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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5776
« on: January 04, 2012, 13:49 »
The exact terms and prices for extended licenses vary from agency to agency - generally the more rights, the higher the price. So printing items for resale might have a limit on the number of items in some extended licenses (iStock) but not at other agencies. In all cases I don't think it matters what the item is - so a mug, mousepad or poster would all just count as an item under the EL for items for resale.
5777
« on: January 04, 2012, 12:47 »
And now I'm seeing the search results I'd expect - your turnaround on fixes is excellent.
5778
« on: January 04, 2012, 10:55 »
I didn't get the mail either - I think 123rf might have had a problem with how this mail was sent. And as pointed out, why no site mail on this as well as e-mail? I can't buy the "check your spam filters" when (a) so many didn't get it and (b) I regularly check my spam filters and it wasn't there either.
Important changes like this should be clearly communicated - such as a popup when someone logs in or visits the site, sitemail, some other positive-confirmation method so the agency is sure the contributor has actually received the notification.
5779
« on: January 04, 2012, 10:52 »
Looking at a handful of searches today, it seems the mix of indie/exclusive is improving. It's not that the top indie sellers have been moving further forward as much as the mix of independent files throughout is better. In particular, finding exclusive files mixed in at the end of searches, not just the indie ghetto at the end, seemed to be a return to something more reasonable.
I don't have any new files on iStock to watch how new independent files are being treated at the moment - has any independent risked uploading - thus having files with which to check on search results?
5780
« on: January 04, 2012, 10:37 »
Thank you for letting contributors know - that's very helpful. I took a look at the site (in German) and did a few searches. I noticed that the titles of images are in English and wondered about translation of keywords and searching. I did some searches (both in the English and German versions of the site) and was puzzled about the results. For example, searches for tropical beach, maine, boston harbor picnic basket, sand dunes and boston dowtown produced expected results. If I searched for maine sunrise or boston sunrise it said zero results even though images with those keywords are there. Searching for maine sonnenaufgang and boston sonnenaufgang produced results as expected. I don't speak German but used Google translate to help me out  Is that just a glitch with one word? Should an English search with the original keywords still work (as well as one with German keywords)?
5781
« on: January 03, 2012, 16:57 »
I know it's been brought up before, but shouldn't there be some sort of time limit on obtaining a refund? I would think that you could discover any "mistakes" - duplicate downloads - or improper credit card use within 2 months. The one exception I think should be given no time limit is when you order a larger size of an image you already purchased - there's no possibility for any sort of shenanigans on the buyer's part and allowing a trade-up seems to benefit everyone.
These days most retail stores limit refunds to 90 days. With the simplicity of a digital refund - no trudging to a store required - and no wish to have microstock operate like the Alamy model where you buy now and pay 6 months later, 60 days seems ample to me.
I know that IS and DT no longer wish to explain the reasons for refunds (which I think is completely unacceptable; if you look at any mail order business they have a whole list of refund codes - put one of those into the system and no human intervention is required to be specific about what happened), but don't you ever wonder what on earth made someone seek a very small refund 3.5 months after the fact?
Given that we have a completely opaque accounting system and so far no steps taken to improve it, in spite of repeated requests/suggestions, I'm not holding my breath. However, FWIW the OP's point that if one of the reasons was unauthorized use of a credit card - the company can't control employee use of a card - why are we to be assured that they can control use or abuse in the destruction of the image? And when an image has been floating around a company for over three months, I'd consider a statement that the file hasn't been copied to be just about worthless.
5782
« on: January 03, 2012, 12:44 »
I think that the 50% cut applies only to the image sale and a portion of that 150 credits is paying for some third party to upsize the image. I can't imagine why anyone ever pays to have this done, but apparently if the buyer thinks they need it and can't do it themselves, there's a market for it?
So I think the image credits (whatever they are) were priced at $34.40 and the remainder was the fee for upsizing.
