that's what I dont get.  is it my imagination or don't they usually announce these things a little farther ahead of time and tell us when it's going live and what we need to do to get ready?  

I don't frequent the IS forums much these days at all but didn't this just get announced the day it launched?   weird.

as for the icon.. it is probably a cache issue as I recall a lot of people saw blank spaces when they added the exlusive+ icon too.

I read about every thread at Istock that matters and I have always valued your opinion JoAnn. I hope things work out better for you and please keep us informed if they do!

I bookmarked a few diamond/gold exclusives that dropped the crown back in Sept/Oct:

eyeidea
jamirae
dgilder

Only dgilder has his full portfolio at the other sites. I don't know the reasons why eyeidea and jamirae haven't uploaded all their files to the other sites in 6-7 months but it certainly makes me wonder.

I can buy the argument that its better to be independent if you start from the beginning as an independent. However, I'm not convinced that its great for long time IS exclusives. I also know of two good diamond illustrators that dropped the crown and came back pre-Sept 2010.

If or when my sales drop below a certain point, I will drop the crown but I don't have high expectations for independence. I think the best options, unfortunately, are outside of microstock.

Hi.. I can't speak for eyeidea, but as for me, jamirae , I just haven't had the time.  I was pretty naive in that I started my stock career with iStock and never bothered to learn about metadata as I always just added keywords and descriptions either through the web interface or deepmeta.  Now that I am submitting to other sites, I have to go through my portfolio and add all the metadata.   Had I been doing that all along it would be a lot easier and I'd have a lot more images on the other sites.   I work a fulltime job and am a single parent to two teenage boys so my plate is pretty full.    But.. I do have to say that this past month, April, was the first time in a few years that I have not been able to request a check every week at iStock.  that has added a new fire under me and you should start seeing more of my portfolio getting uploaded to the other sites I've contributed to. 

Really, for those of you who think that uploading to numerous sites is a pain - if you have the metadata all set, it's really not that much more work.  That was one of my biggest fears of going independent. 

that's my story.  feel free to ask me anything about my stock experiences - I'm pretty open and if I don't want to share something I'll tell you that too. 

@bunhill

That is very interesting. It would be very reassuring actually if the reason they didn�t adapt sooner was because of short term shareholder influences, not a lack of market vision.

@disorderly

That is a very nice comparison. Although istock does continue to innovate/add new markets (editorial, Agency...)

I am not against V/A at all, just very worried about growth and losing buyers. They won�t go to Thinkstock, they will go elsewhere. Here in Germany Fotolia seems to be the market leader. At least from my own personal impressions when looking at websites.

For myself, the best I can do is somehow find time to shoot. The drop in my portfolio is my own fault, not istocks. But with all the news and the V/A dominance of searches I wonder if I should try so hard to find time for it. If even Sean can�t increase his income with 2000 new files (and probably lots of Vettas), what can I do?

I will not quit exclusivity, but maybe look at other things I can do with the studio.

I'm not so sure they are continuing to innovate.  hasn't editorial been available at other stock site for awhile now?  Isn't Agency just a move of Getty agency work to iStock?  and Vetta.. that may be innovative, but I think artistic type photos like Vetta have been available at Getty and other agencies for awhile now. Adding new categories and price points, they have done, yes.  But I dont think I'd call them innovative.  It seems to be slipping into desperation mode to save what they had. I think "innovation" left with Bruce.

Quote from: Risamay on May 04, 2011, 12:25

Memos and "a veiled threat of legal action" against Getty. Interesting reading!

Quote

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has released a memo that all but advises Getty contributors to quit the agency and find other ways to distribute their stock photographs if they can. American Photographic Artists (APA), meanwhile, has issued a veiled threat of legal action against the stock photo agency.

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/ASMP-to-Getty-Photog-2608.shtml

If legal action is brought against Getty...maybe iStock will think twice about it's treatment of contributors.

great article.  it pretty much sums up the current state of istock - well getty and istock are now essentially one in the same. from the article:

APA said in a press release distributed on April 27 that the contract modifications "clearly signal that Getty Images' top priority is expanding its own market share by whatever means necessary, irrespective of the damage it causes to the rights and interests of contributing photographers and image partners."

Have a look at StockPhotoTalk's take on why H&F is doing this.

