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Messages - MichaelJayFoto
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626
« on: January 20, 2013, 14:33 »
Nevertheless, I don't want them given away on Google, so I'd like to know what happens if I deactivate them on iStock. Does that prevent them from being sold or given away to Google from Getty's site or not? If yes, I'll deactivate them on D-Day along with my remaining MR images. Having deactivated some E+ images more than a week ago because I want to submit them somewhere else exclusively, I can tell you: Deactivating them on iStock does not remove them (quickly) from Getty. I will wait a few more days to see if my non-exclusivity (as of yesterday) will remove my files from Getty quickly. Otherwise iStock support might be able to help. When I removed my images from the PP, almost all got removed quickly with a few files remaining. They had them pulled manually within a few more days after writing to support.
627
« on: January 20, 2013, 13:10 »
What does a buyer lose if they close their account? A history of what they've bought - do they have any rights to re-download something previously purchased and lost (I seem to remember that being added sometime in the last year or two)? Yes, closing would mean losing the history plus the option to re-download.
628
« on: January 20, 2013, 09:48 »
If you don't want to sell subscriptions Istock is still the only site of the Big 4 that lets you opt out of that. Strictly speaking, even iStock does not allow you to opt out of the on-site subscription sales. Though it is a totally different subscription system, not the "all size, one price", that's probably also the reason why it totally failed. 
629
« on: January 20, 2013, 08:49 »
If you downsize your images to the minimum size then you will make them less attractive for single image sales and EL's on all sites as well as missing out on Large+ sales on DT & FT. Essentially you'll be doing a lot of extra work ... in order to earn less money in the future. Well, I have Lightroom and can export 1,000 files to any size I wish with 5 seconds of work. This wouldn't be an issue. And I would upload the reduzed version only to sites favoring subscriptions heavily - can't say anything about the relation between subs and single images sales on other site. I'm not saying I'd recommend this and I'm not doing it myself for the reasons you mention. But it would be something to consider an option for those who don't like subs in general.
630
« on: January 20, 2013, 08:45 »
But what I don't understand is what "percentage" they were paying in the first place, since they've said for years that they only pay commission on the actual cost of the credit. Surely our pictures would have been given away and nothing entered on our sales list in the first place, if this is right? No. While discounts (like the usual "our site is down, take 10% on your next purchase") are part of the royalty calculation, the free discounts were always valued at a fixed rate in the system, so the contributor gets a royalty on them.
631
« on: January 20, 2013, 06:03 »
Agreed, there's no way they will be leaving anything like that up. People need to be told there are places like MSG out there where you can speak in an uncensored way. A lot of exclusives don't even know the forum is here.
Well, it was advertised often enough through all controversial issues in the past, actually even pointed to by admins and moderators. They (we) always knew there is no way to control the internet. But still there is a limit what can be tolerated inside a company. I don't think they will happily let you stand in the hall of your local bank shouting loud how they keep cheating you or how the other bank across the street is much more customer friendly. In real life most people would know that wouldn't be a smart move to do. 
632
« on: January 20, 2013, 05:32 »
We know that, which is why many will delete a lot of good work if they drop the crown. for those opposed in principle to subscriptions, they will just have to place that content on other sites.
I know what you mean. Though I think there is no point in submitting images to Shutterstock if you don't want to sell them through subscription sales. Without personal experience and only from other people's reports I would assume that only allowing single image sales, Shutterstock would be much lower in the income scale, probably below iStock even for independents. So you would not only give up the 70 or 80% you lose at iStock, at the same you would give up a huge percentage of the rest. One possibility would be to only send downscaled images to Shutterstock to their acceptable minimum (4 mp). At least you wouldn't sell your 22 or 36 megapixel images for $0.25 then. And only sell larger images on sites that reward it based on credit levels.
633
« on: January 20, 2013, 03:17 »
... when my images get no search results.
I have no big portfolio at iStock, but still had my regular sales. After 3 weeks with only one sale I started wondering if something is wrong. So I made the test.
One of my images (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-21810232-mature-woman-suffering-from-back-pain.php) had 9 views and 5 sales in the first three weeks after uploading in November. Two months later, nothing has changed. But no wonder, the image doesn't exist anymore, when I type in the relevant keywords "mature woman back pain" or "woman back pain". 32 respectively 82 images, but not mine. Not funny! And not happening at other agencies.
Anyone else with same annoying experiences?
It appear you didn't understand iStock's keywording and search system yet. iStock's system not only know single words but also terms consisiting of multiple words. Both "mature woman" and "back pain" are terms know to the system. Your image contains "woman", "back", "pain" and "mature adult" but neither "back pain" nor "mature woman". So when you search for "back pain mature woman", the system looks for files containing these two terms, and that is why yours doesn't appear. If you search for "back woman pain outdoors" (in this search "back pain" is not recognised as one term because woman comes in between), your image appears. Have those two terms added to your keywords.
