if they were feeling greedy.

I don't get it when contributors price their content at say $49 as opposed to $50. Most businesses with a budget who buy videos would pay top dollar for the right clip so i doubt the 1 dollar difference for a different clip would make a difference. It's this undercut your fellow contributor mentality which i don't like and make P5 look amateurish it times. In terms of pricing, i like how revostock gives you a choice to set your price but stops contributors from adding silly values.

Quote from: stocker2011 on October 31, 2012, 08:32

Looks like istock is still tanking. I hope I'm wrong but i think October could be even worse than September, at least for me and quite a few others judging by September sales thread.

Again, are you going by the given iStock stats, or are you going by your balance at the bottom of the page and/or the GM script that shows the credit card sales that don't show on your stats?

I'm going by my balance as always, i know what my balance was this time last month and looking at it now it's a disaster. The bug with the stats page is irrelevant unless sales are not showing on my balance as well as the stats? But like i said it's not just me, I'm going by the general responses in the istock forums. Wait for more doom and gloom tomorrow for a month that is supposed to be one of the better months of the year.

I think cobalt has hit the nail on the head there and gives some good advice. Lucato, give it some more time for repeat customers and also to allow yourself to grow in the search engine rankings and im sure you will do very well, and don't rule out video as it can supplement your income.

Unfortunately being non-excluive at istock is a very sad state of affairs. You will get raped on commission, shoved to the back of the search results and be the last to get your photos inspected. And be there problems at istock, expect to be the last on the list of istock's priorities.

There has been a lot of talk about photo sales tanking recently and would like to know how the video side is doing for you all.

I have a relatively small cg port and my sales in istock, fotolia and P5 have all been tanking since the summer began and it doesn't look good for October either. So i was wondering how the rest of you are doing.

Examining peanut butter in a room filled with mouse traps lol