I'm assuming Yuri has been contacted about this. If anyone else has images being used by Adobe, they should also contact Apple since this app is only distributed via itunes. If unauthorized images are being used they might suspend the app.

Quote from: tickstock on April 28, 2014, 12:32

With GI sales just added in March was up about 20% on last year.

For me ($):

March 2014 GI + iS was slightly up on March 2013 GI + iS
Feb 2014 GI+ iS was slightly up on Feb 2013 GI + iS
Jan 2014 GI + iS was very slightly down on Jan 2013 GI + iS

April 2014 iS only is slightly up on April 2013 iS only. And only 2c different from March 2014 iS only. April GI is not in yet.

So far this year is very slightly up on this time last year. But by such a small amount as to be statistically insignificant. It seems remarkable stable - given the growth of the collection, the dreadful economic conditions and the increasing competition from free content and social media. Hope I haven't jinxed it

Unfortunately both of you are using a false metric. I see this all the time in the monthly sales threads. "As an exclusive my istock income is down but with Getty Images, I'm up by 10% so Whooyay for this month!!" If you're an istock exclusive, then the only sales that are important are from istock only, since it is these sales that total up your RC for next years percentage earnings. Since Getty Images sales don't apply RC to your yearly totals, you're actually loosing money with each Getty Image sale - that lost RC will come at a price. Not to mention you only get a 20% royalty (and Getty gets 80% of a high priced image). Doesn't sound so good now, does it?

My sales? Awful. I haven't seen lower downloads then when I first started in 2007. My new images have no views whatsoever, if I'm only expecting one or two views per year, then I might as well pull all my portfolio and go 100% independent, I'll make more per image percentage wise, and I trust me. It painfully obvious now that the official PR from istock regarding images views is mostly nonsense. The real reason is the customers are no longer there anymore, they've all left for greener pastures leaving behind their RC empty accounts. There are huge flaws in the business model and in the website, and they are fatal. I recently purchased some images off of istock for a golfer's website. After searching, I had to go and click on the thumbnails to find out prices and if they were from istock exclusives. (No Getty for me, thanks) Some of the images I had chosen were above and beyond my budget (Vetta) and other were of sizes I couldn't use. Imagine going to a grocery store only to find there are no prices on anything. You had to check out the items (click on them) to find out the prices. Can of peas? "Oh, that's $2." Can of mushroom soup? "Oh, that's premium, it's $120." Imagine going to that store every day to search for items. (Like an art director going to istock) It's so frustrating, it's easy to give up and go somewhere else for images. And yes, I know there is a price slider, but I doubt most people use it (or even know how). Pricing is too varied now to even make sense. 

Yes, the numbers are not accurate because it's not possible to get everybody to submit the data. When ever you hear about statistics, there's an old story about a diner and sitting at the counter are three truckers. Bill Gates comes in and sits next to them. Instantly the average net worth of the four men comes to 75 million dollars. It's tough to say how istock (or any site) is doing for people because you have too many variables, how many images are they selling, what kind of images, do they promote themselves, etc. I'm sure some have done OK, but for the majority, there is a decline (myself included). It's important to read up on how the business treats it's contributors, corporate decisions, marketing, but you cannot put a score number on that.

Thanks everybody for your comments on Ep 1&2! Here's the newest.

If Getty build 3 tier content supply with:
Getty -the most expensive
Istock - middle priced
Thinkstock - cheap sub model

Why they are making Getty's most expensive content free
And don't include Istock and Thinkstock content in this deal?

Just a thought.
What do you think?

Vetta illustrations are already being included with the program. In the Atlantic article on this, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/ a Vetta illustration from an istock artist is included. I am sure this will be expanding when Getty needs another "PR boost" and when they can confirm they can use the work of istock contributors without an "opt-in" contract. "So we can call it promotional use right?" via Hollywood accounting.

Look like they are renting two floors of the Empire State Building. Linkedin pays roughly 1.2 million/year to rent one floor, so I can guess Shutterstock will be paying over 2 million a year, not including costs of the renovations. Whenever you see a company stockpile large amounts of cash, they will find ways to spend it first before paying shareholders (or you, the suppliers). Maybe they'll buy a sports team next! A link to the rents paid to the Empire building is here: http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/empire-state-building-a-buyers-manual/ With all the talk of Shutterstock's stock price (OMG everybody, look how high it is!!! ), it might be wise to look at Empire State Realty Trust instead...

I'll just leave this here...

Wow...search really is messed up...I typed in arcade...and selected "amusement arcade" from the drop-down and got result of an egg, egg crates, and wrapped presents...nothing related to the search. And I though IS couldn't surprise me anymore...

I'm sorry, but I don't see anything wrong here. Egg, egg crate, and wrapped presents are all perfectly acceptable terms when referring to arcade amusements. In Canada we often call an arcade an "egg". As in "Oh papa, can we go to the egg today? I want to play on the egg." And "Oh mother, can we go to the big egg today? I want to ride the egg crate, it's so much fun!" Other terms used for "arcade" can also be "fish sticks, hamster, typewriter" and "ruby slippers". It's obvious you fail to understand Canadian culture - but don't worry, if you drop by to visit this summer, I will be happy to take you to the "Canada's Wonderland Egg" and treat you to nice fried "wrapped present" under the "big egg".

