It wasn't the contributor fees for payouts, it was splitting the processing fees for the buyer's purchase with the contributor - "...but processing fees for image purchases on the website will now be shared equally between FotoArabia and the contributor. This additional cost will at most be 3% of the value of the purchase."

You might be able to check things out but I can't - no invite. Here's the explanatory text:

"Access to this site is by invitation only. Invitations have only been sent to potential contributors to GDI and potential agency partners, as well as members of the press.

If you have not received an invitation and feel that you may qualify, please contact us via the Contact Us link. Access will only be granted to individuals and organizations who qualify. In order to qualify you must be one of the following:

A content licensing business. Content being defined as photos, video, audio, illustrations and vectors.
An individual who is an existing contributor to a content licensing business.
Individuals or businesses that carry on the business of commercial photography, video, audio, illustration or vector production.
A member of the press.
Access is not permitted to businesses or individuals in some countries."

I don't know if I'm interested or not without details. Perhaps that's why there's no discussion?

Looking at iTunes, Getty's stream is for IOS8 only (I am still at IOS7 for a bit so won't be trying this right away).

the iStock app hasn't been updated since July and the sharing it talks about is, I think, sharing a link to the image detail page, not sharing images in blogs. Most of the reviews are very negative - slow, crashes, images don't load, can't buy images or figure out how much they cost, etc.

I'm guessing the person writing the article doesn't actually know what any of these things do but is massaging a press release.

I haven't seen those numbers at all today - I was clicking My Account and then My Earnings, but now you point it out, I can see the old information if I click on that blob by my name.

DT is largely a lost cause, IMO - this morning I got a "September Stock Photo Trends" e-mail that was mostly broken image links. Two out of ten were visible. Trending searches - the first was adorable doormouse. Really?

I digress, but only slightly. I guess I wondered why they were messing with the contributor interface instead of doing something more useful.

In addition to the $4.35 and 0.38 SODs, I have some at $4.50, $3.45, $3.00, $2.40, $1.20, plus the higher value ones, which are always nice. All those numbers are SODs, not On Demand sales.

They obviously have some deals with corporate clients, but we have been told multiple times that they won't disclose the nature of these licenses.

Clearly, if they were selling the equivalent of an extended license for $3.45 instead of $28, I'd be really ticked off. I'm hoping that they are not doing that - because the blowback if they ever got found out would be horrendous, and I have to believe they wouldn't be so daft as to risk alienating contributors.

I don't think there is a single good reason for keeping the license terms secret, but until something bad actually happens, I've decided to live with my discontent and keep selling there.

Quote from: mojaric on September 19, 2014, 08:45

someone on IS forum said it correctly....we will have to wait October and November regular sales to say if this was a good or bad move...actually doesn't look good 

As an IS exclusive, I don't have to wait. If sales pick up in October and November, they would have picked up anyway.

What I see now is what I will get: An immediate hit to my income of around 25%, on an RPD basis. 

I don't think the following scenario is likely, but here's an optimistic hypothetical: iStock's new prices and collection setup is so appealing to buyers that after they dump their credits/subscriptions elsewhere, they flock to iStock in volumes not seen for years. Your RPD is down, but the sales volume is so high that your monthly income doubles.

I have always argued that it isn't RPD that matters, it's the monthly total from your portfolio. Way back when, iStock regularly beat earnings from other sites with theoretically higher royalties - 50% vs. 20% (who'd have thought one could wax nostalgic over a 20% royalty!), it did so because it sold more files than most of those sites.

As iStock played silly buggers with the formula that had made it successful, they hiked prices and as sales volumes dropped, contributors consoled themselves with the nice feel of higher returns from a single sale. The problem hits if the download number approaches zero and cutting prices back only helps if buyers who left are willing to give you a second chance.

While they have all that dumped Getty rubbish in with the good stuff in the Signature collection, and tons of excellent indie work that looks like Signature stuff in the Essentials collection, I think the impression it leaves is that iStock isn't serious about delivering buyers value for money. Which is why I don't expect the increased volume hypothetical to become reality.

