It might be a joke to you but if the first level after 500 dollars was to match the istock exclusive offer of 34 cents...and maybe the 500 dollars cut in half...it would send a signal.

And every level afterward is higher than what istock is now offering the exclusives. The S+ sub offered is easily balanced by sod�s.

An offer for subscription relies on offering a huge choice for the customer and the "all you can eat" download buffet.

In this article Michael made an interesting comparison between the numbers of files reaching SS and istock in 2013. Although istock now takes nearly everything and many indies are uploading the rest of their portfolios, SS is still leading with over 3 million more files accepted.

http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/how-did-the-istock-collection-develop-in-2013/

These numbers show the obvious: the community of stock artists trust SS a lot more to sell their content, be a reliable business partner and bring in profit.

SS high quality reputation results in MILLIONS more files entrusted to them per year.

So they will always be able to offer their customers more choices than istock.

You might not get thousands of posting on the industry forums every day. But people read. Share information. And understand where the future is going.

Trust is Money. Business communication is Money. A companies reputation is Money.

The only one who does�t understand that is Getty.

spike - what is pathetic is how istock treated Sean. A response like this is light hearted humour compared to how they treated him.

And yes, it�s modern guerrilla marketing. Happens all the time on social media.

Quote from: cobalt on March 04, 2014, 07:41

It's only a matter of perspective: When submitting to Shutterstock, you know you are submitting to a subs site. So anything bigger than $0.38 looks positive. When submitting to iStock, you knew you were submitting to a credit based site. So anything lower than $5 will now look ugly.

I absolutely agree. That is why it is so crucial to be able to decide which files go to the subs model and which don�t. How can you plan a production, if you don�t know at which prices your files will be sold?

And since new content hardly sells, you must basically now decide to shoot for volume for istock. Unless you belong to the lucky few who can shoot directly for Vetta.

I am not really affected, so probably I should�t be so upset. But it is so frustrating to watch.

I think I should go out and shoot and not look at the forums for a while.

I wonder what percentage is being paid out. Back when they introduced the subs in the pp program, we were told they wanted to give us 22%. But contributors insisted on a fixed price for subs,so they wouldn't get extremly low royalties. Kelly then negotiated an agreement that started at 42 cents, right? And that would have been below 22% to mitigate the risk for getty.

Now exclusives will get 34 cents for the main collection. But they don't get any of the benefits of SS additional earnings, like the 28 or 80 or 120 dollar downloads. These downloads are not a myth, they are a significant part of the earnings on SS.

And on SS  the files are not exclusive, they can all earn additional money elsewhere.

Didn't they just promise exclusives their files would no longer be mirrored to Thinkstock, so they would remain in the highest earning bracket?

But don't worry...now the Thinkstock program comes to istock...

So only the Vetta content is protected from subs. Which is 0.2% of the collection of the last 6 months as David pointed out.

And most of all: I really don't believe this will stop customers from leaving. Because the advantages of SS are a lot more than the subs program.

But I do see a lot of internal cannibalization, i.e. customers that are now on a credit plan switching to subs. Remember how their sales team went after the istock customers to get them to join Thinkstock? Obviously many people, too many people, stayed with istock. So the incredibly exciting program from Thinkstock is brought to istock...

Very sad. The subs program must be generating a huge amount of money for them. So the real royalties paid out must be incredibly low.

And the exclusives are now locked into subs with all their content, without the usual advantage of supplying sub sites: the freedom to decide which files you send there...

And again the exclusives have no control over which files get moved to the new subs program.

This would really freak me out. The whole point of being exclusive to istock (for most of the artists I know) is not to provide files for a subs program.

Now if you have high value content that rarely sells but you want to be able to provide it at a sensible price point only...it gets dumped into the subs program.

No RCs?

That�s just crazy.

They should then take the step to cancel the RC system altogether and base their systems simply on how much money is being earned over a lifetime,the way SS does it. Irrespective of file type. Money is money,is money.

I wonder if they will also move slow selling files from Yuri and the other people with "special deals". He moved out of SS because he thought their subs program was too low. What if Getty includes him now in their own deal?

I am glad I am already indie and have separated my portfolio into "high value" and "high volume" content. So everything on istock now, is suitable for subs.

The other files will go elsewhere.

my videos seem to disappear...I�ll try again tomorrow.

I don�t know how sociologists define communities bunhill. But Facebook is a community, flickr is a community, msg is a community and yes, so are istock and SS.

They are online communities.

There are loads of these - religious online groups,hobby online communities,fan communities,music lovers,sports,mothers of the world,fathers of the world,tealovers,...etc...

That is the whole advantage of the internet - connect with an interest group worldwide.

I am not downvoting your posts by the way. I understand what you are saying, we just differ in opinion.

In terms of communications: Communications are better now (in a less is more way) than in the days when iStock communicated with itself via huge long angry and rather pointlessly repetitive forum threads (and ikon changing) from the same few people. Then the management would step in and implement a quick and often lousy fix backed up with a vague promise. But the issues would be left the fester. That style of management was transitional - it almost certainly works at a boutique, art or influential reportage agency with a few hundred or fewer contributors and everyone knows each other. It is surely the wrong solution at a site with thousands of contributors.

I doubt there is any particular business case for touchy-feely communications or promising anything. With many thousands of contributors it is impossible to please everyone and it may be better to keep things very formal.

I agree that the processes need to improve. But I think that will happen inevitably as part of the inevitable economics.

I am absolutely certain that what you are writing is probably the attitude of the getty management. And they will get their wish - they will evolve backwards to a much smaller reportage style agency.

Because that is all their managers understand. They have no top level management with high quality internet communication skills. Or when was the last time you saw the CEO personally communicate in a crisis? Take responsibility? Apologize?

Compare that with how Shutterstock is handling their online communication. And look at the success they have in growing their business.

I am sure you have noticed the valuation that is being placed by investors on companies with active and thriving communities.

Active, live, thriving online communities are worth billions of dollars.

Imagine what istock could be worth to an investor today, if they had encouraged their community to grow instead of killing it off?

The community alone could today be worth much more than all their images, news reports and licensing business.

It is not that difficult communicating online. It is HARD WORK. But if you are an online company,it is simply a requirement. It is normal to be good at online communication.

Well, in business there will always be someone to benefit from a company that decides to go down. In this case it is SS that is having it IMO too easy to grow. Well deserved success of course.

And on topic: yes, an apology would have been the minimum just as an itemised list and proper explanation. I can�t understand how the US or Canadian accounting laws even allow for clawbacks without proof.

Spreading it over 6 months is a good idea though. Thank you to whoever it was that thought one step ahead.

under 10 dollars, not under 50. but still do i get 10 dollars free as well or are they taking the full amount?

people are reporting refunds over 1100 dollars...how on earth did nobody notice it before?

If they don�t want to offer exclusive images, then at least they should offer the possibility of a second "exclusive" account, for those who want to send them exclusive stuff.

It is a shame they are offering these deals only to artists that come in from getty instead of offering it to their own community of exclusives.

shotshop advertises that their editors hand pick the files and only select the best work. The German contributors all report a large number of rejections,usually as "not suitable for sale on shotshop".

So now they find masses of files from deposit that are obviously not handpicked including files that were rejected before.

I guess shotshop just found a simple way to avoid paying photographers fairly and also no longer bothers to hand pick the best files for their customers.

At the same time they don�t offer subs and will pay lower royalties to artists who also sell via sub sites.