The CEL paying $42 would mean $84 for 100 credits which matches (roughly) the 1200 credits for $1,000 package. That seems fine. As I mentioned in the other thread about inmagine sales, it's not the 50% that bothers me but what it's multiplied by that's a problem (in my case I wasn't happy that inmagine which is 123rf's owner gets a distributor cut on the $10 value10 sales from inmagine, leaving 123rf contributors with 50% of $8 instead of the $10 sales price)
5783
« on: January 03, 2012, 12:35 »
The best match appears to have changed a lot again - a couple of my test searches that had my images buried deep now show them much closer to the beginning as they had been before. Perhaps other people could check their searches but the independent exile of the end of December appears to me to be over.
5784
« on: January 02, 2012, 21:03 »
Contributor's Agreement: http://www.123rf.com/submit/agreement.php
For all intents and purposes, 123RF and Inmagine are two separate entities. Inmagine is a 123RF Authorized Partner Reseller. All sales will be reported as such and we still do a 50-50 split with what 123RF earns.
Thanks for the link to the agreement - it might be good to have it on the site somewhere other than as part of the upload process. Have we all missed where there's a link to it from the contributor's section? And as far as Inmagine being separate, I have a hard time accepting that if they have the same owners as 123rf. This just means the agency is pocketing 60% instead of 50% on those transactions and that's not right. As contributors, perhaps we don't have the right to know about the ownership of both companies, but when you say "for all intents and purposes" that sounds like same owners two legal entities (parent - subsidiary, common owners). What's to stop Inmagine from deciding that of the $10, only $5 goes to 123rf, thus leaving contributors with $2.50? If it were a separate company with separate owners you'd not want to do that as the agency would loose as well as contributors. When your own parent is acting as a distributor you have no incentive to minimize the cut the distributor gets. This is just wrong.
5785
« on: January 02, 2012, 19:01 »
Just to highlight a very important note - that was in your blog post but I thought was worth mentioning here: you are paying contributors their regular royalties throughout this promotion.
Great to see that PhotoDune is (a) running a promotion to encourage purchases during what is typically a slow month and (b) that promotion expenses are being borne by the agency as a marketing expense.
Let's hope this makes for a busy January!
5786
« on: January 02, 2012, 18:51 »
Perhaps I should start a separate thread if it's too confusing to put the two issues in one - I definitely want to get details on the royalty to 123rf contributors from sales via inmagine's Value 10 collection.
5787
« on: January 02, 2012, 18:05 »
123RF and Inmagine are two different brands as far as I know.
It looks to me that Inmagine is acting as a sub-distributor to Alamy through Alamy's distribution scheme. In that case, you need to have elected into that scheme from Alamy and you will be getting the commission associated with the Alamy TOS if you are an Alamy contributor.
I have no idea what 123RF is doing with Inmagine. Maybe Alex can explain.
Back at the beginning of 123rf, (2005) you signed the contract with inmagine because there wasn't any online signup. 123rf is wholly owned by inmagine and my entire 123rf port is on inmagine (those files aren't on Alamy at the moment so they can't have come from there). For there to be other than a 50/50 split of the $10 when you have two web sites from one company seems to me to be a really unreasonable sleight of hand that stiffs contributors out of $1 per sale.
5788
« on: January 02, 2012, 13:31 »
Does anyone know where to locate the Artist's Agreement on 123RF? I can't find it for the life of me!
http://www.123rf.com/terms.php
That's not the ASA; that is the terms of use for the site. When I signed up with 1234f they were still doing paper contracts (which I have a signed copy of). I'm sure things have been updated since then, but I don't know where it is online. It should either include a rate schedule or reference an external one. Somewhere talking about the 50% and distributors, partners, etc.
5789
« on: January 02, 2012, 12:00 »
Revew times for me aren't that predictable, but they have been running 2-4 weeks. There was a big catch-up review last week that cleared all but 2 from my queue - never had that large a chunk reviewed at once before and don't know why the two illustrations (JPEGS from vectors) got left in the queue.
5790
« on: January 02, 2012, 01:40 »
Does anyone know what the 123rf contributor makes on one of these $10 inmagine sales? In theory it should be $5, right - 50% of $10?