I think the action Getty/istock is taking is hard to defend. They need to provide you with details of why the amount is being taken from your accounts. Stating "it is what it is" to contributors doesn't make it legal. Also it does seem the amounts are "rounded off" and why did it go from 25K to 9K of affected contributors? It should be either all or none, or at least with some documentation backing that up.
So what can you do? Since Istock is a Canadian company located in Alberta here are some people you can contact, if they get more than one inquiry, it should make them stand up and take notice.
Links to the Competition Bureau, Service Alberta and the Calgary BBB (and main office) are here:
http://www.consumerhandbook.ca/en/topics/consumer-protection/unfair-or-deceptive-business-practices#related
Second: you can send a registered letter to istock HQ stating that your are an affected contributor and that you demand a full and detailed account of these transactions.
Third: Send a registered letter to Eliot P.S. Merrill - The Carlyle Group, 520 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10022 United States - who deals with Getty Images and is a Managing Director. The fact that Contributors are being forced to pay back amounts which istock cannot provide documentation to may be illegal and/or a bad business practice that could open itself to legal issues. Also, since they are part owner of istock/getty they should expect it to be run properly and maintain a standard of business. Having the books filled with white out corrections isn't a good thing. 

Quote from: Beppe Grillo on February 09, 2014, 03:20

Quote from: ShadySue on February 08, 2014, 22:31

"If a designer ever stops paying the monthly fee to Adobe for whatever reason, after a 30 day grace period they will not be able to open or edit any previously created work."
This isn't completely true, it depends what format you save your work in. E.g. it's true if you save photos out as .psds, but not e.g. .tif or .jpg.
Think about it - it can be necesary in any situation for someone owning photoshop to be able to share files with people who use other software, or who want to put photos into Word, put them on Flickr, Fb or an agency as jpgs etc.

(Not defending the subscription model, but this is one of the commonest inaccuracies.)

I can open any psd created with Photoshop CC with the previous Photoshop versions, I do it every day.
And I can open any psd created with previous photoshop versions with Photoshop CC, I do it every day too.

So I don't understand where is the problem?

I don't think the same applies to Illustrator files, you need ( I think) the current version to open a CS6 ai. or eps file.

Give it time (2 years) and any file created with the adobe cloud will then only be available via another cloud version. Adobe's long term plan is to pull away from previous DVD versions of it's programs and make everybody subscribe to cloud. Remember QuarkXpress, if you had an old version (4.1) of a quark file and saved it in a newer version (passport), you couldn't go back. Oh, and you couldn't open and covert in indesign either. Nice way of trying to lock you in.

Quote from: ARTPUPPY on January 21, 2014, 14:11

Quote from: blamb on January 20, 2014, 23:34

Yeah, I'm getting killed. Finally gonna drop the crown because there's no way I'll make LESS going indie.

Blamb and goober - Sorry to hear this news. But your RC rates are grandfathered from 2013 so you're royalty rate will not change so that's good. But yes, sales are a poor start for 2014 - I'm not sure what is going on and there is the royalty glitch (which they will fix). I would "sit and wait" for now and see what the next six months hold for us all. If you are committed to dropping the crown I would try this instead, form an independent business and as an artist, "sell" your images to the business for a dollar each under a "work for hire" contract. Then use the business to submit to other sites. By dropping the crown you're giving Getty images/istock a better royalty rate, so you're basically "rewarding" them your images. If I was going to leave Getty/istock I wouldn't leave my images there, they don't deserve them. Good luck guys regardless.

Is this what Yuri has done and is it legal? Surely you can't sell your existing images to the company for $1 and still sell them exclusively on iStock. It would have to be new images only. I've always tried to do the right thing by iStock as they are my primary source of income.

Yep. Another istock contributor has done this as well. (I forget who, it was mentioned here before) His company name was his name with the "Inc." added and that one is non-exclusive. Correct, as an istock exclusive, those images would only be on istock. You will have to create new ones for your "work for hire" portfolio.

Quote from: tickstock on December 12, 2013, 16:42

Just saw this:
https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/df06d

Has there been some expression from his family that they need money?  I'd feel a little weird sending cash if they didn't need it.

It's good to see a donation page set up. I was wondering if we should each purchase one of Mark's images from istock, but this is a better idea. And if the family doesn't need the money, then I'm sure they can do something positive with it. Perhaps they can donate it in Mark's name to a charity or set up a little scholarship in tribute to him.

I believe you can. You'll notice that one of Andres's istock names is a limited company. Here is how you can do it: Keep your exclusive istock account in your own personal name as is. Then set up a business and give it whatever title you'd like. Then create your images, sell them to your company for a dollar each as a "work for hire" contract. Then use the business to set up whatever accounts you want and sell it's own images. As a person you remain istock exclusive and the business can sell elsewhere. That's the loophole.