I'm a diamond independent and I benefited.  I just missed  40,000 by a very small amount and the change bought me up to 18%.

You benefited? Sure?  You went from 20% to 18% !!!

Personally I found the +1 posts irritating and pointless. If you agree with a post, then articulate your agreement and actually add something to the conversation. I honestly think that trying to paint this as some kind of opression is really stretching things.

-1

...the crowd sourcing model of microstock is very similar politically to the outsourcing of other jobs from the US to the - ahem- 'Third World".

The microstock model brought in the cheap labor of the former Soviet block countries, South America, Asia, etc. etc. to the detriment of traditional US and UK high end photographers.

At any rate the damage is done and there is no going back.

-1
Welcome to the globalized world and greetings from the "Third World".

Maybe an old subscription sale.

Quote from: SNP on December 07, 2010, 22:25

I guess it depends on how you look at. I upload my butt off. I work at producing better content everyday. I'm serious about my business. I guess that comment will ruffle feathers, but it's not meant to...

I don't have as large a portfolio as you do, but I work hard at producing high quality work. I became exclusive with a set of royalty schedules in place that made financial sense. Within weeks of making the 40% royalty rate I've been working towards I lose it because they've changed the rules.

I worked my effing butt off, made it, and had it taken away. I'm pi@#ed, demotivated and deeply, deeply distrustful of just about anything that HQ says.

 It was last December I was overjoyed that they grandfathered the next cannister level only to have them play weasel word games with that promise. They did keep the canister level, but they uncoupled the royalty rate that had always been tied to it (and which they knew no one would ever think would be uncoupled when contributors parsed the sentence promising grandfathering). The joy then makes the anger now even more profound.

The fact that there's some utter hogwash about earning back our trust in the September announcements and then KT goes into hiding around IS just pours fuel on the fire. Yes, he'd get yelled at if he came to the forums, but he just chickened out and abandoned contributors to lick their wounds.

We have recent evidence that just because they say something doesn't mean it'll still be true a short time later. That's not being conspiratorial, it's just being sentient given all the data in front of us.

The whole situation is just so ugly and grasping and greedy. And to think that when they said they were given the target of growing the business by 50% this year, I naively thought they'd actually grow the business, vs. grow their profits by squeezing contributors.

So I really don't appreciate comments about how you work your butt off and it'll all be all right. I did, and it isn't.

+1
These are my sentiments exactly.

Everybody can believe what ever they want! I just don't like comments about God or Religion in a Forum for Microstock. So please be so kind and put your God-Attitude in the Off-Topic or just make your comments on a reality-base. Thanks in advance!

Ditto

"As the company grows, the overall percentage we pay out to contributing artists increases."

Would someone please explain to me why that's true?  

As the company was growing and time was passing, more exclusives were reaching new canister levels. Every time an exclusive artist reached a new canister level, more royalties had to be paid to him/her.  And Getty doesn't like that at all!
We all know Getty believes they should pay no more than 20% in royalties, but they also know no one would be IS exclusive for just 20%.  So from January 2011, the 30%, 35%, 40%, and even 45% in royalties will still there, but reaching them will be just impossible for most of the people.  

Like most anti-microstock photographers, ZA still doesn't understand Thompson's words.  It seems they only see the words which they have been so desperately waiting to hear: "As a business model, it�s simply unsustainable" .   Unfortunately for them, those words doesn't mean what they think they mean.

Well, it certainly has not been a very good day.  I don't know whether the site maintenance has anything to do or not, but the stuck in agency pics may affect sales.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=266911&page=1

I think Mr. Nielsen is just a jealous ex unsuccessful stock photographer who wants to assure buyers not to buy stock images,

+1   

Quote from: cclapper on October 21, 2010, 08:46

....it was a friend and he was uploading AND GIVING her all the software, because gosh, there would be no way she could afford the computer AND the software. The other guy (who is also a young person, so not ALL young folks have that mentality) and I looked at each other and said at once, that's called pirating and it's illegal. She shrugged and said oh well, it's too expensive for both things.

I can't afford my house and a Lamborghini, so guess I will have to steal the Lambo 
@ jbarber873 yeah, but the most annoying thing is those Russians/ Eastern Europeans/Chinese etc. that think everything digital is fair game for theft is that many of them come into this industry. They can learn the software for nothing and not have to spend anything to set up in business with the best graphics packages while those of us who do what's right can't afford to get our hands on all that stuff. It makes it very hard for an honest person to earn a living!

Instead of "...the most annoying thing is those Russians/ Eastern Europeans/Chinese etc. that think..." it would be much better to say: "...the most annoying thing is those people who think..."   
There are honest and dishonest people everywhere.    

I agree with Freedom.  It has happened to me many times with products in my wish list at Amazon.  And still love shopping at Amazon.

When you shop elsewhere, be it Walmart or Saks Fifth Avenue, if you decided that you wanted to buy something last week and didn't buy, then the price is different this week, do you get upset at the store for not notifying you? You likely just regret that you didn't buy when the price was better or change your mind about buying, right?

Quote from: jsnover on October 14, 2010, 21:31

This isn't about the pricing of the Agency Collection on the existing Getty sites.

This is about existing (exclusive) content on istockphoto.com that cost one price yesterday and a very different price today and whether buyers have been notified about that. When buyers put files into a lightbox and later go to purchase and the price is 10X (or 5X higher), the Vetta experience tells us many of them get very upset.

Regardless of whether the files are worth the new price, the buyers IMO deserve to be notified about this rather than just find out when they get sticker shock.

just had a XS sale for 0.15$.. I am on fire

what is the min or max for a XS??

The buyer must have paid $0,75 per credit.   Remember that there was recently a 25% discount