I had that these days when I tried to edit an existing image. It also defaults back to 20. However, when I enter the 100 and send it, the customer side will show those 100 correctly. It seems only the editing part that doesn't work properly at the moment. A bit dangerous when you try to change some keywords...

Yes, Facebook deal. I tested it and the images were paid as SOD: http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/shutterstock-and-the-facebook-deal/

I think it's a good deal: The actual user gets a tiny image that only can be used for the FB ad and they don't have to pay for it because FB covers the cost within the ad fees. We are actually giving away less rights for the image than if any client would buy it through his own subscription.

I think we need more discussion if the cost of travel photography is off-topic from a thread asking about how lots of money can be made from few images.

Isn't that one of the major problems with the depositphotos deal, paying sub royalties while charging much much more to buyers? 

Yep. But as far as I can see from the plan as described, Shutterstock is doing the opposite: It is charging LESS for the second and third user than it does for a regular subscription.

You are basing your predefined opinions on numbers that we all know are wrong because no company could afford them. It's about the actual usage. We assume that on standard subscriptions the actual usage is somewhere around 25% of the allowance which would equal around 6 of the 25 allowed downloads per day. With the team subscription they charge $400 instead of $250, so my assumption would be that two users within the company use 60% more images than one, roughly adding up to 10 per day etc.

This is at least how I would make the pricing of a product. Based on the actual usage. Based on experiences made. Not on how to screw our suppliers best.

But I won't convince you because you already made your mind up long time ago. And I have no doubt you will stick to your opinion, even if you need to make up unrealistic numbers to prove them. That says more about you than about any agency in my opinion, though.

Yes they were best case scenarios for contributors.  If the best case for contributors shows that this plan is worse then what does that mean if you put in the actual numbers?  It's obvious that contributors will get a much lower % of the money under the team subscriptions than the regular subscriptions isn't it?

No, it isn't. It's playing around with unrealistic numbers which does not allow drawing conclusions for a totally different reality.

From my understanding you do get less, one subscription dl rather than 3.  "It's important to keep in mind that Shutterstock pays royalties on every single download, regardless of how many team members access a single account at one business."  If there is a single account then isn't there only one dl that 3 people use?

Based on my own work experience (outside of the photography world), I would think in other cases those three people would just share one account using one person's credentials - though this is technically not legal, I assume it is a common case. I used to work in environments where it was quite common to share one person's credentials to sites offering information, tutorials, work material etc.

I believe it is rather rare that 3 people within a company actually use the same image. Yes, someone could certainly come up with an example where that would be the case and make sense. However, in most cases I think you don't hire three designers to work on the same product. I think it's much more common to have three designers (e.g. one web designer, one social media manager, one doing the print designs) working on different things and using different images. To me it sounds like this subscription offer just allows those small teams to have each their own account with their own credentials.

The usual option is that "you" submit to IS, while your "company" submits as an independent, and "you" shoot for the company, signing copyright to the company.  MJ is talking about 2.a.1 above, which would seem to indicate this wouldn't work, but I know that some people have done it.  Another option is to license RM, where the RM is basically an RF set of terms, with a restriction, like for a certain period of time.

Well, I know there are "ways around it". But my understanding is that if you (as a photographer) sign those terms, than you (the photographer) can not shoot any content that goes for licensing at any other agency. So it would have to go the other way:

Things are different if "your company" is signing the iStock contract and employs you (the photographer) to shoot for the company. Then you (the photographer) could technically be free to shoot for other companies (you also own...) or personal accounts or your spouse. However, you would need iStock's agreement on this as the usual contributor account you sign up with is for you as a person, so you'd need to transfer that to a different legal entitiy (your company). Apparently that is a possibility as you can see a few "Copyright" holders on iStock referencing a ", Inc." or "GmbH" (the German Limited Liability company type).

Obviously, the ASA also does not keep you from helping some other photographer (e.g. your spouse or a photographer hired by a company you own) with finding models and locations, lighting, post processing, keywording, uploading. You just can't be the photographer in those shoots.

I have heard people mentioning those setups "between the lines", however I don't think anyone is talking openly about it... probably for good reasons.

Sue, Yes i have read all that but the ASA does not clearly state what they summarize in the above. 

Please extract from the ASA where it clearly states a submitter cannot shoot RF for other agencies.

