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Messages - pet_chia
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26
« on: January 31, 2011, 16:13 »
I have some pictures which have stuffed toy animals used as props. Not the main subject, without text, labels, or trademarks - but shown clearly in the photo.
The toys are from a large, well known retailer and for all I know probably had "copyright" written on their tags (before they were cut off). But these are bland, boring, generic and cheap looking toys.
Looking through stock photo sites I see a lot of photos where the toy is not fully shown, not a main subject of the photo, and sometimes the toy looks homemade. Those are obviously OK. But there are many pictures which are a clear photo of a stuffed toy as the main subject, which is obviously commercially made. Maybe the contributor altered some of the details but how would the inspector know?
Is there any clear rule or guideline at any of the big stock sites on this subject? Or is it yet another ambiguous area like so called "classic" cars - where some photos are rejected, yet some photos are for sale with easily-recognizable classic models as the main subject, sometimes even with the brand name mentioned in the picture title and description. (just g00gle "chevrolet" at your favorite RF stock site if you don't believe me)
I wouldn't have taken the pictures for stock out of concern for rejection, but they were done as a favor for someone and they look so cute I would like to see if they fly. If I decide to submit them, I will alter some of the details but leave them alone otherwise.
28
« on: January 22, 2011, 15:06 »
...
Ive said it before: the sites that will survive and survive without having to hide under a bigger umbrella, are the sites that get their act together regarding all these tech-problems, most important, saving buyers from tons of irrelevant rubbish, making it a quick, effective and speedy search.
Plus one! Errr, I mean woo-yay, hearty agreement and all that. Remember all those other search engines you used before google? There's a reason why nearly everyone uses google now - they are quick, effective, honest and they eliminate a lot of rubbish. If google wanted to they could probably tweak images.google.com to search any or all stock agencies, and add filters and sorting options to the search such as size, price, age, number of downloads. No confusing crowns and "special collection" symbols. No mysterious and inscrutable bias in the ranking. Anyone who wanted to could actually create such a meta-agency themselves, and they could work out a deal with the stock agencies as to whether they wish to be included or not, e.g. for a percentage of sales originating from the meta-search engine. If it was a really good search tool and became popular with buyers then agencies would have to play ball with them.
29
« on: January 12, 2011, 20:15 »
They didn't realize they had sensual images on their site until you drew their attention to it with a support ticket? LOL.
30
« on: January 12, 2011, 18:07 »
Nice cartoon! A really mean editorial cartoon would have the puppeteer dude's back pocket stuffed with $$$ though.
(just saying)
31
« on: January 11, 2011, 23:32 »
I agree with Sadstock. Without access to company records (since they are no longer privately traded) there is no way to know for certain. But it is important to differentiate between revenue and profitability. Getty's traditional businesses were generating far more revenue than iStock, but they were also bleeding cash. iStock was the portion of the business which was making money. Obviously unsustainable.
Maybe that's the key ... instead of cutting fat to make the other divisions profitable, they were hoping that IS would pay the bills. But they found that although IS was very profitable, it would not be capable of carrying the other money-losing businesses on its back unless they lowered commissions and raised prices ... maybe that's what they meant by "sustainable". I couldn't find the original, infamous "unsustainable" quote just now when I looked for it ... does anyone else have it, or do they remember, was the wording used to justify the changes specifically that "istockphoto" was not sustainable, or did they use an undefined term like "it is not sustainable" which could either mean istockphoto or the parent company?
32
« on: January 11, 2011, 18:17 »
Can they not leave buyers alone, except to flag any sale for immediate ( < 5 minute ) human attention which is (for example) for more than 5 XXL or XXXL images within 1 hour, where the buyer's first purchase ever at IS was within 1 week of the time of sale? Then they can lock out just that customer, ask them for a confirmation email (answering specific questions such as name, address and web page of their business, etc.) compare the credit card billing address to the IP address, contact the credit card company, etc. If the scammers are forced to spread out their purchases over a longer period (the scammers, not the established customers) then it would greatly limit the number of fraudulent purchases that go through before the credit card # is found to be fake.
I assume that there are not dozens and dozens of accounts and credit cards being used so it would be well within their ability to pay a little overtime to IT people to monitor transactions around the clock and follow up on the suspicious cases as soon as possible. I know that fraud artists are clever and creative but there are only so many ways to commit online fraud and it shouldn't take all that long to come up with simple blocks that would catch most of the bad guys before they can do any significant damage and yet leave the legitimate revenue stream at least 99% intact.