634
« on: January 19, 2013, 15:19 »
we don't know how much uploads are approved on Feb 2nd so it will be kind of impossible
No exact science, no. But as Feb 2nd is a Saturday, the number of inspections won't be too high. Best guess: 3,000-4,000.
635
« on: January 19, 2013, 14:33 »
I presume that they wont pay out if we leave and have under $100 in our accounts? If you permanently close your account, I am quite sure they will. You will have to go through support for this.
636
« on: January 19, 2013, 13:05 »
Thanks all. I am well aware of what I am doing. And to me, there is no way back. The only way to "test" this is to see a whole year including seasonal stuff at the end of the year. And at that time I will be too invested & commited in too many things to turn back. PS: Thanks, Christian, I know who you are. I will continue to profit from your experiences in the future.
637
« on: January 19, 2013, 08:52 »
Congrats. And for whatever it's worth I have always found your posts (as an admin) on the IS forums over the years to be very fair. I thank you for that. Thanks, though I am sure I made some enemies as well. But I also have found lots of friends.
638
« on: January 19, 2013, 08:48 »
Good luck ... after a few months I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. You know you're still wearing a crown at IS? Yes. Just like canister changes it takes 2-3 days until the system is updating stuff. I could also still upload 120 images today if I had them.  Not really my problem. Everyone has to wait a few days when they are trying to become exclusive and get higher royalties, now I will earn a few undeserved cents at the end.
639
« on: January 19, 2013, 07:56 »
Good Luck Michael Jay
Likewise
640
« on: January 19, 2013, 07:49 »
As of today, I am an independent stock photographer and a contributor on Shutterstock. In my application test, 9 of the 10 images I submitted were accepted - the one rejected was a building (for IP reasons). I have to admit, though, I have downsized all my images to the minimum requirement as I had heard about their "focus on focus". I had applied a few weeks ago - actually before the recent developments -, so I was ready to upload images and have them live when my exclusivity terms ran out. I am not a brillant photographer and haven't been a star at iStock ever. Though I felt home at a place where I could learn and earn at the same time. I just found that there is not much more I can learn at the place, and the "earn" part wasn't quite nice to look at anymore as well. My expectation is that my royalties at iStock will drop by anywhere between 60 and 80% immediately. Exclusive members not only get a higher royalty but also exclusive files are priced higher plus the option of choosing images for E+ plus Vetta & Agency (which never amounted to much for me). In exchange, my images will be forced into the partner program, I have no idea how much additional money that will make. My income from stock was never high enough to make a living (and didn't have to) and it has taken a steep dive since fall of 2011, so I can take the risk now. I am living with a black diamond iStock exclusive, and we can't afford her going non-exclusive right now. But my independence will be a good test what to expect. I am looking forward to it. Anxious but excited. 
641
« on: January 18, 2013, 03:38 »
I understand your point, but I think you're letting Google off the hook way too easily. If you tell me you have a great deal on a 60" flat screen LED TV for $25, I have to know that there's something amiss.
Google knows what they paid per image - $60 for the first round and with the $6 royalties showing up, I guess some cost them $30 each. Given they get the right to offer these images for free to millions of Google Drive users, they have to know that $60 is dirt cheap even if Getty gave us all the money - and they have to know Getty won't give us all the money.
You don't buy those kinds of rights for that amount of cash - not legitimately anyway.
Well, then again have a look where Google is coming from. Usually they get all content for their sites for free by grabbing them from the internet. Actually they have gone to court several times, sometimes successful, sometimes not. So for them it's probably a big thing they have to pay anything at all. Or to use your analogy: Google is used to get the LCD TV for free because the manufacturer hopes that Google's clients will see the TV and buy one from them. Meanwhile, Google is selling ads running on the TV.
642
« on: January 17, 2013, 11:37 »
I don't know how we can effectively track these numbers, but in the istock forum threads people are deactivating images now - here's one example
Well, there is no effective way of tracking them. By the way, those I have seen are only talking about removing images from the Partner Program or E+, they are not really deleting. You can track the number of total files on the site and the queue ( http://www.istockphoto.com/stats.php) I have made a screenshot on Saturday at 12,597,549 files and today the number shows 12,623,445 - equalling a growth of 26,000 images in five days. If you remember that 10 million was passed in the middle of December 2011, that amounts to about 200,000 files added per month or roughly 6,700 a day. This would mean a growth of about 33,000 images in five days would have been expected. So the impact of the active protest (holding back uploads or deleting files) so far has affected a lower than expected count of about 7,000 files.
643
« on: January 17, 2013, 03:00 »
Any deal that Getty is getting money in their pocket for, made possible by my (and your images), but that we do not collect a royalty on, is a scandal and deserves attention.