Actually Section 1.c. says: "The Supplier wishes to appoint iStockphoto as its exclusive agent to license, sublicense and distribute Exclusive Content (as defined below) produced by the Supplier on the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement. "

"exclusive agent" is pretty unambiguous in my opinion. If you stop reading the Exclusive ASA at this point, it actually says you are not allowed to have any other agent at all for anything anywhere.

Then this is clarified/limited in Section 2.a when they specify for what type of files you appoint iStock as exclusive agent and which types of works are not covered, and those include work for hire or Rights Managed content. But beyond those mentioned, you are not allowed to license any content (of the same type of content) through any other agent at all.

It also includes provisions that you are not allowed to work for someone else if the images are being sold with RF license through someone else. So you can't shoot for someone else selling "their" images through Shutterstock either.

The various factions of the Getty contributor spectrum all say the same thing, "they hate me".  This is not true; they are very considerate and even handed; they hate everyone equally.

Nope. Hate would require them to feel. It's a corporation, they don't feel. They just count. We are just numbers.

Probably people get even more upset with them because of that. Hate would mean they consider us as humans at least. Being treated as an entity in a spreadsheet hurts even more.

Well, you always were far too stuck in your "right/wrong" world and discussing about perfectionism on tiny tasks that you have missed the real world and how it works: Getty kept losing ground for a long time. iStockphoto has joined them in losing customers since Getty took over more control. They were just stuck in a world from a past. They keep spreading ideas like "we've got the best content because most of the top guys are exclusive with us".

The reality shows in the numbers: Customers are not so much interested in "the best content", they want "suitable content within our budget". The more prices were raised, the less customers could find that on iStock. Giving them more of the cheap stuff is the only way to keep them.

Losing more customers is not in the best interest of exclusives. With the technology disadvantages they have "not losing more customers" is the best bet right now. Showing clients more of the cheap stuff and reduce their average cost for them is the best iStock can do right now.

PS: They have already announced they will move lots of exclusive content down to Main soon, before the subs program starts. And guess what: That again will make lots of exclusives unhappy. Because exclusives tend not to see the world outside of iStock/Getty. But the best thing you guys can hope for is that Getty can make the loss of customers stop. Quickly. If they don't do that, the non-exclusives will profit because on other places we get a higher share...

I am not sure but I can not find any of my images on ShotShop anymore. When I did the original search, I remember it wasn't too easy to find mine. But now I tried with several searches for specific images and could find none of them.

So it might be that at least my images were removed from Deposit's API interface...

What confuses me (and probably everyone else) is that Getty has put so much effort into Thinkstock. ... Not Shutterstock, of course, but pretty impressive for a two year start-up, albeit one probably funded by transferring thousands of customers away from iStock and other Getty sites.

I don't know how you came up with "two year start-up". My first PP downloads are from 2009. They were miniscule. After promises of a new push I decided to put more images back into the PP in the mid of 2011 but numbers were pretty small again. It's only now when I turned non-exclusive that the numbers got important for me in 2013. But this is mainly due to the fact that I now only get 17% at iStock, so the PP is doubling my overall IS income.

And when you mention people reporting big numbers in the refund thread: Yes, there are some in the four digits. Which means they are making some $500 or $1000 through the PP in regular month. But some of those have 5,000 or 10,000 professional level images, so they are likely to make five times more on SS with the same images.

That's probably the real message behind it: Whatever IS / Getty / TS tried, they never won significant numbers of clients but Shutterstock did. Getty has a huge client base and it just kept many of them from switching to Shutter by having a TS subscription in addition to their existing Getty and IS accounts. But I doubt they have ever managed to get more than 10-20% of the Shutterstock revenue with Thinkstock. Now they are making another try by turning IS into a subscription platform.

Business-wise it would make sense in a way. Most agencies today offer both, a full subscription offer and a credit or image pack offer. However, Getty has never been inventive, creative or acted as a leader. They are a company founded with investment money, run by investment bankers and owned by investment bankers. They buy, they merge, they leverage, they restructure, they optimize. They have never been, are not and never will be leading anything anywhere.

And that's why this news strategy is going to fail as well: They are trying to match an existing offer but they are offering less service, less quality, less reliability. So the only advantage they have is their sales force and connections to big media and advertising companies. But they will never be able to connect to the average small business owner, website startup or designer that iStock once made. They think corporate and won't ever be able to understand the masses of small people. So they won't ever win them back as clients.