And this isn't related to copyright or property release issues where they've tightened the standards since 2008? You said you talked with them on the phone - what did they say (I know you said you got no answers)?

I think the thing that bugs me the most is not that agencies have rules that many of us don't like, but that we frequently can't get a straight answer to questions in a timely (or polite, or both) manner. I think a contributor whose content is removed 4 years after it's approved deserves a detailed explanation of what's going on.

I don't see a problem with your idea in the abstract - it's similar to how things were before the micros,  with agencies specializing in agriculture or Alaska or ...

What I don't see is any correspondence between any of the agencies you listed and the idea. As far as I can tell from reports here, none of these agencies is delivering much to anyone. The only one I contribute to is StockFresh (which has delivered a grand total of $23.50 in royalties in nearly a year) so perhaps that's not the one for me.

I did try Photocase, but couldn't get anything accepted, so let that one go. I have a small number of images on Pixmac, but it's not selling. I can't find CreativeWarehouse via Google - is that something new and private?

I'm willing (within limits) to try new agencies that seem to have some chance of working, but having been part of Gimmestock, Albumo, and ScanStock, I don't see quite the rosy picture you do with smaller general-purpose agencies. Perhaps the niche places you see are largely vectors (or something other than photos)?

So, if there is something in the future that's specializing in a niche I can fill (and will have my work, unlike Photocase), I'm all ears. But I don't see anything like that yet.

Quote from: CoisaX on May 24, 2012, 04:30

It's somehow funny, look into all complaints, made ​​several months ago, about the "legality" of DP. How fast people change opinion  

We didn't all change our opinion.   I never did go with DP as I still feel uneasy about this agency in spite of others' success there.  Each to his own though.

+1

I just checked, and those last 3 days have filled in for me too. I then went to see if any more files had been moved over to Thinkstock, but that's apparently separate and it's still stuck where it was this weekend.

I thought this was you being humorous! I guess H&F wants their money out and this is their latest take on how to get it.

Neither an IPO nor a KKR buyout address the issue of all that debt H&F burdened Getty with along the way - which is going to make things hard for whoever ends up owning it. A pox on predators like H&F - they walk away with their cash and leave the business with the bill.

...Anyone get paid through the end of April?  My stats show the 28th through 30th still aren't there.  Do we have to wait another week just to get paid for the last three days of the month

I have the same thing you do - missing 28-30th.

I had also thought they were firing up the image transfer process after about a month of nothing. Friday and Saturday 50 or so images got transferred but then nothing.

It's like one of those cars that backfires and bucks and can't get over 20 miles an hour except on a steep downhill stretch...

theft isn't a "change"

I like it - I gave them some feedback on what I think could improve it. It'll be interesting to see where this goes. I love their iPad i/f and this does seem to have grown from that.

There must be something I don't understand. I've never gotten 2.67 at PD.  I had one that paid me 1.65 - every other sale paid me 99/66/33 cents.  I don't see the size of the image being reported along with the sale...?

In my statement tab I see the amount I got paid, the rate (33%) and then the Price column on the right - that's what the buyer paid. I meant $2.97 not $2.67 - that's for a $9 XXL sale and it's $2.31 for a $7 sale.

It doesn't show size but if you look at the image page it says $9 is for an XXL, $ for XL and so on. I'm inferring the size from the price.

Quote from: jsnover on May 18, 2012, 09:10

...You're leaving more money than just about anywhere else (other than SS) on the table if you omit IS from your roster of agencies.

It's hard to disagree with that, but the whole microstock world is so complicated that, as many have said above, it is impossible to know exactly what is really going on, let alone predict the future.

I am, however, sure of my experience. I started submitting to IS in 2005 and am Gold there. I stopped submitting to IS over a year ago, and since then not only have I saved a ton of time I would have spent jumping through IS hoops only to have good images rejected, but my overall income has gone up considerably.

Are customers who would have bought my images at IS finding them elsewhere, so that I do not really lose by ignoring IS? Hard to know for sure, but it is possible, IMO.

My take on this was to delay uploading - so IS doesn't get new images until 9 months or so after everywhere else. That was largely to keep them off Thinkstock, but IS has so far done a better job than I did of keeping my images off their site (I'm now approaching 1/2 my portfolio there 6 months after they said all indie files were forcibly moving over).

Uploading via Deep Meta is easy, relatively speaking, and I'm already familiar enough with their procedures and policies that they're manageable. I don't care about rejects - I'm done worrying about those at any agency as they've all got weird tics. DT and their idiotic similars policy; SS has occasional bursts of odd rejections (and I was intrigued to note they claimed they wrote some pre-screening software for incoming images prior to the human inspection - I'd love to know more about that) and so on. I upload and they accept it or they don't. Next.

I look a look at my public portfolio at Veer (because of the nonsense with the Alamy "partner" program) and it said I have 539 images in my portfolio.

I thought I had 839 because that's what I see approved in the Dashboard. I backed up to look at the approval dates 240+ images ago, and they were April 18th. In other words, my images approved one month ago or less are not online or for sale. I'm just flabbergasted.

I'd come to terms with the tedious upload process, glacial review times and weak sales - other than subs the amounts per sale are pretty decent. But somehow the idea that they can't get an image live faster than a month, just makes them look antique. This isn't slides that need to be duplicated...

When they finish making an "addressment" to the mess with putting our images on Alamy, perhaps they could comment on why they're busy doing that when they can't even get them live on their own web site.

Quote from: WarrenPrice on May 17, 2012, 17:19

A lot of people who need to eat a Snickers Bar.  (maybe only makes sense in USA?)   

LOL!  Love those commercials.  Here's for anyone who didn't understand the reference:
...

Thank you Lisa! I had no idea what they were on about Those are funny!

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 18, 2012, 09:37

I'll rescue you from the unbearable trauma of all those committee meetings .... provide an opt-out button.

Better still __ provide an opt-IN button. The default should be 'Veer only' for those who upload to you.

I'd say +1 but I would like to add that there should be individual opt in buttons for each partner, not an all or nothing choice. Some agencies might be fine, others not - depends on where other people have, or want to have their portfolio.

And as far as the anticipated complaint that it's too hard to program a partner by partner opt in - go find some decent software engineers and do the work to make that happen.

The unvarnished truth, as I see it, is that Veer doesn't produce enough income for contributors for us to put up with the kind of shabby, take-it-or-leave-it treatment that we have from agencies such as iStock. If you don't care that lots of people leave your site, then feel free to blow us off on this.