Seattle must not be a key global market - iStock's searches are generally painfully slow and Shutterstock's generally very speedy. Shutterstock's results look a ton better visually - 2014 vs. 2004

Who cares where the contributors come from or how many there are - it's what's in the collection that counts. it's certainly true that Shutterstock doesn't have all those high priced underexposed fruit slices with black bars on the side (that Getty dumped into the Vetta collection and can now be had for 3 credits apiece).

iStock's subscriptions are much more expensive then Shutterstock's if you look realistically at what you're getting - only 250 images a month if you buy a one month subscription to try it out and $499 (if you want access to the whole iStock collection, including the terrible lime slices)  versus $249  for 750 at Shutterstock.

iStock used to appeal to buyers who wouldn't have shopped at Shutterstock and now they're so fixated on perceived losses to Shutterstock being their problem that they're losing all perspective.

Their big problems are making the site unusable for low-medium volume buyers of small-medium images and having a high price collection with no obvious distinction from the low price one.

But you don't have to convince contributors of anything, so making some bulleted list of irrelevant differences won't get one more buyer to the site. I feel bad for friends who are still exclusive and watching their income plummet with this new setup, but I honestly think iStock just hasn't a clue about what's wrong with their site and thus keeps making mistakes in lurching to one "fix" after another, while the private equity vultures hover, looking for ways to cash out.

Only certain uses are allowed with the Getty freebies - non commercial sites. So for anyone using images on their business's web site, the Getty freebies wouldn't apply.

And none of the images in the iStock Essentials collection are available for free via the Getty deal, so even if the OP's notion of the freebies trying to generate print size sales were true, it would only apply to the portion of the Signature collection on iStock that is mirrored on Getty (and that's not all of Signature because that transfer process works only intermittently).

I don't see how a web size use would generate a future print-size sale more than once in a blue moon. If the OP's guess as to the strategy is correct, I think iStock's barking up the wrong tree.

Quote from: Shelma1 on September 16, 2014, 10:31

Quote from: munrotoo on September 16, 2014, 09:15

in the new system are there any guidelines for how they determine how many credits a vector illustration is worth or is this still just up to the scouts? do you think they tend to lower credit worth of non-exclusives?

All non-exclusive vectors are now one credit.

Here is a non-exclusive with a 3 credit piece. confused?
http://www.istockphoto.com/vector/golf-easter-egg-row-36553560?st=0c802f2

I'm guessing it's a former exclusive. If you sort by New (which isn't entirely) it appears that everything older than around June 27th this year is signature and the newer ones are Essentials, including two virtually identical items (one June 23 and the other June 27)

http://www.istockphoto.com/vector/soccer-or-football-fans-russia-42600398?st=4aaec6d
http://www.istockphoto.com/vector/soccer-fans-france-42847822?st=4aaec6d

If I were a buyer who wanted the 3 credit item above, I'd be pretty ticked at the inexplicable inconsistency

It appears they aren't able to move things around as exclusives leave exclusivity.

I think he's an illustratir

You didn't mention Shutterstock. I'd strongly recommend including them. They are about 40% subscriptions 60% "other" of various kinds, so even if you're not a fan of subscriptions, it's honestly worth including them. The earnings are good, they pay regularly and good images continue to sell (i.e. it's not just a month or two of sales when images are new).

I'm not seeing what you are. Of my September downloads so far, 2/3 are credit sales and 1/3 subs. Those proportions are reasonably typical - sometimes the subs have been as high as 1/2

Depends on what your financial goals are. There is a pretty broad range that can work, from Yuri Arcurs who has staff and spends a lot on production to create an image factory and a full time income, to a low cost one person operation (this doesn't have to mean low quality images) with lower volume and a part time income.

If you want to give it a shot on a small scale to test the waters, why not just see what you can do in a year? If you need to support yourself fully within the next 3 months, then you need to find some other line of work. You may find that what you sold in 2004-8 won't be much of a guide to what would work today, but do some searches on Shutterstock and a couple of the other top agencies in areas you think you'd have an interest in or aptitude for to see what's there.