And as far as cuts in royalty rates, I don't expect it will come from IS royalties, but I would expect that contributors to the acquired library will see their 50% royalties cut in fairly short order. Getty has done that with so many other acquisitions in the past, I can't see it as FUD to suggest that their future actions will likely follow a similar path.

from their FAQ it appears they pay 40%. You also have to be image-exclusive with them (guess that means only at the image level, not all your work).  I wonder how much that will change as they are folded into the Getty Family and images get prostituted across to ThinkStock.
http://www.photolibrary.com/contributors/photographers/

I would wait until day 31 to start activating at other sites.  just to cover your backside. 

congrats on taking the plunge to independence!

Quote from: lisafx on April 29, 2011, 12:18

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on April 29, 2011, 05:58

Some buyers have said that once they get fed up with a micro site they skip the rest and go right to free alternatives like Flickr.

Is Flickr really a free alternative to the micros?  I had thought Flikr is a site to display photos.  They aren't offering royalty-free licenses, are they?   I know individuals who have been approached about licensing images on Flikr, but mostly they ask for money.  Especially now that Getty has dangled the "pro stock producer" carrot under the noses of Flikr submitters. 

I'd be very surprised if Flikr would be considered a viable option for most professional image buyers/users.  Is this really such a widespread phenomenon?

I'm just using Flickr as an example. But you don't sound familiar with Creative Commons
which is what Flickr uses. If the image owner chooses they can set the CC license to allow images to be licensed commercially for free.

But my point is there are dozens of free sites. A risk is that if a micro site(s), or even contributors, drive buyers away from a specific micro site that you can't assume they will always go to another micro site. They may be irked enough to spend a little extra time searching for that good-enough free image.

well that may be all well and good but navigating through some of these 'free' sties is often more trouble than it's worth so I'm surprised that "buyers" have the patience for that.

On the other hand, I had to do a presentation this week and had no budget for photos but I really needed some to spice up the presentation (why use a bunch of text on a slide when a good photo can say so much more?)  Anyhow, I wandered over to the free image section of Dreamstime and was able to find all the images I needed right there in the free section.  I also noticed that when I searched, they include, at the bottom of the page, additional images that are not free, just in case I dont find what I really need.  also - when I downloaded images - on the download page they show other images, many times from the same photographer within the same series or similar images that I could purchase as well.  Of course, I only took the free ones for this project, but I think that Dreamstime has an excellent approach to the market in this respect.  heck, I may even donate an image or two to the freebie section there just to see if it will help get some traffic and sales to some of my other photos.

so.. my point is that if the buyers are looking for free stuff, Dreamstime could garner some new customers if they did a marketing campaign/push on their free stuff in hopes of getting some cross-over sales. 

Please keep in mind that SUB downloads are limited up to M size.

yep, I like this policy! 

I saw those comments was was sorely tempted to reply with a reality check, not only about Getty but about other examples of corporations that made a mistake, stubbornly stuck to it when things were changing around them and the company tanked in the end.

I decided to save my breath to cool my porridge as the saying goes.

Sometimes it's important to people to believe that their leader, or the person running things, is really competent and knows what they're doing. Things feel very uncomfortable otherwise. "Getty knows best" is like a little kid's blanket, held against the cheek.  It's possible things will turn out OK, but I think it's equally possible that they'll destroy IS (even if Getty proper survives).

The emperor has no clothes.

That is good news.  Glad to see him back!

oh here you are .. I thought this thread may be left to fizzle out as iStock would come to its senses and stop pissing off buyers.  i guess I was mistaken.

From the now-locked thread:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=325592&messageid=6313322

posted by Kwest1216

I have to add my two cents to this discussion. I have about 60 credits left to spend and then I will no longer be a customer of istock.

I've been a customer for more than five years and have quickly seen the selection of non-agency, non-Vetta affordable images dwindle to almost nothing. I could deal with that but not being able to search quickly for a photo I need because agency/vetta images pop up first has driven me to extreme anger. I did a search today for Western and had to wade through nearly 30 pages before I could get to non-Agency non-Vetta photos. That is the extreme but it still takes too long to accomplish my goal.

I'm in web site design and KNOW that adding a search parameter to exclude these files is NOT a complicated process -- this is merely a business decision on istock's part to make me wade through them. I have NEVER been a Vetta buyer and I most likely NEVER will be  -- I'm a one-person shop and can't justify the expense to my customers. So don't shove them down my throat.

Anyway, I would like to thank those talented artists over the years who have helped me to express my ideas in photos and graphics. Best wishes!

yeah, I've just always done it that way - a new model release for every shoot.  that covers me and the model both so I don't have a problem with it. All my models know they have to sign a release at every shoot with me.  I use the generic iStock release and it works at all the other sites I submit to as well.