For clarity, if there's anyone who cares, there's an update about the rollover subs thing over on their forum.

Thanks. I went to see what they said. Bottom line is that there won't be any waiting around for the rollovers to get used up before royalties are calculated and paid.

I understand the approach, but the sheer complexity of calculating both royalties and any refunds means that (a) contributors won't be able to figure out whether or not payments are correct and (b) iStock's long track record of miscalculating royalty amounts better not continue (I gather they've moved to new internals over the last year).

Effectively, the new subscription approach means not only will varying buyer prices vary royalties, but also, the timing of downloads will too, even if a buyer ends up using their entire allowance. A buyer who uses just a small percentage of their allowed downloads for a few months will generate oversize royalties and then when they use up their rollovers at some point, that month will deliver much smaller royalties. To calculate a refund you'll need to be able to backtrack to compute how much because you can't use the current month's rate.

It also means for contributors that you'd much rather get downloads from a given customer on their slack months than on their catch-up months. I guess time will tell if there's any seasonal pattern to the under-over usage.

The idea that this announcement is in any way positive (for anyone other than Getty, although I believe in the long run they're not helping themselves either) is a joke.

Beyond all the comments covered already, I didn't see anyone mention that iStock subscriptions have a rollover, so the idea that payouts will be above the minimums is not realistic. Buyers will generally be using all their downloads.

"*Up to 250 unused downloads can be rolled over month to month for annual subscriptions or any other auto-renewed subscriptions. If you don't auto-renew your subscription, you will lose any unused downloads when your subscription term ends (including accrued rollover downloads, if any)."

The minimum prices per file of 10 cents for indies and 75 cents or $4.15 for exclusives are low. What I keep hearing is that an increasing proportion of sales are subscriptions, so offering the small sweetener to exclusives of including subs downloads in the RC-replacement scheme doesn't amount to much.

There is clearly no good news of any kind for indies. And the point is well taken that the other agencies will certainly claim that they need to cut royalties to stay competitive if iStock just keeps on * (forum zapped what I wrote.  t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g, isn't a swear word, but apparently "keeps on t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g" is on the no-no list?) after this nuclear detonation.

I already all but left iStock over the Google-Getty deal in 2013, but if I hadn't, I'd be gone November 25th.

For anyone who thinks Shutterstock's 38 cents for a subscription download is a travesty, what does 2 cents from iStock say (with no chance of that ever going up if you remain an independent)?

Getty clearly wants the freedom to discount subscriptions heavily to try and goose sales. They can't do that with a flat rate royalty (without spending money on the promotions).

Today: buyer pays $149 for Essentials 100 and iStock keeps up to $121 of the cash. December: iStock keeps up to $147 of the cash. Why wouldn't they love this deal?

I guess exclusives will know just how much of a mess they're in once they see their 2017 royalty rates. One detail I didn't think was clear in the e-mail was whether the double count for Signature+ downloads applied if they were subscription downloads or only credit. Quite why Thinkstock and the API downloads were excluded (other than to try and keep exclusive rates down) isn't clear.

I think there's a very real potential for Getty's last ditch effort to revitalize themselves may end up dragging us all down the royalty sinkhole  - unless iStock loses a significant amount of indie content as a result of this change

In addition to keywords, some of your subjects (a bench and a path through the woods, for example) have huge competition. Over 46,000 images for path woods forest; 64,000 for bench trees

You are overthinking the styling of some of your images and making them less useful, IMO, putting objects together that you wouldn't normally see or expect. Being unusual is not the big win you might expect.

Examples. You have a shot of eggs in the carton with yellow flowers over them. You've just cut out a huge portion of potential buyers by putting flowers over the egg carton. You aren't even draping cooking ingredients over the eggs, which I wouldn't recommend, but is at least something you might mix with eggs.

You have a shot of a tea cup on a wool scarf with a pinecone next to the cup. This doesn't make it a Christmas image (so nix those keywords) and tons of the many uses for tea cup images are now ruled out - who puts a pinecone next to their tea?

Simple, clear messages - less is more in stock images

It has to be a mistake. There's no other explanation.

The specifics vary a bit from one agency to the next but they are all concerned about people uploading only items they don't have full rights to. It's not uncommon to be asked for releases, even for your own art or pictures of yourself.

I have a property release for my own artwork - if I include it in a photo, for example. I can sign as artist and photographer and have my husband witness it.

For illustrations that were based on a photo, several sites require you upload the photo (which you need to have taken) in place of the model release. For things that were drawn from scratch online (vectors drawn freehand) they want to see screenshots of work in progress.

