I got the survey and completed it. I told them what I think in unvarnished terms. I really don't find anything positive in sending out the survey - it's acting on what information they receive back that counts.

Given that they've used the forums as a virtual safety valve to let buyers and contributors vent so they don't have to deal with them, I'm not even slightly optimistic that change will be forthcoming. Meaningful change, not a new newsletter to be able to say you've "done something".

Earning back lost trust is a very hard row to hoe. It can be done, but words mean less than nothing. I'd be happy if some things changed, but I can no longer take iStock's word for anything. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice...

Regardless of the how-to issues, I think if you believe you have to go back to lightroom for something it would indicate you need to learn more about how to use Photoshop. I can't think of any reason to go back that way - I have both and am not dissing Lightroom at all, but its editing functions are a subset of Photoshop's.

Out of curiosity, what is it that you think you want to go back to Lightroom for?

@dk - priceless

I use the user name here that is on all the stock sites. In an ideal world I would like everyone to know who they're dealing with.

However, having been a vocal critic of Fotolia in the past (when I was independent before) and (a) being threatened with having my account closed because I was coordinating contributors who wanted to change FT's initial unreasonable subscription terms (to withhold uploads until they improved the deal; (b) having my account closed after I went exclusive because I was discussing some of FT's actions here, then (c) having them refuse to allow me to open a new account when I returned to independence this year, I think that there's a very good reason for some to remain anonymous to protect their livelihood.

It's a shame that there's nothing I can see anyone can do about Fotolia's behavior, so anonymity permits contributors to discuss issues more freely in off-site forums.

Some people don't want to mix up their traditional agency and microstock identities, which seems like another reasonable thing given how some folks in the traditional world loathe and despise us in microstock.

When you get someone mouthing off in their first couple of posts and they're anonymous so you can't check their portfolios, I generally just ignore the person and assume they're only here to cause trouble. We have enough trouble from the agencies without adding forum trolls

If I knew then that Fotolia would take truthful if unflattering comments in public forums as a reason to remove accounts, I might have taken a different path and gone for anonymity, but that horse is already out of the barn, so it's just a guess.

For many of the anonymous posters who are regulars, I either know who they are or have a reasonable guess and so I don't think any less of their posts.

As long as this doesn't presage another royalty cut for contributors to pay for the campaign, this is good news. And I had missed that - thanks for posting.

The only question is whether your new thread would get locked faster or more slowly than your last.

If and when they wish to solicit contributor input (and I'm not holding my breath), I think they'll explicitly say so. Until then, the days of paying attention to contributor concerns expressed in the forums are over.

..The moans (okay .. concerns) here are exactly analogous to the concerns (moans) which were expressed by a previous generation of stock photographers when microstock first came along. It is the same thing which always happens which is that the people established at one point in a cycle often look back to that point in the cycle as a better time. Or else adapt.

I do not the the situation is analogous to the traditional versus micro arguments at all. The key differences are that in the former case, prices were propped up by a closed shop which limited supply - sort of like DeBeers and diamonds. When microstock started, it wasn't the existing agencies who reneged on their contracts with their suppliers. New suppliers came in to the market and at first were pooh-poohed as a bunch of no-talent amateurs by the trads and then, when it appeared that (a) existing customers found the prices appealing and the quality good enough and (b) new customers flocked to the affordable prices and the market for stock photography expanded, the newcomers were hollered at for destroying photographer's livelihoods.

I could have summarized a bit too briefly, but the basics are close.

Our current situation is that when microstock became successful, the agencies got greedy and decided that they could keep more of the total for themselves. They tossed a few crumbs from the table to try and keep photographers from getting too restive (we're cutting your Vetta percentage but we're hosing the buyers by putting the prices up so you'll get more dollars than before). As the download volumes declined, they offered big discounts to larger customers who were unhappy (further cutting the take for contributors) - Vetta sale at year end, etc. Then they figured they'd try to re-jigger the royalty rates so that overall they paid out 20% instead of 20-40% (50% if you count ELs, which was woefully low at 50% IMO once an EL cost them nothing to administer beyond what a regular sale did; remember when ELs were custom?)

