Tis' Thursday of the week following the original week in which they were going to provide further detail about the recoupmentabilitationary process. Professionals my hairy ar*e.

One thing I would like to add is that the few buyer contacts I have are surprised when I tell them my cut is often a paltry 15% - but it doesn't stop them buying from that agency....just as we, for the most part, continue to buy coffee/smartphone tech/clothing from companies who treat their suppliers like dirt. Therein lies the hypocrisy.

As for the happy haven of the macros, I personally believe their market share will be significantly eroded in the next few years as the micros continue to supply massive quantities of work which is as good as (if not superior) at lower price points.

Photography is nothing special. Corporations get where they are because they act as a valve between supply and demand and most suppliers don't have the the assets or time to go around it.

Besides we're not talking about oil paintings or diamonds here, photographs (and I mean high quality images) are in abundance and increasing by the second, which in itself devalues the commodity.

Thinking we ever had control once digital allowed significantly more people to increase quality and work rate is truly naive from a business POV.

When you've got a hole in the bottom of your shoe and its pouring with rain - but you don't care because the Christmas card you got from Shutterstock provides a neat solution.
 

In the meantime, those scoundrels at IS have knocked off for the weekend. So "next week" becomes the "week after next week" - or something like that.

Understandably, they want to get the recoupmenteringability procedure absolutely bang on to ensure they don't leave a single cent behind in some starving contributor's bank account.

still no comment from tickstock? my popcorn has gone cold waiting...

Tickstock has been assimilated by the collective known as Istock. His biological and technological distinctiveness has been added to their own. Resistance is futile.

I've called IS some nasty names recently and I will do again, but aside from an understandable blip in December 2013 my main collection sales are just about back to 2012 levels and growing month on month. Sorry about that.

Besides, I don't know how anyone can speculate on big numbers and how they might affect them personally since they don't mean anything without knowing the detail behind them. For all anyone knows they could have dumped in 150,000 images of poodles.

I can honestly say I don't get many rejections at SS but I had a small batch of editorial images rejected today for lighting and/or composition. After a cup of tea and a sit down I looked at the work again and I found myself agreeing with the reviewer.

Personally, I find SS to be very fair with reviews and very responsive on the few occasions I've felt the need to challenge them.

As for the others: FT,DP,BS,123 and now IS accept 98-99% and the only agency I can't get to grips with is DT - they make me want to mangle things and break stuff.

Personally, I try not to fret over a number like that because I have zero control over it. Also, I'm a detail freak and as such can't infer anything from a random number since I don't know how many contributors uploaded or what they uploaded or whether their portfolios sell.

For all I know 20% of it could be girls or blokes not doing much other than flash their teeth at the camera or yet another 5,000 images of some rock in Utah.

In any event, 200,000 is mere plankton when you think about how many images are produced globally every day - and I mean commercial work, not just snapshots.

I don't know about the rest of the world but Brits tend to go down the pub every Friday lunchtime and the afternoon is usually spent giggling or dozing.

Best set your alarm clock for half past Sunday.

Of all the incompetent, clod-hopping, dimwitted and yokel-minded companies I've had to deal with, Getty/IS takes first prize with bells on.

This will probably wipe out my December PP earnings at the very least - hopefully not more. Useless.

Quote from: Red Dove on January 07, 2014, 10:33

In hindsight, perhaps people would have been better off keeping their cake holes closed and leaving IS to find the error sometime in January 2064

No. It is very important that the figures should be accurate and mistakes should be exposed, whichever way they go. If we keep quiet about strange patterns in the accounting they could start consistently underpaying us. I'd still like to know why, when 2012 turned into 2013, my PP sales suddenly dropped about 30% and stayed at the new level for six months. For all I know I've been being underpaid for the whole of 2013.

I was being facetious sir.

In any event, as Canonbabe points out above it is reasonable to expect an agent who helps themselves to such a large slice to provide a reliable and accurate business service. Alas, along with most other corporations these days money is spent on maintaining their place at the pig trough by marketing and sales as opposed to service, quality and reliability.

As always, IS will elaborate when they're good and ready and whether we like it or not. Pigs.