Hi everyone,

We have made some changes to the calculations, here is a list of the changes:

1) 100MB TIFF - now 150, from 20
2) 200 MB TIFF - now 300, from 40
3) 300 MB TIFF - now 450, from 60
4) If the Contributor also submits content to the Footage or EVO collections, 123RF will recognize the credit count that we charge to our clients for the purpose of calculating Contributors' Levels.

Thank you very much,

Alex.

So, if I have this right, your big concession to contributors is to increase the counts for the three image operations that are rarely used and help out footage and EVO contributors with a doubling of credits for levels calculations?

Does this honestly seem to you as if you are doing anything for the bulk of those complaining about your new scheme?

If you want to be the agency with Yuri, MonkeyBusinessImages, other factories and a few individual superstars like Lisa, and nothing else, you're going about it just the right way.

It's not only the cash grab, which is bad enough, but you give the small time or niche contributor no way to increase their earnings - they need to become a factory too to get paid a decent royalty.

I don't think you've been listening carefully enough. If you have been listening, this is a truly insulting response.

How very sad. My sympathies to family and friends

Quote from: vannphoto on December 19, 2012, 05:10

Is it done? I've got sales up to the 26th. just $1 short of my payout... not sure how many sales will continue on past this Friday. surely ... none til the new year?

No, they aren't done.  Mine only go to the 26th too.  Looks like that's just where they stopped the transfer.  I am sure they will finish the xfer by the end of this weekend, if not  before.

I'm seeing files added to the 27th this morning, so they're still going...

After one week with no reply to my most recent support ticket (the 87.5 cent royalty, above), I sent them a reminder e-mail asking if they'd found anything out.

I just received an e-mail back saying that they had fixed the amount to be $1.00 with the following explanation:

"These earnings are from the image sold on  API account for a large Credit purchase.
The previous cases were caused by a minor glitch on the earning calculation system and thanks to your prompt notification,
 we already get it fix.
As promised , earning shall never go below 20 cent per credit from now onwards."

(Bold italics are mine)

I'm not thrilled that this is a second "minor glitch" - they told me it was fixed last time I contacted them. However, the promise of no royalty lower than 20 cents per credit is something I haven't heard before - and I assume what they mean is that the price per credit for calculating the royalty will never be lower than 40 cents - after January, the percentages for contributors will no longer be 50% across the board.

40 cents a credit is still dirt cheap - below even iStock's bargain basement amounts - and could result in very small earnings for those on the minimum royalty rate.

How hard can it be to keep a decent set of books? I'm assuming if I really combed through things there would be tons more errors, but they're relying on us just not having the time to do this...

Hello. I love your image of the guy with his hair smoking

I've never used instagram so I don't have any personal stake in this, but they deserve the angry lynch mob. Facebook has a completely overblown idea of itself and will try on just about anything to see what it can get away with. The peasants should be revolting

Level 4. I haven't uploaded since they made the announcement  about the cut in royalties and I won't start until they change this cash grab scheme. I'll let my port that's there keep earning and hope business moves away to other sites.

As they're now promoting themselves as the low price leader for RF images, it's not really in my best interests to give them new content. They haven't managed the huge increases in volume that they talked about, so it's not a deal where the volume will make up for the lower royalty rates.

Thanks everyone.
How do you keep track of the rejections from the various sites and know which files to resubmit where? Does Microstock submitter track approved and rejected files?

I move the aliases to an accepted folder or rejected folder (they are within the agency folder). For places like PhotoDune that are so inconsistent in reviews, I don't bother with outcome, just have a Submitted folder so I don't upload duplicate work.

If I make changes to a file, the updated JPEG is orginal_name-v2.jpg so I have the original for those agencies that received it. If I make no changes but make something smaller (some sites have small maximum file sizes that some panoramas violate), I name that original_name-smaller.jpg. Unless an agency sells really well or there's a stupid error I didn't notice in the original, I don't bother resubmitting, but if I do, the original_name.jpg alias will be in the rejected sub folder and original_name-v2.jpg alias in the accepted folder.

I put a few together - it's very, very easy to do. I don't have a clue what sort of a difference it has made to sales, but I can see that the galleries are being viewed (there are stats for views by logged in users at the bottom of the contributor page)

As I have always linked together related images in lightboxes at IS with the notion that it might help sales (and it's almost impossible for it to hurt them!), seemed like a no brainer to me

No card for me either - perhaps I didn't sell enough?

I have the SS iPhone app that's for searching (they had the iPad one a while ago) and that doesn't require a login to use. The mobile web site that you can make a bookmark for on your home screen does require a login and I have had no problems using it.

Fat fingers on the iPhone make typing passwords much harder. I just go very, very slowly to try and avoid errors

Alamy is not at all exacting beyond meeting technical requirements (noise, focus, size minimums) - they don't edit the collection at all. SS will reject in a heartbeat for LCV (low commercial value) and composition. Do try to select your submission for SS very carefully, and don't just assume they'll take anything Alamy will.

iStock has a very different take on things from SS. SS likes punchy and attention grabbing; iStock prefers technical perfection even if it's a bit boring. As far as applying to iStock, look at the earnings chart on the right - they're #2 on the list. Why wouldn't you want them selling your images? They are owned by Getty and Getty behaves very badly to photographers, musicians (contributors), but they sell a lot of work.

...Seriously, being one of the most successful stock photographers as you are, I expect you show more class, generosity, open-mindedness and positivity. When you use words like death warrant and such, it somehow reminds me of jihad.

You have really got the wrong end of the stick on this one. I'm not sure that anyone owes positivity about anything to anyone. It's very nice when people are positive because they have something about which to be positive. Some of the situations where people show positivity in terrible circumstances end up seeming irrational.

Lisa referred to iStock signing its own death warrant - she didn't call for it to be done (which is the implication in the jihad reference you make) - you're totally inventing motives that I've never, once, seen Lisa show. You'll see that she says several times in this discussion that she would prefer to see iStock pull out of this tailspin and fix the many broken and problematic things. Escalating the rhetoric as you did is just out of place in every way.

Given the circumstances, I think Lisa's comments were very mild and measured - and I have no idea in what way she didn't exhibit "class" in your view.

And as far as open-mindedness, it's always good to keep an open mind about things that you're unfamiliar with or which are in some early stage of development. At this point, we've had a good while to see how Getty is running iStock and it isn't much different from the way it's run everything else it has acquired. Being open minded in the face of a wretched track record like Getty's smacks of stupidity or willful ignorance. Lisa doesn't appear to me to be either of those things.

I get it that exclusives aren't happy when independents have a go at iStock, but you'd have a hard time arguing that we have no reasons for doing so. I am still so angry at the lies and betrayal of trust. I have moved on and things are doing much better, but I can't see anything positive for iStock at the moment, and that's a very sad thing. Not sad for the greedy wretches who brought this about, but for all the people who made iStock what it is, including the many loyal buyers who made the marketplace such a success, and all those current exclusives who took all the promises at face value.

I honestly think you need to apologize to Lisa, or at the least just back off and stop talking on this subject here if you can't take any negative comments about your agency (I'm assuming you are an iStock exclusive, although I have no idea who you are).