I don't quite see the connection.
Somehow you made the leap from pirating software to the perceived immorality of of the US government?
Now if we were talking about paying taxes to such a government, then your argument might hold some validity.

But as it is, we are talking about stealing the hard work of many, many programmers and the support group around them.
You would like it if your images were used on a 500,000 copy print run and you were not paid an extended license?
That is a much closer analogy to using a pirated copy of Photoshop.

@Gaja, I assume that you are in Europe.

Americans are workaholics.
Many companies frown on people taking time off, even though vacation time is part of the employment package.

And in a faltering economy, there are plenty of people ready and willing to step in and take your job if you seem to be something other than a 'team' player.

These are the harsh realities of the times, here in the good ol' US of A.

I just went back and took a hard look at my stats on IS over the last 3 1/2 years.
There is most definitely a slump (for me) in the summer months with August seeming to take the biggest hit.

Granted I do have a small portfolio and I grow it rather organically.

@SC, you asked why as a business, would I hold off?
There is precedent for this in many business operations.
Banks are holding off on making loans. The diamond cutters in India closed shop last December due to too much inventory and lack of sales.

It makes little sense to me to put up fresh work if there are few eyes to look at the files.
I will keep uploading during the summer to test the water, but I will kept the bulk of new material in stasis until I see some signs of life.

Well it is late June and school is out here in the US.
My sales have become slow and the downloads that I do get are in the smaller/cheaper sizes as of late.

I know that I am not alone, and others are seeing a similar sales slump.

So the question is; when do we start to pick up again?
Is it as I suspect that around late August/early September when school starts back up and people return from vacation?
Or is there some other dynamic that I am unaware of (besides the present stinking world economy) that affects the yearly cycle?

Also wondering if I should hold off from uploading finished edits at this time and wait until near the end of summer to keep them 'fresh'.

Regards,
Joseph

Thanks for heads-up, Sean!

I have to admit the shots on the front page flash slide show are freaking awesome!

However, when I clicked on the 'view Vetta' button there were only illustrations. After 60 plus pages of vector graphics, I stopped looking.

How does one search for Photographs only, in the Vetta collection?
Is there a way to do it in the advanced search page?

I too have been noticing how erratic downloads seem.
Also, this month at least, I have had a rash of extra small purchases which is unusual for me.

Regardless, each month from this last January through May has been better than the previous month. June so far is trailing, so the trend may not continue.

^^^^They are possibilities but the reality is that they will probably be used on sites that the model wouldn't be happy with.

I guess that depends on who your models are.
One young lady that I recently worked with is an artists model who also does soft core porn.
She does not care wher or how her images are used... Although I chose not to shoot her nude.

I think it would be mutualism if the commission split was 50/50.

One can always argue that the costs of doing business; advertising, server maintenance, bandwith etc, etc, would dictate that our 'agents' deserve the bigger slice of the pie.... so lets give them 60% 
However, ANY business bears these costs regardless.
Most businesses have to pay for their stock and then make whatever % over cost that they can.
Some (furniture stores) markup is 100%.
Other models call for a 30% margin.
In the very expensive end of things (diamonds for instance) sometimes the margins may be as little as 10%!
Yet all these business models seem to work and often the owners make a very good living. Some even become quite wealthy.

Enter this business model, where the product (our work) is free and they only pay us what? 20-25% IF it sells.
Few of us are getting rich in this scenario, many are losing money or are just in it to have fun...but the site owners (the successful ones anyway) are getting wealthy from our blood sweat and tears.

Parasitic is too strong a word, but exploitation does come to mind.

I am in no way speaking about ALL the sites. Some do seem to be more fair than others, and that is where I choose to sell my wares 

My day job, put everyone except management on mandatory four day work weeks last January.
Management took a 15-20% pay cut as well.

It's not working for 'free' but it sure feels like it.
On the flip side, we still have jobs and will pay less in income taxes this year

I am wondering if IS isn't going for a 'Halo effect'.
For those not familiar, this is an old automobile company tactic.

Produce a flagship automobile in small numbers (think Dodge Viper for instance) that you don't intend to sell many of...but it will get people into the store and excited about your brand.

In essence IS might be saying: here is our best of the best... but if you cannot afford this, check out the artists port, there may be something similar there for less.

I just received an email from IS informing me that their editors had chosen one of my shots for inclusion in the PC.

I already have three images there that I nominated myself and were accepted, but this is not one that I nominated myself.
While I think it is an OK shot, I would not have nominated it myself as I feel that there are a couple of others from the same series that are superior.
I guess that I just do not have a firm handle as to what the criteria may be for the PC collection.

Does anyone have a more or less definitive idea?

Here is the image:

Just to further make the point... a week ago, one of my models asked me if I still had shots of her on IS, because she could not find them.

I gave her my user name and even the number of one of the files, but she still could not find her images. I finally emailed her a direct link to a lightbox with her files in it!

I have no idea what search terms she was using and I did not inquire.

It really does seem to me that 'regular' people are having a difficult time finding what they are looking for.

I have often assumed that microstock buyers were either designers for magazine/print/web advertising and/or buyers for small organizations such as churches and schools that need images for web sites and brochures.

Today I met with a potential client; a cosmetic surgeon who wanted high end glamor 'after' shots of some of his patients for his web site. When I arrived at his sumptuous office I noticed several poster size prints that I recognized as the work of several different microstock photographers.

As the good doctor was gushing (no really he was) over my print portfolio, I casually mentioned that I also was an exclusive on iStock.
To my surprise he was very familiar with IS, and DT but none of the other big six. He did mention several other sites like Crestock and a few that I had never heard of. 

Of major interest to me was the fact that he felt there was a lot of low end garbage on IS and had trouble locating the sort of shots that he wanted on IS. On the other hand he did mention that he thought the prices were good. He even was savvy enough to keep a lightbox on IS. Obviously, he needs training in using search terms to find what he is looking for.

I am beginning to wonder how many sales many of us are missing, not because we don't have good keywording, but because the clients are not full time image  buyers and don't know how to search effectively?