When I hear that they have forbidden all purchases occurring within 5 minutes for all customers, or shutting out all new customer registrations, it kinda sounds like they're just phoning it in and trying to do the absolute minimum to block the fraudulent transactions without sufficient regard for maintaining their normal revenue stream.
33
« on: January 11, 2011, 16:15 »
...and the value of artist exclusivity seems to be rapidly declining.
I disagree, IS still seems to be propping up their exclusive program with a number of perks that might be interesting opportunities to independents. Higher priced files, Vetta, Getty, etc. Even Fotolia has perks for exclusives with their exclusives allowed to adjust prices. I wouldn't mind being able to use all those features.
Yes, but are customers going to prop up IS to allow them to continue to prop up their exclusive artists? I hope their exclusive perks are not coming at the expense of confusing and annoying customers. What I mean is, does the quality, uniqueness, searchability, size, format, price, packaging, etc. of the various flavors of "exclusive images" actually correspond to what customers think is good value for their money? If IS focus too much on making their agency attractive to their top contributors and not enough on making it attractive to customers then the perks won't be worthwhile. I'm not saying that they have definitely blundered because I really don't know. But to me, there are some signs that they may have blundered. For example the term "agency collection" is meaningless because IS is already an agency. How can an agency offer a collection of certain content called "agency collection" and offer another collection of content which is "NOT agency collection". They're both collections of content at an agency, therefore they're both agency collections. Do they really think that customers will know or care about the history which brought in this content through the back door, as it were, and not through normal uploading by individual contributors? Likewise the term "Vetta" is a made-up term which means nothing, except it is hinting that the content it contains is "vetted". Do customers need someone to vet ("to examine, investigate, or evaluate in a thorough or expert way") imagery or would they rather have a decent search engine to help them do it themselves? Even if customers prefer to search only within vetted imagery, there was an indication that some artists are hedging their bets by putting SOME images in a series into the high-priced collection but leaving other, nearly identical images in the regular-priced ordinary collection. It is understandable for an artist to want to do this, not wanting to take a chance on killing their sales to the low-priced market, but to a customer it is completely silly to have practically identical content for sale at the same web site for vastly different prices. Companies always need to have some people working on employee recruiting and retention, but by far the largest focus has to be on customers ... otherwise their won't be enough ca$h to recruit and retain anybody.
34
« on: January 11, 2011, 15:13 »
thanks for the replies. I remember they said it wouldn't happen. but they have gone back on other promises and statements--so logically I'm just not going to put a lot of stock in statements and promises anymore. as was already said, I feel like the opportunity to go all--exclusive has come and gone. but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they did that. despite being exclusive, I think it would be a huge mistake. and I agree Lisa, that it would simply shift the divide across exclusive lines instead of the obvious line between exclusivity and independence.
I really wish iStock would go the way of image exclusivity like other agents rather than artist exclusivity. it used to seem that exclusivity would maintain demand for files not available elsewhere. but now that they're slinging our wares haphazardly across multiple sites and markets, and seeing some of the Agency contributors with flexible exclusivity--it's like there's a big piece of sand under my crown. the more I rub it, the worse it feels. it really bothers me that some artists have flexible exclusivity. makes me wonder where we're headed. seems they want to bring everything exclusively under the Getty umbrella. they don't seem to realize the umbrella's inside out right now.
I agree. Customers may want "exclusive imagery" but do they put any value on "exclusive artists" ? Other than maybe a handful of artists with very unique, specialized and distinctive imagery I doubt it very much. Are my pictures of professionals in business settings more desirable to a customer if they know that I don't have animal photos for sale at another website?
35
« on: January 10, 2011, 15:30 »
I'm really upset about this! It is 2pm on Monday and still no word about how HQ is handling this situation. Just checking my sales for Saturday, I made as much as a weekday, and nearly all are fraudulent purchases.
Like Joanne and Sean, my stolen images were construction related too. Looks like someone is putting together a CD of building themed images. If Istock doesn't manage to stop this from happening soon, they will most likely choose another subject next.
Gostwyck makes a great point - this happened for only a brief time at BigStock and was handled quickly and effectively, while we were kept informed. I am troubled that thieves seem to feel Istock is such an open and unprotected target. Also very troubling is that there has been no response to contributors concerning this massive theft of our property!