This is much closer, IMO, to the first wife who puts her husband through university and med school and who is then dumped for a younger trophy wife once the  loans are paid off and the money's rolling in. If you're saying that adapting means accepting that lots of businesses are massively lacking in ethics (the way of thinking that says if it's not illegal, quit complaining adapt), I'll grant you that there's plenty more examples of Enron like companies than there are good corporate citizens.

I have adapted - I dropped exclusivity. I don't agree with your glib statement that digital assets are portable - that's fine in theory, but there's a cost to switching from exclusivity to non (which I can itemize in detail if you doubt that I know what I'm talking about). Portable with barriers to exit and entry that mean it isn't a trivial thing to switch.

I will deal with whatever iStock dishes out, but I've read and re-read what you originally wrote and it's pretty clear to me that you could have chosen other words if you wanted to make your point with neutral language. You can disagree with people's point of view without marking it as invalid by using words like moan and entitlement. Claiming you were misinterpreted is trying to duck responsibility for what you wrote, IMO.

I now use it on the Mac, but I used to use it on Windows - except when I needed to download something from Microsoft that they restricted to work only if you were using IE at the time.

In the beginning it was features like tabs (when IE didn't have them). Now it's the add ons that keep me tied to Firefox. I use Safari or Chrome if I need a comparison browser, but not on a regular basis. On my iPhone I use Safari.

We have a couple of PCs at the house as well as Macs and I use Firefox on the PC because it's a familiar environment. Having a cross platform browser is nice.

I'd probably go for competition crushing. Move the non-exclusives back to a flat 20% and move exclusives to a flat 50%. You'd pay more, but you would probably close down more than half the agencies to the right.

That might work to keep existing exclusives from bolting, but I can't see anyone (with a large established portfolio) would trust Getty enough to go exclusive at this point. Once they crushed the competition, who thinks they'd keep the 50% for exclusives for more than 10 seconds? Best predictor of future performance is past performance and all that.

To Getty, contributors are just an expense and as such they want to minimize it.

So perhaps someone should start a poll about what sort of royalty cut would have you deleting your IS portfolio rather than putting up with it

I think it depends on whether her mission is to grow IS or manage it as a cash cow - i.e. not invest in it but try to squeeze whatever remaining cash she can.

As H&F are still at the helm and in spite of their $500M payout to themselves last fall they probably want to sell as soon as they can, I'm assuming no investment is coming beyond what's needed to keep the site running.

If cash cow's the goal, I'd remove any opt-in or opt out for contributors and would move content to other Getty properties to see what additional cash could be wrung from it. I'd make soothing speeches in the IS forums about how this was in contributors' best interests. I'd leave the exclusive program in place, but I'd announce more changes that would cut the number of people who make more than 20% as much as possible.

If investment were the goal, they need to get some real software expertise (perhaps via consulting vs. hiring people) and fix the site. They need some aggressive marketing to buyers with some programs to try and get them buying (perhaps something like a Starbucks card where they get something free for every so many they buy; and IS pays for that freebie, not contributors). If buyers come back and the site works, contributors will be more likely to hang around. I think they need to dump the RC system or revise it massively. At a minimum they need to remove the split between content types that crushed multi-media artists and give credit for sales wherever they occur (Thinkstock etc). All money brought in to Getty should receive RC credit if that's the way they want to measure contributor success. All special discounts to buyers below 95 cents a credit should come out of IS's hide, not contributors'. There's probably a ton more, but I don't expect them to go this route...

Do you think this is a prelude to forcing the reluctants to put part of their port on Thinkstock.  

(Similar to the way governments work, as in "We tried voluntary compliance, and it hasn't worked, so now we must legislate").

IMO it's only a matter of time.

Clipart.com, you can buy up to 13,000 images during the year for $160?  That's like 1 cent an image what percentage would we get?

Just about any percentage of 1 cent - even 100% - is too small