Quote from: suemack on March 22, 2011, 06:11

You keep receiving your exclusive royalties for the 30 days until your crown disappears, when the crown goes so do the higher royalties

If they want to keep paying you your exclusive rate after the thirty days, even though you've given notice and the time is up, that's yours to enjoy, while uploading elsewhere.

I just got a whole series of XL sales in a row at Istock.  How worried should I be?

The NDA is up: http://www1.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=313542&page=38

Confidential Information includes, but is not limited to, all information received by the Recipient during the discussion of fraudulent activity on www.istockphoto.com, whether received orally or in writing.

Quote from: traveler1116 on March 15, 2011, 11:41

I hope this is more than a distraction.  IS already knows all the problems with the site, issues with security, anger by nonexclusives, etc... they are written in the forums and sitemails.  I hope we learn something from this call and IS will keep the contributors in mind before making changes in the future. Maybe they have realized they need to change and that's why all this is going on now?

I think this is no more or less than trying to distract us from calling for an audit or organizing a class action lawsuit. 

Yes but today, going from exclusive to independant is no duckswalk anymore, its at best a nightmare. Competition is at break neck speed and its time consuming, its a very dangerous step to take, nowdays that is.
I know a few that have tried and failed completely, ended up not knowing which leg to stand on.

Uploaded and ready.

Quote from: retrorocket on March 14, 2011, 20:01

Quote from: helix7 on March 14, 2011, 19:20

There are some pretty disgusting comments over there regarding independents and the suggestion that independents can't be trusted to sign an NDA and stick to the contract, as if any independent who would be theoretically asked to be on the panel would immediately turn around and sell trade secrets to competitors.

Occasionally you can pick up on some "us vs. them" sentiment at istock, but man this is just unreal. Truly surprising.

I agree. I don't understand the logic of alienating independents. The exclusives vs. independents mentality is precisely what the agencies want. If the top 20% of contributors started making decisions together we would all make a lot more money in the long run.

if I put myself in the shoes of independents, I would feel alienated by this too. but I think it's been misinterpreted as something ugly when it's simply a legal necessity. independents equally deserve representation. but, independents also contribute images to competitor sites. it's not personal, I don't see any company allowing potential competitors access to sensitive information. but those who are attending the conference call will certainly be sharing what they cna share with everyone, so it's not like non-exclusives won't benefit from that information too.

I think fighting over the inclusion of independents and using it as a platform means independents aren't seeing the forest for the trees.

Quote from: sjlocke on March 14, 2011, 14:26

I think of it more as a user focus group.  But whatever, I guess.  I have no problems sitting down in a chat or whatever and pointing out where I am having usability problems.

Haven't they already got all the 'user focus' they could possibly need from all those forum posts? How will expressing your view by 'conference call' be different from writing it on the forum. At least on the forum it remains a permanent record which can be referred back to.

Anyway, it's pretty obvious what's wrong (perhaps to everyone but Istock), they just need to pull their finger out and get it sorted.

Holding 'user focus' groups is usually a sure-fire method of getting nothing done at all. Lots of meetings, lots of talking, very little 'doing' other than writing up the minutes of the previous meeting and arranging the next one.

Panel, schmanel.

I want an independent audit. Then, per the findings of said audit, I want to take IS to court. Class-action style, if the findings of the audit support such course of action.

The panel and anything short of an independent audit is nice in theory, perhaps, but leads me to believe even more firmly that IS is hiding something and scared of the lot of us seeking to tear back the curtain and see just exactly what they've been doing [wrong].

If I knew how to go about beginning such a course, I'd be all over it. My hope is that folks like Sean and Nico and others with the most money to lose will band together and make this happen. We are all (or would be) behind you to support such an effort and help out in any way that we can.