Maybe IS has been "asking for it" by pushing their expensive imagery on their website as a kind of tempting bait for anyone who has a fraudulent credit card and a sales outlet where they can unload DVDs of pirated stuff for $1 per. This sales policy has evidently been a discouragement to their legitimate customers and an encouragement for thieves. Long ago when I was in a developing country's capital city I visited the area which was notorious for selling pirated warez, just for chuckles. It was the extremely expensive software packages created by Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, etc. that were being pushed on the street, not the modestly priced stuff. Likewise, it's the outrageously priced Gucci stuff that's a magnet for knock-off competitors, not the stuff they sell in Walmart and Sears. As for detecting fraudulent purchases ... you'd think that it would be easy to let any through anything by an established customer, optionally tagging it for later attention if it's at a suspiciously high volume or price tag. But anything high-volume or very expensive purchased by a NEW customer should get stalled, e.g. with an innocuous response, like, "we're sorry but this purchase has been momentarily delayed, you will be notified as soon as your file(s) are available for download." Also, you'd think by now that there would be some kind of pattern in location of the IP addresses from which fraudulent purchases are being made. If the IP address is from an out-of-the-way country but the billing address corresponding to the credit card is somewhere else then that should be another red flag. I don't see any reason why really simple scripts like this cannot be written in a few minutes, then the IT people work shifts to monitor the buying activity and jump all over any alarms that are triggered by their scripts. After all its only their livelihood that's at stake here, LOL.
36
« on: January 05, 2011, 21:20 »
I was despairing of IS customers ever coming back to the site, then I had possibly my BDE today ... about 5 days of downloads at once. Looks like the customers finally got over their hangovers.
37
« on: January 04, 2011, 20:47 »
38
« on: January 04, 2011, 16:40 »
I haven't done it for a while, but in the past when I would try various searches to look for my files using the CV terms, I was frequently stymied and it was difficult to find them - not necessarily because of bugs but possibly because of oddities in the way CV are parsed or indexed. I really don't know what to make of it, but I will point out that I could easily find the images I had failed to find IS, by doing a google of the IS site using the same words.
I tried it just now and google is beautiful - I found thumbnails of my images using both the title and some of the keywords. From the customers' point of view, it would be a great thing if either google was to buy IS, or else if IS could somehow incorporate google search engine into their site. It would make it difficult to skew the search algorithm toward certain contributors or expensive content however.
39
« on: January 04, 2011, 13:39 »
It's 2011 now and the royalty changes that were introduced back in September will be implemented this month. There will be news about this implementation and the 2010 redeemed credit targets before it is rolled out. I realize that is pretty vague but will have more concrete news this week. Am I to understand that the highest levels of management and ownership put their heads together sometime last summer and decided to do a major overhaul of the commissions in the interest of the long-term health of the company ... made an announcement to the affected parties at least 4 full months before it was to take effect ... but they're only now after all that time elapsed, getting around to thinking about exactly when and how they are going to implement it? Yeah it sounds kind of vague.
40
« on: January 04, 2011, 11:22 »
pls correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that I have received a single email update from IS over the last few weeks with any kind of useful or reassuring email about the credit card fraud, the commission changes, price changes, or any other substantive business issue. I'm basically aware of what's going on because of checking forums (especially this one) but it seems odd to me that a company wouldn't put a bit more effort into letting their contributors know what's going on. Why bother to ever send out any newsletters or other communications by email if you don't bother to do it when really important stuff is happening?
There were some rumors and speculation of a sale of this company ... it did remind me of an experience I had a decade or so ago. I was working for a company in another field. It was rumored that the company was for sale, in fact it was eventually acknowledged that a buyer had to be found. Management however gave everyone the impression that this would not happen for some time, that there was a great deal of shopping around for buyers to be done, and that don't worry we're going to take our time and do this right. We found out much later that this was all a pile of B.S. The takeover deal was already signed and sealed in secret - at around the same moment that they pretended that the search for a buyer was just beginning. Their hints about looking at multiple possible buyers, there being a bidding war, etc. were all lies. There was only ever one buyer, there was never any other bid, and it was locked up almost before anyone even knew there would even be a sale. When we - the grunts and ordinary shareholders - learned all of these secrets a year or more later, after the most gut-wrenching chaos that we had ever experienced on the job, it suddenly explained a LOT of what we had seen. Like bizarre decisions, actions and statements by management that made no sense given that they were supposedly conducting business as normal while they were calmly looking for a partner for a takeover or merger. All I'm saying is, if the rumors of a sale of IS/Getty are true then it's possible it's already been signed and that management is basically just running out the clock trying to keep a lid on things and put out fires but not really taking action with a view to long-term plans (such as shaking up the IT department) because they're probably not going to be in a position to finish any such plans.
