Thanks for the info - shame they don't include that information in the license types listed or have it clickable like RF is...

All I see is the May 23 entry about changes in the list of notes on my Author Dashboard page. Nothing newer than that (and the page you linked to says May 22 at the top - they should put a year on there somewhere!)

My main concern was that they not get rejected and thus lower my approval percentage. I've heard it said that thud plays a role in search placement - as if DT didn't have enough whacky ideas!

It certainly shouldn't count...

are ppl still uploading? is it that bad that you think the end is coming?

I'm not uploading to IS at the moment, but only because the site and the handling of new images have been in such a mess since the September code changes. The end of iStock's internal code running the site isn't the end of iStock as a business, although if they don't manage things better it might end up that way!

I think Getty's trying to whittle away at costs and Stan's right that  one of those moves is getting the iStock site running using Getty back end technologies so they can cut back or eliminate the Calgary IT staff. Given that there's been no real innovating at iStock in a while I can't see any loss of having Getty code running the iStock site - assuming they can do that without totally effing up sales and royalty tracking (in particular I don't think there's any Getty royalty calculation that parallels the godforsaken RC scheme that IS has, so if they're to keep royalties different at iStock, they do have to invent some code to get the Getty back end to do something other than multiply by .20 (the Getty royalty).

I think we can expect more breakage as they work through this process.

I think I'd be willing to deal with a flat fee concept if there were any indication that you could bring customers to the site. I know that my images will sell ('cause they have) but I also know that with a  over a year on StockFresh - a great site with no effective marketing - I made one $50 payout (so they sold $100 worth of images).

So have I missed the explanation of what sort of marketing you're planning to do? How you're getting the buyers to the site? What you'll be telling them about why they should use your service? I read through the information at support.picturengine.com and there's nothing on that. There is some mention of why the industry-wide search isn't live - that it's too expensive to do until you can "monetize" the platform. And also that buyers love the cross agency search.

When I look at the sources of money, it appears to be free to buyers and no commission on sales, so it's just the fees from contributors? And those fees will be paying for searches of agency photos? Is the cross-agency search being appealing to buyers (even though you say you won't be doing price comparison which is probably the big thing a buyer would like to see) the promotion strategy?

I can see why you don't want to talk too much about your plans, but perhaps you can see why from a contributor point of view, asking us to just trust you and fork over the cash is perhaps  a stretch for some of us.

I don't often check Pocketstock, but I did today and found that I made a sale on Nov 19th - a 31 cent commission on a 78 cent sale of a "basic" license, XL image. Sad that the prices are so low - with those sort of returns you have to want them to fail rather than succeed

I think they've given up on communicating with contributors. The last e-mail I have was from October 19th talking about the new Packages (and dropping bidder). But I can't see any package that gives a 78 cent price (2.50, 1.30 and 63 cents are the per image prices for the three packages they're offering).

I'll let things ride through the end of the year, but with terrible sales volume and rotten royalties, I can't see any reason to stick with them if nothing else changes.

I don't think anyone has an opt out any more

Slight tangent, but I came upon this article from April about Calgary stock start ups and their fates (not just about iStock). Seems that merry-go-round keeps on...

For many of the agencies, the US is a huge percentage of their sales. When it doesn't affect us as much, we'll know the efforts to broaden market appeal have worked

...Yes. DT is on its way, BIG time.

DT is a solid number three/four and has been almost since the beginning. I don't see anything changing there although I'm happy for the good weeks when they come around and will put up with "subscription Wednesdays" when that happens.

...And if we're going to be excluding people from responding who submit to unfair companies than this post should have zero responses.

Unfortunately true.

Exclusives have a stake in this - even if they don't submit to Alamy - because they participate in a business where the behaviors of one agency have effects on things at other agencies. Not to mention that some portion of exclusives are keeping an eye out for what might be available to them should they decide to become independent.

I feel free to comment on aspects of exclusivity, FT's cr*p treatment of contributors and the whacked out marketing ideas of new agencies - I don't participate in any of them, either.

I don't think it's about James West being nice, but just being straightforward. None of the puke-inducing "this is really good for you" that we've seen elsewhere when agencies have picked our pockets.

Businesses require investment. If an agency like Alamy that started out taking only 35% of the gross (unlike iStock which started taking 80% of it) wants to try and build the business and can convince contributors to fund it through a smaller percentage of the total, that seems perfectly reasonable as a proposition. If they fail to grow the businesses, we're hosed anyway, 60% or 50%. If they succeed and use their increased take to fund business growth and development - unlike all Getty's moves where the extra has been to pay off financial speculators - I can live with that. Some contributors can't and that's a reasonable choice too.

There is no magic "fair" percentage. It depends on what the agent is doing with their percentage of the money. What s*cks is when the agency is taking a lot of the gross and buying yachts. It likewise s*cks when these new agencies think that  "70% for contributors!" is a good deal. If they don't spend money on marketing, direct sales or features for buyers, then the business won't get off the ground. If I heard stories of James West partying in expensive suites and entertaining lavishly, I'd take a very different view of what Alamy's up to.

If I were looking for something from Alamy it would be increased sales volume and immediate - as opposed to "this year, next year, sometime, never" payments. If I thought that taking 10% to fund growth - without having to get money from the short-term-oriented venture captialists - I could live with that. Alamy's occasional large sales don't make up for the lack of volume and the payment process seems antique if you've been selling via micro.

I'm very willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because (a) they seem unusually straightforward compared to the rest of the agencies and (b) I don't currently make much from them. I have more to gain than I do to lose, looking at it from the perspective of a relative newbie (and I don't really count the handful of RM images I put there in 2007). I'm sure people with a big current income stream which is steady and which will be cut in the short term will have a very different view of this.