Regarding the bees; Rob just purchased 40,000 bees. He's been a bee keeper before, but is starting again. Apparently you buy bees by the pound and a 3lb package is about 10K bees (all info courtesy of Rob, 'cause I asked)

I would give Rob a good bye in the forums but I'm banned, so I can't.

I've said many times that he's a spectacular moderator - keeps things in order with unfailing politeness and a gentle approach. He moved on as moderator because of the awful changes in Sept 2010. The suits moved him out (along with the best selling Christmas tree picture on iStock) because of Stocksy.

All around, iStock's loss - not that Getty gives a rat's a**

I think UGC is user generated content. Old line agency speak for the great divide between "professional" photographers and crowdsourcing. I hate the term (and I don't think it really covers current agency content; it's no longer people selling their vacation snapshots)

They have clearly learned nothing about communication - it would have been trivial to send out something about this in the recent newsletter or an e-mail just about this. Two or three sentences would have done it.

Whether or not this is the case, their attitude conveys an impression that they don't much care about UGC contributors and keeping them informed.

Waiting approval 162764

Just now checked the stats:

Waiting approval 126199

Quote from: ShadySue on April 24, 2013, 09:41

Queue now at  108963.

While we are busy posting in forum the rest are busy uploading. 

The faster they get approved the faster Getty can pass them on to Google and the lucky contributors can pocket their $6 or $12 loot

Queue now at  108963; so they are getting plenty of new uploads, and they can't keep up with inspections despite the announcement claiming: "We don't foresee any significant increase in queue wait times � in fact, we've been ramping up and training new members of the team in preparation for these changes."

And now 110,287, so up a couple of thousand in just a few hours. It was 70K just a few days ago. I'd say they're adding some large pile of new content, not just contributors getting busy.

I just sent Pocketstock e-mail requesting my account be closed. Given the 90 days for termination, it will be a year since I uploaded there (June 2012) by the time I leave. I think that's a fair trial, and they're not able to produce. I have a grand total of 55 cent royalties on two sales.

You'll get different answers from different contributors, but I think you should stay away from the "sell the rights" options and enable the others. Some people who sell prints themselves (via Cafe Press, Zazzle, FAA, et) prefer not to sell the P-EL, but I do offer that option as I haven't seen any clear evidence I'm competing with myself (I think it's perhaps bricks & mortar stores using these licenses, but I can't know for sure)

Fotolia started this type of end-run around an extended license purchase in 2008 - see the discussion here:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/prints-for-sale-through-fotolia/

If there were (a) notification of contributors up front of all partner deals and (b) individual opt out for any deals a contributor did not want to participate in - because they're on Zazzle, Cafe Press, FIA or whatever - then this would be closer to reasonable.

Unfortunately, Getty doesn't see fit to do either of the above and even those agencies which do offer opt outs are typically all or nothing (Bigstock for example).

IMO it's ripping off contributors unless you let them choose whether or not to participate.

I did a google search for it, found the front page and it still says Photographer Beta Now open. If you do an image search it still puts up the dialog saying this is limited and once it has launched all sites will be searched.

In other words I see no change at all from many months ago, and I hope no photographer has been paying them monthly fees as nothing's functional yet. All the articles Google search returned on the first page were from a year ago, so if there is anything going on, Google didn't find it.

I lose track of how long things have been with each batch at Pond5 - it's at least two weeks and often longer.

Quote from: jsnover on March 26, 2013, 20:14

I cannot fathom why there is a small clique of Getty apologists who refuse to believe that what Sean has said is what happened. Even further, I can't understand why they'd waste their time on MSG to set us poor country bumpkins straight - those of us who take Sean at his word.

And as for Getty's side of things, their track record speaks for itself - it'd be easier to defend Attila the Hun and Vlad the Impaler as social workers at heart than to pitch Getty as the hardly done by agency scr*wed over by the evil SuperLocke.

Go and complain about us and Sean someplace else.

Wow, way to be inclusive. Who needs any other perspective...let all us little Lemmings get back to our smug...errr...snug little bubbles

There's a whole lot of things I can be inclusive about - but not the flat earth society, those who support having imprisoned Galileo for saying the earth revolves around the sun - I could make a list, but I'm sure you get the point.

There's a saying someone else came up with that we are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. Sean has given us the tale of what happened and when. Having people come in here and say that - in essence - Sean is lying, is a complete waste of their time and ours. Let them send rude site mail to Sean calling him out if they really feel the need to set the world straight.

We've heard the "different markets" spin from pretty much every agency at this point. Especially when it comes to introducing subscriptions. Regardless of whether the admins at Bigstock believe it, I think they're wrong - just as iStock was wrong, Dreamstime, Veer...

The only thing that will assist contributors is growing the market by bringing in new buyers - Shutterstock stealing customers from Getty Images is great for those of us who aren't with Getty, but even better is a new iteration of what happened when iStock started. Companies that didn't buy stock before, or only bought in small quantities, buying images or significantly upping the volume of their purchases.

Having subscriptions at Bigstock isn't introducing anything new - it's just cheaper by a bit than Shutterstock. All it can do is cannibalize sales from somewhere else - if not SS then one of  the other microstock agencies. Given the lowball royalties, there is no way this can be good for contributors (it's neutral for those in Bridge to Bigstock whose acquiescence for 6 months has been purchased by giving them the 38 cents per download they currently earn).

The only winner in this move is SS as they get to pocket more of each sale from everyone except the Bridge folks.