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Messages - Mellimage
Pages: 1 ... 5 6 7 8 9 [10] 11 12 13 14 15 ... 19
226
« on: November 08, 2011, 22:10 »
I received the book and read it, it is good, and a review will be forthcoming. Meanwhile I got something else to brag about, though it has nothing to do with photography: I finished writing my own book aka doctoral dissertation and just successfully defended it. You could, if you wanted to, call me Dr. Melli now. 
227
« on: October 21, 2011, 02:18 »
228
« on: October 08, 2011, 03:15 »
I often listen to instrumental music for editing, mainly post-rock.
A personal favorite (band and song) is this one:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDhsDoqXns[/youtube]
229
« on: October 07, 2011, 07:52 »
based on all responses here and my own sales, looks like you are taking away everyone elses sales, Christian.
230
« on: October 01, 2011, 03:27 »
For the first time in YEARS - Fotolia was not my best earner, but Shutterstock was it. RPD on Fotolia was also only slightly higher than on SS. DT was ok, so was 123rf.
Istock - well, I disabled my portfolio there, so I maybe made 5$ there.
going to see how my earnings develop the next months with only supplying to 4 agencies.
231
« on: September 28, 2011, 13:23 »
It's official. I got my last image off the site last night.
Can I get a Wooyay!?!? 
I am out there too ... disabled my last image there last night. Had a buyer's request for reactivation of one of my images a few days ago... .
232
« on: September 26, 2011, 15:19 »
so, there is only one image left as of now in my istock port - everything else disabled. The last one will go down tomorrow.
233
« on: September 25, 2011, 03:23 »
@Mellimages,
I agree.
Problem with an agency giving incentives is that the plan doesn't really work in real life. While happily taking bonuses / incentives from more generous sites, photographers do not stop uploading to the lower paying ones. They want it all. Every single cent, from every single site.
It's not about money, or necessity. This is about greed.
Seriously, if this was about principle and making a statement against the race to the bottom), the phrases used by Fotolia would not be so arbitrary. They however will do it on a case by case base - so big shots could distribute and destroy the market, while others - not so big ones will be punished for trying to make up for losses incurred by FTs frequent comission cuts. And this is also about FTs greed otherwise they'd not have changed the rules about files that do not sell well being reduced to minimum price - which is going to hurt exclusive images and photographers as well. And with newly uploaded images being burried right from the start, the chance that a higher priced exclusive image is taking off - is small. And if this is all about TS vs. Fotolia then both sides might be better off looking at the politics example of the cold war - USSR vs US - one already collapsed, the other - well is gonna be bought of by a third party sooner or later... . In any case there is a laughing third party. (And I know, this analogy is a bit on the lame side).
234
« on: September 24, 2011, 16:12 »
8 pages of countless posts and I am going to be the only one who actually agrees with this new policy from Fotolia.
Not only that I agree, but I would also love, love Shutterstock and Dreamstime to follow suit.
In my opinion this is not about some unknown 'offending' agencies out there.
This is clearly about IStock (driving everyone down, again!) and forcing independents to submit to ThinkStock.
While it might be a good and generally positive thing to do (I see and agree with your point about stopping the race to the bottom - this race to the bottom is exactly why I am about to leave Istock, I do not want to give Istock any further power to offer my images cheaper than they are already offered at on other agencies) - I dislike the way Fotolia is doing it - the only strategy they know is to punish their contributors and piss them off when they should (once in a while) try to provide incentives to photographers to submit to them, to stay with them - but with two commission cuts within a year and now the thread of being dropped in rank - the tone has turned nasty, patronizing. And I think the strategy carried out this way is gonna backfire - contributors who are fed up with FTs and ISs behavior may prefer to send images first to other better paying, more contributor friendly images (even if that is only based on perception). Those who will be dropped to white have no incentive to stop their behavior really - quite contrary they may be looking to further dillute ports to make up loss of income. So by pissing contributors off with this kind of behavior, they may be shooting themselves in the foot. Just my 2cents.
