Exclusives and non exclusives are equally independent. The best way of maintaining a portable portfolio is to manage your collection right. Especially keywords. Keyword generically & in detail ahead of specifically keywording for any particular site. You want to be able to quickly upload to a new site or destination if you choose to. And you want the keywords, descriptions etc to be in the IPTC data. Even exclusives.

I am 100% certain that dissatisfaction with the latest Getty announcement brings closer viable new investment which will ultimately undermine the value of IS as a business. Irrespective of the royalty numbers, the manner of the announcement undermines trust. Nearly everyone who contributes to IS would quickly move somewhere else immediately given a better offer. Getty bought a community. That was what crowd-sourcing was all about. That was why IS was such a thing. That is still where the next opportunity lies.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on August 29, 2010, 01:49

It's 50% commission, Sean, which is better than even you get at iStock (don't you think you deserve a bigger slice? All those hundreds of thousands in commission you pay and you don't get any better service than a bronze exclusive whose barely made them $1,000. Still, your contribution helps keeps the billionaire owners happy, knowing they're getting a good return on their investment). The problem at Alamy isn't the discounts it's the volume of sales.

That is one thing that pisses me off at IStock, the "we love all our contributors equally spiel". I don't want to be loved an equal amount to a bronze contributor, I am in a business relationship with IStock and I want to be loved like someone who has bought in more than 1/4 million dollars for the company, not like someone that has just signed up and does nothing but take up reviewers time with snapshots and clog up the forums with bitching.

Quote from: sharpshot on August 10, 2010, 10:29

Nice to have lots of other sites to keep me busy, this must be driving the exclusives crazy.

I think the buyers like it.  Today is the best Tuesday I've had in a while...

I was expecting the vast majority to be between 20 and 30. You guys come across as young! 

Quote from: cybernesco on August 04, 2010, 10:45

In my case I know for a fact that since August 2005 I averaged .93 per download as a non-exclusive. You could almost double that as an exclusive, if this member has been exclusive the all time which is 1.86 x 19000 =$35340.  And then you would still need to figure the various cannister levels that this member went through as an exclusive, so 20-30K seems a good target. I would say this is max. Certainly not 100K. Denis

This logic is flawed.  I've been averaging well over $3 per download for a while no- assuming that someone is averaging the same and that the downloads are spread evenly for 4 years, you get 5,000 downloads in the past 365...thats 5000 x 3 (and they have a better cannister level) - that alone is $15,000.  I'm pretty sure that the photographer gets more than $3 per download because I'm not even gold yet. 

So you're telling me that 14,000 downloads = $10,000?

No chance.  At all.

Travel ... but I take pictures there too. 

@Luis:

whereever possible I try to deactive Extended Licenses because I feel that they are priced too low at many microstock agencies. Combined with the fact that I mostly do people shoots the risk of finding an image in use where me or the model wouldn't like the deal is higher. I can live well without ELs... :-)

P.S. I already had your blog in my RSS reader...

6.  use the Content in a fashion that is considered by iStockphoto (acting reasonably) as or under applicable law is considered pornographic, obscene, immoral, infringing, defamatory or libelous in nature, or that would be reasonably likely to bring any person or property reflected in the Content into disrepute;
7. use or display any Content that features a model or person in a manner (a) that would lead a reasonable person to think that such person uses or personally endorses any business, product, service, cause, association or other endeavour; or (b) except where accompanied by a statement that indicates that the Content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the Content is a model, that depicts such person in a potentially sensitive subject matter, including, but not limited to mental and physical health issues, social issues, sexual or implied sexual activity or preferences, substance abuse, crime, physical or mental abuse or ailments, or any other subject matter that would be reasonably likely to be offensive or unflattering to any person reflected in the Content, unless the Content itself clearly and undisputedly reflects the model or person in such potentially sensitive subject matter in which case the Content may be used or displayed in a manner that portrays the model or person in the same context and to the same degree depicted in the Content itself;

That said, I know for a fact that sometimes people will search Alamy and buy on the micros.  I actually had an Alamy customer service agent e-mail me saying a customer wanted to know if a particular picture was also on "Photolia".  I told them that it was on "Fotolia".  Needless to say that's where it was bought. 

Why Alamy customer service would be doing this kind of research to send customers AWAY to the micros I can't begin to understand.