I may not have received on of these - I did a check for the last few months and couldn't find any $5 XXL TIFF or XXL JPG royalties in my list. I did find some at lower amounts - from $2.15 to $4.70 which I assume were from sales via 123rf? How would I tell where the sale was from?
What occurred to me was that I wouldn't be happy if there were some sort of distributor commission taken off the top - buyer pays inmagine $10, inmagine pays 123rf $8 and I get $4. As inmagine and 123rf are the same company it would just be a way of effectively lowering contributor's take on what should be a one party sale.
I looked to see if I could find any sort of details on these types of sales, but couldn't - just the blanket statement that I get 50% of the net price. Does anyone else have a link to more information on this or can Alex provide us with some details please?
5791
« on: January 02, 2012, 01:19 »
I don't remember lowest price or smallest/largest being there before.
Looking at how the "lowest price" search works, it seems to display oldest level zeros first. That probably makes sense as you can go for "latest uploaded" to get newest, but that then includes those which have sold (and thus aren't the cheapest any more).
The problem I see is that for a lot of the searches I tested with, the first page of results sorted via lowest price looks very unappealing - it's the older "rejects" if you want to be harsh about it. Given that look, I can't imagine it would take off with buyers. From a buyer's perspective I think I would want to see the images with high views and low sales (level 0 or 1) to get the high potential images.
I don't see the point of smallest first - why would anyone care about that? I can see the possible uses of largest first for those users with print applications that require lots of pixels.
5792
« on: January 01, 2012, 19:35 »
FT has banned/banished me so I am possibly hampered by only having 3 of the 4 top tier sites
May I ask what was the reason for banning you?
You can ask, but I can't give you much in the way of detail for an answer. I deleted all my files at FT when I went exclusive with iStock but left my account open. Some months later when I went to log in to look at some data - probably because of a forum thread here discussing some recent action at FT - I found my account was no longer there. When I contacted them to see if I could keep my old account (and thus level) when returning to independence, I got an initial yes but then a no "...Fotolia would not be interested in re-establishing a business relationship with you". I believe that some of my activism in the MSG forums (and a predecessor group on Yahoo) trying to organize contributors to get better terms when agencies were starting to cut contributor royalties played a part, as well as being critical here about the way FT treated contributors. They had said they reserve the right to close accounts of anyone who speaks ill of them anywhere (i.e. not just in their own forums). While I was still independent they warned me via e-mail that my suggestions to have contributors hold off uploads until they got better terms from FT on subscriptions might lead to them closing my account if I didn't back off. You can see that once FT was all glowing here. But no longer
5793
« on: January 01, 2012, 18:24 »
Returning to the subject of December sales (i.e. copycat discussions should really have their own thread), it wasn't a strong December, lead (in lack of strength!) by a pathetic performance by iStock. Overall, December 2011 was 30% lower than November (where it's typically down about 5% - 15%) and was down 44% over December 2010.
SS was the monthly leader again beating iStock by over 20% with DT in its typical solid 3rd place. Veer bested both BigStock and CanStock, but 123rf was in 4th place just about even with November $$.
ETA in the iStock forums people are saying how low their downloads are for December. I have to go back to February 2005 to find a lower number than December 2011. I might have had 200 files in my portfolio then.
5794
« on: January 01, 2012, 18:16 »
2011 was a transition year for me - first half as an iStock exclusive, second (from June 4th) back to independent. As such comparisons are not straightforward, but bottom line is that I had 28% lower income in 2011 than 2010. Downloads were up 70% but that's the bias of lots of subscriptions.
There are positive signs in the growth at some sites, but so far there's nothing other than SS that's big enough to make up for the massive drops at iStock (FT has banned/banished me so I am possibly hampered by only having 3 of the 4 top tier sites).
For those who see negatives in some of the low pricing at newer sites, I would note that my average sale price at PhotoDune in December was $1.05, versus $0.95 at DT and $0.84 at 123rf (volume obviously lower at PD). If they can get the volume up, it may become a decent earner.
