As an Art-Director at, Young&Rubicam,  said to me some months back. " *!  now I can see your shots there!  Oh, so Getty, is the professional side of the business and IStock, the amateur side? is that why the images are cheaper?

I answered:  yes thats why they are cheaper at IS,  even their exclusive material, is a lot cheaper.

I mean what else can you answer?

Why can't an art director tell for themselves what is professional or good? That's their job. All they have to do is judge aesthetics, pick a direction or vision for the artwork, and manage the decisions for the design costs and expenses.

How can anybody believe that buyers will trawl the entire internet for the perfect image while knowing at the same time that they can't be bothered to hunt through half-a-dozen pages on iStock to find it (we all know how well images on page 10 of a search sell).

I don't know. You'd have to ask the variety of people that show up to my site to buy images. I'm assuming they didn't scour the whole internet to find me. They just found something that they liked and bought it.

IS exclusive files can only be found at IS, if you need a file that an exclusive artist made then you cannot get it from SS.  Prices can be higher because there is different content.  Prices remain low at the other sites because they all offer essentially the same product and compete by keeping prices low.

I would have said this is untrue a couple years ago, but since I've been more carefully controlling the flow of my new images, there is something to be said for customers buying images that aren't available elsewhere. Not necessarily because the images are unique or special, but because when they find the image that they think is perfect, they buy it. If that image is only in limited places, they can only buy it there.

That said, IS's catalog is probably missing as much stuff (rare or otherwise) as it has exclusive content.

Well I can't prove that there are tons. But I can tell you for sure that i personally know of one person who is exactly this type of contributor. Six-figure earner, no one knows him, maybe you'd recognize one of his images if you saw one but you wouldn't put a name to the image. Good size port with lots of good earners but not often hitting the Top 50 at SS, so he manages to keep a low profile.

So that's one that I know of. I'm sure there are more. Tons? Yeah, I know, hard to prove. But there are some people like that out there. Definitely not zero.

Why I think there are more is that there isn't really a "Yuri" illustrator. There are popular IS exclusives and people on SS that dominate the top 50, but you don't hear about anyone much outside of that. That's a lot of gray area where people can earn a bunch of money.

Good agencies and marketing trump quantity and quality.

And here I thought I was number one with my new initiative of selling my stock art out of the back of a van. 

Well said that man.

Talk of taking revenue away from us may be true but in that case revenue will be taken away from agencies, which would be nothing but their own making. Let the top dogs work on keeping more of the income made from their images, rather than giving most of it to middle men. Only they have the possibility of influencing agencies behaviour, and their behaviour can only be changed if their pockets are hit. Maybe an outcome could be another round of commission cuts, but long term they may have to start thinking well how do we stop people from adding to the list of competitors, especially the people who could pose a threat. I really hope guys like Yuri can eventually cut into agencies revenues and help change the completely disproprotionate balance of power. Big agencies won't be happy with this development, but they are the cause and lets hope oneday they can see the effect.

I wouldn't hold my breath expecting the agencies to change. If you want change (for the better), you'll probably have to go out and make it happen.

Correct, the bias against  istock/getty on here is very strong.  It is so strong that people are cheering a "team" that is setting up a site if successful is going to take sales and money from the pockets of all the well wishers.   And the "team" doing this is confused as to why some people have "negative" opinions of their effort. Hello, Mcfly if you do not  like Getty because they take more of you money then you should not like this "team" effort that takes all of your money.  The market place is limited and if successful this site will vacuum up your dollars.  It makes no sense unless you work for or are related to this Team.

A lot happens outside of Getty. A lot happens outside of the big four. Stuff even happens that's not on the list to the right. Like it or not, the barrier to setting up new, personal or even niche sites is becoming easier every day. Expect to see more.

I submit mine, granted not all of them.  I don't do a lot of business there as I still have a relatively small port on that site.  But it doesn't hurt to try with them.

Do they take vector formats? I have to admit too; I didn't really understand them.

actually I dont know a person that don�t love photography

I don't love it. It's alright. 

While I agree 100%, don't they already pay us a pittance and get away with it?   It could only get worse.

LOL. That's what I was thinking. The competition thing hasn't worked out so great either.

Many believe Microstock is imploding and for SS management its a great time to exit.  In the end artists will always stay holding the bag because that is how the business model is structured. We don't make decisions we just accept or deny the terms of agreements.  

I don't know if the microstock can implode. The content and demand are still there. Some site will pick that up if another one dies. You just hope it's a better site.