235
« on: September 24, 2011, 03:50 »
And now you also know how FT spents our royalities - not for marketing, not for improving the site - no to pay someone who snoops after contributors to see where they sell and for how much they sell their images elsewhere. (At least this is what it feels like to me - and I am quite p*ssed at the moment).
236
« on: September 24, 2011, 02:40 »
Well, when you guys get to the microstockexpo: http://www.microstockexpo.com/speakers you can ask "Oleg Tscheltzoff, Founder & CEO, Fotolia" why it's a good idea to screw over contributors who have built their business.
and while at it - ask the Platinum sponsor too - Istock.
237
« on: September 22, 2011, 07:01 »
Once I receive the book I plan to do a review of it on it and post it on my blog. Maybe that helps you in the decision making. 
238
« on: September 22, 2011, 02:35 »
If I have to choose between defending my Ph.D. around that time and the Microstock Expo, I am afraid it will be my Ph.D.
Well, definitely not going to the Expo - will indeed defend my Ph.D. around that time.
239
« on: September 22, 2011, 02:25 »
Thanks, Lisa. It was really delicious. I often make it with a raspberry covering (pureed and put through a sieve) instead of strawberries, but I wanted to enjoy the last strawberries of the season this way.
240
« on: September 18, 2011, 15:01 »
Thank you, I am sure they will. Especially since I have almost twice as many images elsewhere anyways as I had stopped uploading after the commission cut last year.
241
« on: September 17, 2011, 16:22 »
Well, I deactivated half of my portfolio.
243
« on: September 17, 2011, 04:34 »
If I would have stayed in the government health insurance me and my wife (she is also working) would probably have to pay $1400 a month here in Germany. So I decided to go privately and we are down to around $900 together. But at least the coverage is pretty good. It is amazing how expensive insurance is if you are are self-employed.
We can of course throw out numbers like this - which ignores that health insurance amounts for government subsidiced insurance if you are employed is tied to the height of your income, so 1400$ for two may sound outrageously high, but it is at 15.5 percent out of your paycheck (I for instance pay about 150 a month or 1800 per year). Only "high earners-" who are employed, civic servants or self-employed have (to my knowledge) the option to shop for private insurance in Germany. Oh, and my health insurance payments are (partially) tax-deductible.
244
« on: September 09, 2011, 05:00 »
I immediately said I would leave completely. Now I am toying with the idea of leaving only the old dregs of my point and shoot days and removing all else. As other have noted, after making considerable stink on their forums over the years, if I close my account completely, I'll likely never get in again, if things ever turn around.
I think I am leaning towards that way too by now.
245
« on: September 01, 2011, 15:48 »
On the poll I voted that I'd pull the port. Truth is I am not 100% sure, but still leaning towards pulling. I will admit, I am an extremely small fish - I stopped uploading 1.5 years ago, and my earnings dropped since March to - well - very low. A small bag of groceries can be bought from it.
Someone argued elsewhere that all this does is adding some more selling outlets for everyone. Maybe I could recover my losses again - maybe they'd be sold in the other outlets?
However I am getting queezy. To me this is not just another partner programm thing I have to join (after all, FT does not let me opt out - so what's my worry?).
With FT (and correct me if I am wrong) I am paid based on FT commission structure (haven't seen any evidence of that being different). With this PP I'd be paid based on the PP'site's commission structure. With FT every PP sale counts toward my rank, with the PP on IS it won't count towards my RC - effectively locking me in at 15% comission starting next year (and most likely driving down my RPD even further). I also expect this move will drive buyers more towards the lower priced collections (where I expect most of my stuff to be "mirrored" - since it is not unique to IS anyways and they seem to push a strategy to drive away market share from the other agencies). Another difference is with FT the partner sites are independent sites - independent of FT. With IS - PP profits remain in the Getty family, hence strengthening Getty to further dominate the market with those shares. The more Getty dominates the more it makes the rules - for buyers but specifically for contributors and I do not expect them to get better. The more Getty dominates the market, the more competitors may want to undercut what Getty has (which may increasingly become difficult) - on the backs of the contribs. Only sensible way for me to not help this nonsense is to pull at least all selling files from IS. But maybe I have it all wrong???