I would also note that in looking at the overall return per download by agency for the year, there's only one that has dropped since I was last independent (first half of 2008). That's DT which dropped from $1.07 for the first half of 2008 to $0.85 for the second half of 2011. Everyone else is up. In terms of total $$, DT is marginally up from 2008 whereas SS is almost double. You'd expect comparing first half to second half that the second half would be higher, but still SS's performance is really good.
BigStock has been a huge disappointment - they used to be about 10% of my totals and they netted me $92 and change this year (to be fair, I didn't give them all of my portfolio, but I netted more than that at Veer with only a few hundred online and for less time). To go from 10% to so small you're not even 1% is pretty sad. Someone who'd been selling well there said that it was mostly older stuff that was selling at BigStock, so perhaps that's why things have been so dead for someone uploading new stuff (it's a brand new account, not a holdover account FWIW).
5795
« on: January 01, 2012, 14:15 »
I wasn't happy to start the new year off at DT with a 49 cent subscription sale for a level 3 image - what would once have been a 70 cent sale.
I've been keeping track of subs (which haven't been all that numerous, thankfully) and there have been seven (including the above) that were below 35 cents or 70 cents. The lowest until today was 28 cents for a 35 cent subs - i.e. getting 80% of what I expected. but 49 cents on a 70 cent sale is getting only 70% of the 70 cents I expected. That's a huge chunk for a referral bonus and why is it a bigger percentage than the others?
Has anyone else been keeping track of the discounted subs and how much we're losing?
5796
« on: December 31, 2011, 16:50 »
In terms of keywording for stock (versus general discussions about how you categorize age), I think the Getty CV has the brackets in reasonably good shape and a Mature Adult (Mature Woman, Mature Man) is between 40 and 59. Senior is 60 and over. Young adult is 20s, and 30s is Mid Adult (I think the wording is awkward - no one uses that in speaking to people). I think at Veer (using Corbis' CV) if I keyword "older" it wants me to choose senior or mature adult for a meaning - i.e. they don't see mature as synonymous with senior either.
Perhaps as time goes by we'll have to divide senior up into categories 60-79 and 80 and up - all those ads for "active seniors" showing gray haired people running, climbing mountains, etc. are talking about a different senior from the more frail folks in their 80s and 90s who appear in ads for assisted living facilities.
5797
« on: December 30, 2011, 16:58 »
I'm not uploading to IS at the moment, so I can't comment on new images except to say there are still reports of things not showing up promptly on IS in search results.
As far as existing portfolio, I was opted out of the PP until the ASA changes force me in, but so far I'm up to 14 images out of 2,500 that have been transferred. It's been over a week since the number went from 13 to 14. What got transferred is very strange - couple of more recent images (one from 2011, one from 2010 for example) and a small portion of a very old series and one image from 2004. I can't see any pattern at all (alphabetical, age, sales, subject, keywords) in what's been moved so far.
5798
« on: December 30, 2011, 16:39 »
I think we might be more au courrant to compare iStock to Netflix, someone once in a commanding position with enviable growth and customer satisfaction scores, but which amazingly quickly eroded most of those with breathtakingly moronic decisions and even worse PR defending them with the Kelly-clone CEO. Read here, here, here, and here for those outside the US who might have missed this little gem of a corporate pratfall.
5799
« on: December 29, 2011, 21:20 »
It appears that our entire 123rf portfolios are on Inmagine -- as a "value" collection - although only one size - scaled up a bit for $10. No credit there except that the 123rf user name is in the URL so you can find yourself. See an example with the 123rf version and the Inmagine version. Couple of things: no credit, as you mentioned; they note on Inmagine that the compressed size of an enlarged (from my 21MP original) download is 1MB! The JPEG I uploaded (with metadata and an ICC profile) was 9.7MB. The lack of a name is pretty standard for the macro agencies - Getty does it with the collections it ships off to other distributors (Ocean images for some of the iStockers' content, I think).
5800
« on: December 29, 2011, 19:46 »
This interview was discussed back in October, starting here in a long thread about tanking sales. That's probably why you won't get much comment here
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