My legal team and I do not quite know what to do here. Is the current situation as follows: The photographers will not get any royalty from the Google deal, images are licensed for free? Are there any news out there that we have not heard off? Is this license not basically a very liberal "extended" license for which we should receive normal pay? How is it possible for Getty to avoid this?
I am meeting with Getty Executives Monday the 28 in London to discus this among other things. Are there updates on the matter of significant character.
Basically Getty's view about the deal is what formally would be covered by an "Extended License - Electronic Items For Resale" in iStock terms. Someone wants to include images in an application to be used. Someone could come up, buy this license on iStock for 125 credits plus the size - so maybe 135-150 credits per image. Having a steep discount for large volume customers is not unusual, so selling credits at maybe $0.50 per credit would make it $67-76 per image, from which the photographer could get anything between 15-45%. In the worst case it would be $67 * 15% = $10. I guess this is about the lines that you will here from Getty, though they will express it in Getty license terms, not iStock. Obviously these were terms when most applications would run on the user's computer, so there was no simple way to get the images out of there. With Google Drive, it is quite easy to use the images outside of Google Drive - but this again would be the fault of the user because he didn't carefully read through all the Terms of Use which would probably prohibit using the images outside. In addition, all metadata was stripped from the files, so there is not even an indication that these images are copyright protected. While using images without credit to the author is common for commercial uses, having images show up as not copyrighted is a doubtful practice. Good luck for your talks.
644
« on: January 16, 2013, 16:08 »
The question is: Do you want to be accepted at iStock quickly or do you want to challenge yourself? In your application, you should go with simple, straight-forward pictures, clear focus, no noise, no motion, no composites (the "Your text goes here" will not be accepted at iStock, by the way). Images that come out almost perfect out of camera, none where you need to challenge yourself to make the isolation perfect. And when you have three pictures, try to treat them well, remove trademarks and logos, whatever minor technical issues you should still find. At the end, downsample them to the minimum size iStock asks for (I think it's still 1600x1200). Try to avoid giving them any reason to reject your application. You will be able to learn enough from the rejections you will get later once accepted.
645
« on: January 16, 2013, 09:25 »
There are no downloads listed on 1/11 - perhaps erased(?). Can't say anything about the rest but this is normal - with a refund a download actually gets cancelled, and therefore the entry in the Download History gets removed. This has always been the case.
646
« on: January 16, 2013, 06:00 »
Did non-exclusive get the same amount as exclusives? I would of thought non-exclusives would get less but perhaps they thought anything lower than $12 was an insult 
You didn't understand it. This was no iStock deal, this was a Getty deal. It just happens that some images on Getty are sourced from iStock but for those image sold through Getty iStockers are paid the same as any other Getty RF photographer (20%). There is no contributor exclusivity on Getty.
647
« on: January 15, 2013, 08:13 »
Not just slow sales on IS but NO sales on partner program at all.
What is this now?
Do You have same experience ?
PP sales are only added once a month, usually between the 20th and 30th for the month before. So some time after January 20th, you will see the sales for December showing up.
648
« on: January 15, 2013, 04:24 »
I hope this will make an impact, that the word will spread in the community and to various news channel etc. I'm afraid you overestimate the effect biased by a forum of a small percentage of contributors. For the fun of it, I am keeping track and the iStock overall library has grown by 10,000 files since Saturday - that's maybe 5,000 less than usual. I'm looking forward to see if Feb 2 will have an impact on those numbers but so far... well, not really.
649
« on: January 14, 2013, 15:35 »
I see D-Day as the starting line, not the finish line.
Sort of like hostage negotiation. If you kill off all your hostages at once, there's no reason for anyone to negotiate with you. Kill off a significant portion - enough to let them know you're serious, then wait to see if they negotiate. If not, kill some more.
Eventually, they will blink, or else huge portions of their content, and yes, entire portfolios, are gone. Those of us who want out of this have to be prepared to delete our entire ports, absolutely. How that is accomplished is up for debate.
The problem I have is that I mentally can't come up with a realistic response they could give that would make me feel optimistic things would change. iStock is not the same anymore since none of the managing people are involved in the creative field anymore. It used to be photographers, writers, illustrators who ran this company. What do you expect to come out of managers? Even any kind of appeasement can not be trusted in my opinion because next year a different sales person in a different department will come up with a different deal that isn't any better.
650
« on: January 14, 2013, 15:29 »
Looks like we can easily get up to 10.000 images deleted on 2. feb.
That is a message!
Sorry but 10.000 will not be a message. It will be 0.1% of the total library. And it will be 1 day worth of uploading. Not that I have much hope anyways that things will change. But I think to make a point the minimum you'd need is a 100k.
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