If you are photographing or scanning your own art, I'd give them a property release for the art (you should be able to use a generic one for all your own hand drawn art rather than having to do one for each piece).

I ordered something from them earlier this year - mugs with a friend's artwork - and thought I'd try uploading some of my own work.

I didn't realize until I went to check today that I'd made a couple of sales last month. I think if I promoted my stuff (I don't)  it might produce better, but if you have the time to make sure your work is well positioned/suited to the various objects you sell on (which is the part that requires a bit of time investment) it's another outlet for certain types of work

I just checked and the four images of mine have been taken down. Less than 24 hours after I sent the e-mail.

I am all but certain that it was my e-mail that resulted in the removal versus Shutterstock's (non) efforts as I only reported two images to them and I ended up finding four; all four are gone.

My August numbers have returned

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on September 28, 2016, 16:33

It's easy to blindly applaud.  A bit more time to take a critical look.

And the same amount of time to read everything and realize it's positive news.

And a little bit more time to write useful comments such as "they tout this as a way to make more money but that's only true if they sell any"... What in the world isn't?

Perhaps I should spell out what I thought would be understood by those of us who license content through agencies. Why would you buy an extended license from Pond 5 at prices that are higher than any of the other microstock agencies. If they have unique content at Pond 5 that might work, but when you can buy the same extended license for $100 elsewhere, why pay more at Pond5?

If you looked at the list of "good news" that's been trotted out over the last few years, very little of which has panned out as advertised, it might not be surprising to read some skepticism.  Possibly Pond5 thinks it can grab buyers from Getty or other higher priced agencies where the price won't seem so out of line.

Anyone can put a high price tag on anything - it's getting buyers to pay that price that's the trick. I just don't see how Pond5 can pull that off (the selling part, not the price tag part). Time will tell.

I did receive the e-mail and went to read their new licenses (the video was largely content free IMO).

The thing that seems a little out of whack is the arbitrary designation of the "legal fee" as a cost that Pond 5 gets to subtract from the gross amount before splitting the extended & premium license revenue 50/50 with the contributor. Seems to me that's part of their cost structure (like employees, phones, servers, etc.) and not something to separate out to increase their take and decrease the contributor's.

The fact that the legal fee is doubled on the Premium license doesn't make much sense to me as I doubt the liability issues are different from one license to the other.

The license also allows one transfer of license rights - it says that the content can't be resold, but you can pass on the rights you licensed once, to one person (I assume in the process surrendering your own license rights?). I don't think any other microstock agency agreement allows that sort of transfer. Would seem to invite abuse as I don't know how they will police it.

The other observation is that they tout this as a way to make more money but that's only true if they sell any. I only have a small number of photos at Pond5 and they really don't do photo sales as far as I can tell. For those video contributors who sell there, perhaps it's good they've created a "global sales organization"

If an image is described as a particular place in the description and keywords, and then half the image is replaced with elements that do not exist in that place, is that image misrepresenting that location?  My first reaction is that the image would be fine if it was submitted as a �generic� place, using non-specific keywords and did not claim to be a specific geographic location (ex: Keywords �beach� and �ocean�, but not �Honolulu� or �Hawaii�).

I've seen many cases where a tropical beach picture has keywords for countries across the Caribbean, and around the world - Hawaii, Maldives, etc. I've always thought that was a terrible idea - buyer can't rely on location information. For the same reason, I think that compositing in location elements is misleading if the keywords include the location.

So if you remove power lines or add in a vase of flowers on a table, I don't see a problem as it doesn't alter the basics of the place in the image. Likewise removing ship IDs and store names/logos. I also don't see a problem with replacing the sky as it still doesn't misrepresent the location, and there's no journalism issues in stock images.

Although I wasn't sure if the guidelines were clear enough, Alamy's question about whether an image is digitally altered is probably the best way to deal with this sort of thing - if it's marked as altered and you care about accuracy of the place, then you stay away from composites marked as altered.

A dog on a beach isn't as useful for stock images as the particular breed and the location of the beach.

Accurate names for tools, construction equipment, cities and neighborhoods in them, seasonal festivals (knowing Christmas from Hanukkah even though both have candles), craft or clothing styles, type of party, concert or musical band, species of plant, which ground spices in a food shot...

There's lots of detail that helps sell images that automatic keywording can't (yet) handle.

I decided to go ahead with uploads under the current system and was rewarded with one of the new uploads selling within a week of it going online

Still looking forward to the changes - and RF editorial - coming soon.