Thank you for the explanation and script @kjekol!

Stacey, my file locations have changed too, but the file names haven't. All I used to do was have a pending area where I'd move files to and add to DM from there. After upload/accept I'd put them into folders by year. In my case, I can probably just move big batches of files from the yearly catalogs back into the pending area DM knows about. Still considering which is faster, doing that semi-automated or just cherry picking the best files and copy and pasting from DM manually.

I think it's already be said here, but in case anyone missed it (like I did at first), you can easily copy the keywords from one file in DM by clicking the file in the list view and hitting ctl-C or right click and copy. I don't know of a way to select keywords once looking at the file close-up details in DM but from the list view, it works fine.

It's been suggested a fair bit, especially recently, and I didn't miss the opportunity to mention it in the survey.  But it would be interesting to get views on it here.

I even brought it up to a manager at HQ during a recent phone call. I made the tough decision and dropped exclusivity. I might have enjoyed and appreciated an opportunity to leave some Vetta and Agency files with iStock, particularly ones that had a record of selling well. It does seem, on the surface, like image exclusivity could be beneficial to both iStock and contributors. It's also easy to implement with a simple change to the ASA, no programming required.

My take away from the call, was that iStock HQ is severly limited in what they can do, and even by what they can know, from upstream Getty-Carlyle. There are probably good people left at iStock who aren't empowered to make positive moves for contributors, even when it seems it could benefit iStock too.

I've come to the conclusion that these suggestions we try/tried to make are mostly just wishful thinking. It's really hard to wrap your head around the fact that it's still called iStock but it's not actually the iStock you knew. Trying to get into the habit of referring to it as "Getty" or "iStock-Getty" helps, but it's still easy fall back into thinking of it as the place you originally signed up.

Reading here gives the impression that a lot of exclusives feel trapped; it's hard for them to leave because it's tough to cover the income gap to pay bills and feed their families. So while image exclusivity might benefit iStock-Getty in the short term (by continuing higher price points for sales of exclusive images of former exclusive artists), in the long term it could hurt them be enabling more exclusives to go independent. It would create a lot of good will, but they don't count that in their bottom line.

Quote from: BrianM on March 20, 2013, 14:01

Here are two good resources on HFCS -
http://sweetsurprise.com/   (Debunks some of the confusion around HFCS)

LOL!  Sweetsurprise.com.  The official website for the corn sweetener industry.  Classic.  I'm sure your PHD wife will tell you that you have to look beyond industry funded websites for accurate info.  (Incidentally, does your wife work for the corn refiners industry, or is she associated with it?) 

She doesn't tell me that at all Lisa. In fact, she says forget the source, DISPUTE THE SCIENCE! I agree, a corn lobby funded site will pull the most supportive links together, but they are, in fact, referencing high quality sources like the CDC, American Diabetes Association, the American Medical Association, etc. If you read their FAQs, they link to a lot of very good data from sources that are not biased.

One that jumped out at me was the graph in the FAQ question "Does High Fructose Corn Syrup Cause Diabetes?" It shows consumption of sugar and HFCS has grown from 70 pounds per year in 1970 to 90 pounds per year in 2000. 90 pounds of sugar and corn syrup per person per year! That is not a healthy diet and that's probably part of the obesity problem (combined with less exercise.) The same graph shows obesity and diabetes rates. The diabetes trend on the graph appears to grow, with some lag, somewhat similarly to the total sweetener consumption (sugar + HFSC). The diabetes trend line does not mirror HFCS alone very well.

My wife doesn't work for corn refiners at all, nor does she specialize in nutrition or HFCS. She's just one hell of a scientist, very smart, great at interpreting data, and views things impersonally to let facts shape her decisions. She works in food safety, improving supply chains to keep populations safer from outbreaks. But, I get it, food scientists are evil.  :-/

I can tell you, we try to eat very healthy. Lots of fruits and vegetables and we're members of our local CSA in the summertime. We try to instill good eating habits in our young daughter. At the same time, aware of the hubbub around HFCS, it's just not a concern in our household. We try to limit junk food without much care for whether it's sugar based or HFCS based.