If you're still with me then I'll share any another brief nugget of advice that my elderly uncle gave me when I was just a young pup starting out in the corporate world and he was a grizzled veteran of 40 years of corporate shenanigans. He said, "Look, at some point in your career your company is going to be sold. They're going to reassure everyone that, don't worry, nothing is going to change, only the sign on the outside will be different and everything else will be left alone. That is always a lie." Based on my limited experience, he was correct.
41
« on: January 03, 2011, 11:05 »
Another one for the list ... the "Newly Approved Files and Recent Sales Not Showing Up Fiasco".
I say 'newly approved' and 'recent sales' but it's more like two weeks now. Because the sales aren't showing either it means that newish images which are actually showing are not getting the best match boost their early sales deserve. I've got images uploaded from 17th Dec that were approved ages ago but are still not showing. Pathetic. Is this the service that we are paying up to 85% commission for?
In contrast images that I uploaded to SS yesterday are already available to the search and are selling.
Sales not showing? You mean, someone might have recent sales but they haven't shown up in either the DLs column or in the $ balance? My files uploaded/approved around the middle of December did start showing up in the search/lightbox after a week or so and I had sales right up to and including Xmas day and for a couple of days afterwards, but there have been zero sales reported for the last 5 days.
42
« on: December 30, 2010, 22:50 »
This appears to be a workaround Istock implemented to discourage fraudulent buying. Of course, it also discourages legitimate buying. Here's another happy customer 
It's been a very frustrating 2 days for me. I finally figured out what the 404 error is for buying stock. They are allowing you to buy/download one photo every 5 minutes. I saved everything I needed to a lightbox and then sat at my computer for 3 hours to download the 40 pix I needed today. Download one, start timer, wait 5 minutes, download the next, start timer, wait 5 minutes. For 3 hours. If you try to download faster than one per 5 minutes, you get the 404 error. I stumbled upon the "workaround" by accident after pulling my hair out for 2 days.
This makes me angry. Did any of them actually think about what they were doing, or check any logs of legitimate transactions, to see whether buying two images in less than 5 minutes is actually an indicator of suspicious activity? Or did someone just throw this "fix" onto the server and then go back on xmas vacation? Did it ever to occur to anyone at IS that buying a lot of images isn't a sign of theft, but buying a ton of XXXL images is a possible sign of theft ... when ... wait for it ... IT'S A BRAND NEW CUSTOMER. Did they analyze any logs before they did this? Did they stand by checking the transaction logs, reading emails and answering the phone for a good 8-12 hours after they implemented this fix, to find out whether they had inadvertently killed their business? For example, doing a search in the logs for "customers who have been buying for more than 1 year who have been rejected more than twice because of the 5-minute rule." If they did not do any of those things then they need to shake up their management, pronto.
43
« on: December 17, 2010, 11:02 »
...
It all fit a pump and dump theory until this search fiasco. This is actually taking away from their 2010 bottom line by hosing potential sales right at the end of the year. Seems counterproductive...announce a Vetta sale and then hose the search mechanism. 
It could have been a collision between 2 different pump and dump strategies - (1) cut overhead by reducing or capping money spent on IT - (2) fiddle with software to enhance sales of premium products. Imagine that a 5 and dime store wants to introduce a new line of expensive, premium products in order to pump up revenues for a quick sale. But they also want to cut expenses so they send their clerk to stock the shelves and put price tags on the goods with a shaky, old chair instead of a ladder. The chair collapses and the shelves come crashing down, right in the holiday season when they were hoping to make most of their money for the year. Just speculating.
44
« on: December 16, 2010, 20:21 »
My impression is that IS's success was based on (a) crowd sourcing (b) low prices, (c) simple and easy to use for customers. These basic factors are a large part of the success of other new companies like Amazon and Ebay. It's a winning formula.
Getty acquired it because they were impressed as heck with the financial results of this model. But they must have never bothered to try to understand the pillars of its success, because they're trying as hard as they can to make it (a) elitist, (b) high priced, (c) confusing and unreliable for customers.
Maybe it's not deliberate sabotage, but it does sometimes seem like they're being willfully ignorant and careless with their prize.
An alternative theory may also be valid - that the high-ups know exactly what they're doing, namely, pump and dump. Pump up the financials by the maximum amount into the shortest possible period of time so they can dump their shares in the company for as much money as possible. This is a variant of Greater Fool theory - that you can escape the consequences of bad business decisions as long as you can find someone dumber than you who will take your mistakes off your hands for a juicy price.
