No, this is correct. Getty often sells at much lower price points than istock.

Which is why so many people are scared of getty360 if more customers are moving to getty, away from istock.

The prices on the Getty website are just a list price, what customers actually pay is completly different. You will get a few 60 or 80 dollar results also though, but you might find that the average royalty on getty is far below your average royalty for e+ or vetta/agency on istock.

There migh also be variations with portfolio style, maybe some people are lucky and always get extremly high payouts. I saw one lady claim her average royalty from getty is 80 dollars. But I have never heard anyone else say that. It seems to be something around 10-16 dollars for the people I spoke with. But they all had many tiny amounts inbetween.

The biggest advantage of exclusive images would be that high quality indie content would increasingly be placed on istock, because the price point is so much higher and the additional exposure to getty. And a lot of content that is now exclusive could easily be indie content without them missing it. When i was exclusive every object on white, every flower shot became exclusive. But does getty really need these simple images? they don�t even sell well at the higher price point.

I am sure they are thinking about it, but everything with getty seems to take very, very long before they make a decision and then implement it. Give them 2 years and maybe it will happen...

gettyimages just has image or series exclusivity. If you have a direct contract with them, for their pc collection or as a house photographer you can shoot a series specifically for them and sell other content elsewhere. This is what many getty artists do.

I don�t know if you can send them content that was previously sold elsewhere at a lower list price. I think you should better ask getty directly about that.

I think that depends on the person themselves. Obviously if you hate contributors and can only think of them as a pesky nuisance, you won�t make it here.

If an admin doesn�t have a customer relations background and doesn�t understand that every word you right is public relations work as well, they are useless and will do even more damage to the reputation of the company. Nothing worse than employees who are bitter and emotional, it just makes it obvious that the company is not good at choosing the right people for a position. And it makes you wonder how the rest of company has been staffed.

But if you like to work and interact with creative people I think a good liason person on msg would be great for istock. However, that liason admin needs to have the back of istock/getty HQ. If they don�t support you, don�t give you information or even lie to you, you can�t work and just get depressed.

Many issues are rooted in genuine misunderstandings between HQ and the international user base. They would benefit greatly from excellent communication specialists.

To invest in good business relations is always cheaper than dealing with lawyers and loosing customers later on. Winning back business partners is unbelievably expensive.

And since getty is an internet company it would be great if their managers could demonstrate that they have convincing internet and social media skills, that they feel as comfortable in forums, blogs and social networks as Jon Oringer or Bruce and other CEO�s or managers who surf the internet with style and grace.

A 21 century business needs 21 century leadership. 

There are many people here with solid business management backgrounds or entrepreneurs. We just decided we want a less stressful life and fun way to earn money.

In what other business can you deduct all trips, easter eggs, any food you eat (if you shoot it) as a business expense?

A 20% sale for exclusives and 15% for independents. BUT AT WHAT PRICE? The prices on the getty website are list prices. Many, many customers pay fees that are lower than what I was getting as an exclusive on istock.

Today my report had sales that gave showed my royalty from a sale was 39 cents and 2.65  USD for example. But also one for 60 dollars. So there is a huge variation.

On istock my files are now being offered for 1-10 credits, so maybe around 1-10 dollars or a lot less, if the customer buys credits for 50 cents.

It is not very likely that getty360 will be offering my indie files for hundreds of dollars to these supercustomers who have probably been buying at huge discounts anyway.

It is perhaps similar to gettyconnect. they say we will receive our usual percentage, but we don�t know from what price.

Maybe they will give us examples later.

But since getty360 is for high volume buyers, i would expect the prices to be comparable to Thinkstock or even lower. I mean all Thinkstock content is included anyway.

I think offering the customers an overview over everything that getty offers is a good idea for the customer IMO. I just don�t think I will be making a lot of money from it.

And unlike the PP program, if you are exclusive, you cannot opt out from getty360.

Anyway, Lobo said the program is for a very small group of customers. But personally I would have preferred if these customers were buying from istock.

But since I am indie, getty360 doesn�t worry me more than Thinkstock.

You explained it very well. Nothing bad will happen to you

It is strange though that the obvious needs to be explained at all. 12 dollars for potentailly millions of small to medium business users is just an unacceptable deal. It is a free promotion deal, even bigger than with Microsoft.

I would gladly volunteer files if they would let me, but it does look like they want to continue doing deals like this in the future.

"offset", see this thread

http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-'offset'-a-new-high-end-marketplace-for-stock-photos/msg305425/?topicseen#new

I don�t know Paul. It seems pretty reasonable that customers say they want to see all available Getty content in one place instead of their 10 000 seperate outlets. If I was a getty buyer I would be fed up too trying to hunt down files via their different companies.

So getty360 in principle is not a bad thing. They probably should have done that a long time ago.

The problem is the royalty rate, especially for the istock exclusives who will obviously lose high volume buyers who will no longer buy from istock at 35 or 40% royalty rate. And if 360 is successful, then obviously more customers will be asked to join. Which means the getty "macro" photographers will be seeing more and more sales at low prices and the big customers will get used to extremly low prices, even from Getty itself. This might prevent some of them from going to Shutterstock. Especially now that Shutterstock is also opening a high end collection, so getty can point out that for a high end buyer they can offer a cheap "all you can eat" buffet.

And for the indies it is another cut down to 15%.

So all contributors lose, but the exclusives will lose more than the indies in proportion.

Do you see anybody celebrating the news on istock's own forums? Not even the admins and employees have anything positive to say.

If you spent any time on istock itself you would know what is actually going on there.

Let me guess - that high value customer they want to please - Number one is GOOGLE....

I see a lot of easter eggs and holiday candles coming your way istock. many seashells and backgrounds too. objects on white en masse.

everything else...probably not...

I thought the video implied the content would be exclusive. The photographer didn't sound like she was going to supply just another high end agency.

At that price point exclusive images make sense. And you can't upload them to getty afterwards because they only take exclusive content. So where else can you go?

Maybe they will allow the artist to sell from their own site.

But we will see.

Interesting! stocksy isn�t even on the market yet and already there is competition. Although it will be Getty and corbis and other traditional houses that will suffer.

Shutterstock reacts really, really fast to changes in the marketplace. You must give them that.

I guess Sean Locke now has an appropriate outlet for his content....it should also make some high end istock exclusives think about going indie once the site is established and earning money.