(Of course, since I am a "bag of groceries earner", maybe I do not even have the right to speak.)
246
« on: September 01, 2011, 02:37 »
If I rank them by Earnings solely the ranking would be:
FT (roughly 30% of my income, If adjusted for currency value differences between Euro and $ it is higher)
SS
DT
IS
123rf
FT and SS being quite close
If I rank them by RPD it is:
DT (RPD is 40% higher than at IS)
IS
123rf
FT (If adjusted for currency value differences between Euro and $ then FT ranks 2nd)
SS
Have not calculated RPI's as of yet.
247
« on: August 31, 2011, 00:42 »
Ideally, to buyers, Getty would position the Getty "family" as a one-stop-shop for all images of all licensing types. To do this they need keep independant images but offer them in a way that looks more attractive than the competition. For indy files maybe that means lower prices or more licensing options (IS micro, TS/Photos.com subscription, etc). In other words "hey buyers, look, we have exclusive images plus most of the images offered elsehwere at a lower price! Why go anywhere else?"
To me, this is exactly what new the ASA means - and it is going to hurt independent contributors the msot.
248
« on: August 30, 2011, 13:25 »
Hmm, but they sure make non-exclusivity more and more unattractive - I am afraid independents will be (with few exceptions) moved to the lowest priced tiers. Which may decrease their income, but also draw away customers from the competing agencies. Do I see this wrong?
I see it as you see it. It doesn't make sense, that's for sure. I think they will milk everything they can from indies for as long as they possibly can, then will institute an "exclusive or leave" policy (once they get all their other ducks in a row, like dumping new collections and whatever they need into IS, etc.) So far, they have proceeded to do all the things that I thought, and that many others here have thought they would do. It's not mind-reading, for sure. Just the writing on the wall.
If this is what they do - then answer of independents might be the half-assed one: withdraw your bestsellers (so customers find them at the agencies where they have to pay higher prices (?) and where you earn higher comissions. Leave Istock with the rest. I think this because if indy contributions end up in low priced collections, they are undercutting the prices of the competition. So you won't see your images sell there (or less and less so), and earn less comission over at Istock. At the same point Istock/Getty is increasing the uniqueness of its agency by adding more and more exclusive content customers cannot get elsewhere. And customers will maybe just buy in one place, sort by price for what they want.... . Again, correct me if my thinking is wrong.
249
« on: August 30, 2011, 12:56 »
If Istock insisted on exclusivity they could lose up to 70% of their library (on which they are probably paying an average commission of about 17%) and a great deal of the revenue that those images generate. Such an act would be the greatest gift possible to their competitors, a gift that would no doubt 'keep on giving', and would relegate Istock to a second-tier agency. It ain't going to happen so stop scaremongering with such ridiculous nonsense.
Hmm, but they sure make non-exclusivity more and more unattractive - I am afraid independents will be (with few exceptions) moved to the lowest priced tiers. Which may decrease their income, but also draw away customers from the competing agencies. Do I see this wrong?
250
« on: August 30, 2011, 11:25 »
Getty have NO option but to sooner or later enforce a 100% exclusivity, its their ticket to survival, simply because for every exclusive gained its another agencies loss. Thats why. Make no misstake, they are not stupid, they know that among independants, there are just as good, sometimes even better artists who are supplying a whole string of competitors. Getty cant live nor in the long run survive this predicament, its an infamnia and a thorn.
So, whats the answer? well since most independants wont come over freely, they will force us, like with this new contract and the RM contract, etc and as Lisa said, how can you give up 35% of your earnings? well its impossible, isnt it? so we either put up or shutup.
I am afraid I see it like lagereek. I see IS/Getty will force the decision. They have been advertising of exclusiveness first - and most strongly - and only one model of exclusivity - that of artist exclusivity, not image exclusivity. Latest since last year I see them as driving out non-exclusives - be it through the royalities they receive, the collections they can place their images in or the placement of their images in the search. This will only get worse. And all who remain non-exclusive will see their images in the lowest priced/valued collections (with very few exceptions). I hope I am wrong on that.
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