45
« on: December 16, 2010, 13:28 »
Just wondering ... if they want to sell editorial content which is far more time-sensitive than generic stock images, won't they have to make indexing and lightbox links come up faster? A multi-day delay like this would pretty much kill whatever business they were hoping to get from newsworthy photos.
Time sensitive "editorial" is not what they are interested in, if you read the announcement.
OK ... so I'm not going to get a big speedup of indexing etc. when I'm late uploading seasonal stock images 
46
« on: December 16, 2010, 13:11 »
Images since Saturday will be available in searches soon."
This is, surprise surprise, BS. Images are still not in portfolios after 4 or 5 days, anyone with any sense will deactivate recent uploads because the tech team at IS basically don't know their ass from their elbow.
Just wondering ... if they want to sell editorial content which is far more time-sensitive than generic stock images, won't they have to make indexing and lightbox links come up faster? A multi-day delay like this would pretty much kill whatever business they were hoping to get from newsworthy photos.
47
« on: December 15, 2010, 19:11 »
Zach Arias' recipe works pretty well for me, from small objects to full-length group people-shots. Briefly, the formula is, use 1 or (preferably) 2 strobes on the white background with measured exposure of around f/11 for the background. Position bifold doors to block background light from getting on the subject. Use a large softbox in front of the subject plus whatever reflectors and hairlights you want, with an exposure of about f/8. Position the subject on a shiny, white tileboard (sold at hardware stores for around $10-70 depending on finish and durability).
But I nearly always have to use PS to whiten the lower regions where (depending on angle and shadows) the tileboard is slightly less than pure white. Cranking up the background lights will help whiten this, but it tends to create too much wrap-around light on the subject, not to mention more color fringes on the subject's edges. If I had more room and a longer lens (around 100mm) then possibly I could get a nicer, white reflection off the tileboard by having it at a lower angle which would reflect the white background better.
I get nearly 100% acceptance with this setup, for nearly all subjects - except food shots which don't look very appetizing in this light.
Getting large, outdoor objects accepted which have mostly-photoshop isolation is hit and miss with the inspectors. There is always "something" that doesn't look right that they can criticize. One of the problems is that not having an actual white background when you shot it, the subject tends to reflect (or refract) the color and brightness of whatever is behind it. For example a rope holding up a tent will look green where it has grass behind it, but will look blue if a blue tent is behind it. When isolated the rope will look multi-colored or will be fat or thin depending on how bright the background. That is evidently why Dorling-Kindersley brings assistants with long poles and white background sheets when they go out shooting stuff, according to a video I saw years ago which had some "behind the scenes" action.
48
« on: December 15, 2010, 18:38 »
...
The actual issue however is whether IS has what you would consider adequately fast computers and software to complete the keyword indexing and lightbox links for images after they have been approved and are otherwise retrievable.
As long as everyone's content is equally available within a day or two (which is better than at some points prior), I'm happy with that. I don't know the ins and outs of indexing across multiple servers and such to say it is a trivial thing to do it instantly.
I'm not an expert on this particular field either, though I believe that improvements are possible. But if they're already as good as or better than their microstock competitors then they might not feel that improving this is worth the expense. On the plus side, reviews of my seasonal content have been blazingly fast for the last few days.
49
« on: December 15, 2010, 17:10 »
...
Sorry, at this point, it's your fault for not getting them up in time. I stopped uploading holiday stuff a couple weeks ago.
The actual issue however is whether IS has what you would consider adequately fast computers and software to complete the keyword indexing and lightbox links for images after they have been approved and are otherwise retrievable.
Note RM's explanation copied above.
I repeat: Thanks for that. But even when they aren't churning up their servers with updates it takes at least an extra day or two after file approval for it to appear in searches, no?
And if it takes a day or two under normal circumstances to make images available for searches and in lightboxes, is that acceptable, or do you think that more effort should be expended to speed this up? Given the technology that is available and the apparent success of search engines like Google to quickly index a far greater number of objects with far more keywords involved.
50
« on: December 15, 2010, 16:27 »
...
Sorry, at this point, it's your fault for not getting them up in time. I stopped uploading holiday stuff a couple weeks ago.
The actual issue however is whether IS has what you would consider adequately fast computers and software to complete the keyword indexing and lightbox links for images after they have been approved and are otherwise retrievable.
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