The first two links you provided talked a lot about fructose consumption, less specifically about HFCS. Fructose is in fruit and in table sugar. I don't think it's disputed that diets loaded with sugar are unhealthy or likely to lead to obesity which leads to diabetes. What is harder to find would be a study that says you can eat all the sugar you want, as long as you avoid HFCS, and you'll be thin and a picture of health.

I've got bigger "fish to fry"   back to stock work...

You need to do more research Brian.

My wife is a PhD food scientist. I have direct access to an expert. 

As a layman, I want to get on the anti-HFCS bandwagon, but I never find any good, peer reviewed journal articles or experiments that convict HFCS.

There's a desire to want to find a "culprit" and I just don't think the answer is that simple. I do see a majority of people consuming more processed food than 30 years ago and leading more sedentary lifestyles. Packaged servings sizes and restaurant portions are always getting bigger too. ("King size" candy bars, etc. and remember when 16 oz sodas looked big at the convience store? But now they are 20 or 24oz? Cokes use to be 8oz way back and then 12 oz cans for a long time.) Processed food aims to be cheap, not necessarily healthful, so a diet primarily of them is likely less healthy than one centered around fresh fruits and vegetables.

The glucose and sucrose molecules in sugar are bonded together.

This is wrong. Sucrose is glucose and fructose bonded together. Glucose is never bonded to sucrose.

In a related phenomenon, when you overeat sugar, your body stores it in the top layers of fat, under the skin, for quick short term energy usage. When you eat HFCS it is stored in the long term fat storage under your abdominal muscle walls.

That is sounding really fringe. Your body doesn't look at the ingredients you ingest and file it into different locations. Any excess calories are converted into fat. It doesn't matter if they are excess calories from eating too much fruit, too many egg yolks, or too much HFCS. You need a certain amount of calories to supply your energy needs. Less than that and you loose weight. More than that, you store fat. This isn't to say that good nutrition isn't very important. You need to eat well to supply vitamins and nutrients your body needs as building blocks. But, from a fat storage point of view, it's just about calories.

If you want to further educate yourself about this, I can ask my husband to provide the resources he used when studying HFCS. 

I would enjoy seeing quality scientific resources, please post or PM me.

Here are two good resources on HFCS -
http://sweetsurprise.com/   (Debunks some of the confusion around HFCS)

"Sugar, The Bitter Truth"

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

In the latter, Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, essentially points the finger at all sugary foods and says there's nothing special about HFCS.

I enjoy Twinkies on rare occasions! But usually only after a 50 mile bike ride or at the end of a century. After burning 5000 calories in full day workout, I feel fine about throwing some junk food in to make up that deficit! 

Hi Leaf,
I read here a lot, but don't write often.

For some reason, I don't see a way to vote on posts. I am sure my vote privs were never revoked, maybe I haven't posted enough to be able to vote yet?

I would get behind a push to GL if it comes to that. A critical mass of heavy hitters moving to a site with a fair royalty, clean interface, and streamlined upload process could be a winning ticket. Designers would like more of their purchase price to go to photographers rather than a middleman, especially Getty who has rubbed them the wrong way for some time.

With a presence around the world, and social media to help get the word out (and keep the word circulating), it has lots of potential. We are legion

To break something they have to release new code.

Not true. Servers can be flaky, especially with distributed systems, huge databases, NAS, SAN, and perhaps overloaded or flakey network gear tying it all together.

It seems sales are all calculated by a base royalty rate plus offset. When the RC level lookup fails, because the database that has that table is offline or unreachable, the offset is considered zero. That shouldn't be a possible failure mode.

Would be nice of the base royalty was instead the max (45% exclusive, 21% non-ex) and the RC based offsets were negative, that way when the lookup failed and returned zero, contributors would get paid the max royalty.

Contributors would pocket the difference on each bug affected sale, but iStock would save in not having to spend weeks manually calculating the differences and manually adding funds back to every contributor's account that had a sale. The bug would bother contributors less if it was a temporary error in their favor.