Nice image, very clever - some clouds might help the concept a bit.

Contact Getty with a link to the image, if it really is as good as you say they'll take the image no matter whether you're a contributor already or not, if you don't hear back from them you have your answer as to it's 'super' sales potential.

If I wanted to read happy talk from cheerleading muffin tossers, I'd be over at the istock forum.

Well said, most people here haven't had a lobotomy

What most people seem to forget is that we employ iStockphoto to sell our images, every time a buyer is insulted or put down on the forums it means a possible lost sale to us the contributor. There is a phrase in business "the customer is always right", of course anybody in business knows the customer is rarely right but they need to be treated with a level of diplomacy, otherwise as seen so frequently on the iStock forums they will take their business elsewhere.
As an independent contributor taking their business elsewhere would hopefully mean they'll find my product on the alternative site, but if I were an exclusive at iStockphoto I would be very very p***ed off at how my potential buyers are being spoken too by the staff there. Although as we often seem some exclusives seem to join in the banter and support this level of customer 'liason' and even more surprisingly defend the person who is driving their business away - something I just can't understand.

No never heard of them.

But I presume because you've chosen to ask people about them as your first post here it can only mean one or two things.

1. You run the site and are trying where so many have failed before by coming here under the guise of being an innocent contributor.

2. You genuinely are a contributor to the site and after a year you've found the sales are so terrible that you felt the need to ask others if they too have had the same bad experience there.

Whatever your answer it's enough for me to not bother checking it out.

If a group of photographers band together as an agency and sign their copyright over to the head of the group they could produce a much higher quantity an see higher personal sales through the agencies by moving their return placement further up by the volume created by several shooters as apposed to just one.

There's already a distributor doing this in microstock without the individual photographers having to sign over the copyright to their images. In the case I personally know of the distributor takes a commission on the sales. I'm sure they're not the only one's doing this in micro.

It's the same set up that you have with Blend on traditional agencies.

Quote from: RT on November 26, 2010, 08:25

Quote from: laflor on November 26, 2010, 08:17

Just see the "25th"-comment. What is that all about??

Most of us are probably asking the same question. (the 25th comment is your one)

Nope, mine was the 26th comment. I was referring to your 25th December-comment, indicating that I think Yuri is jeepers creepers of Nazareth (probably because of his Arab looks and long beard), not the 25th comment counting from the beginning of the post.

Well I wrote that in reply to your strange statement that I highlighted,  I thought the way you went on about how peoples criticism of Yuri was "rooted in envy and lack of faith in God" made him out to be the next messiah.

Frankly, I'm sick of people criticizing Yuri for sharing his knowledge. It's ridiculous and ultimately rooted in envy and lack of faith in God; envy that others might make money, and distrust in God providing for you. God provides for everyone, even the tiny ants and the giant whales, not to speak of us. Have some faith! (if you are an atheist, please don't bother me with atheistic logic).

Next you'll be telling us his birthday is on 25th Dec!

It seems that here in the UK, we are pretty open with regards to the fact that we can, when standing in a public place, take a photograph of anyone or anything we want, and use it for any purpose whatsoever without the need to complete any forms.

No we can't

Do the sites check or even care?

He made himself anonymous recently on istockcharts but he is between you and sjlocke there. http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/

Those charts aren't accurate anymore (although the person in question is a very good seller), apparently the number 1 and 2 guys have both had 1.6m sales, the first one has 98 shots in their port and the second one has 52, neither of which have had enough downloads to reach that figure.
Either that or they are two very p**sed off exclusives who are deleting their ports.

Quote from: RT on November 24, 2010, 14:05

Quote from: sharpshot on November 24, 2010, 14:00

I also don't like this lottery, some people make nothing while others get lucky.  If they have to do this, why don't they split the days takings and give us a share proportionate to our portfolio size?  Wouldn't that be much more fair.

Not sure I understand, it was fair, everybody got 100% royalty.

Some people get unusually low numbers of downloads and others get a great day and EL's.  That's what makes it like a lottery.

But isn't that the same as every other day on every other site.

I also don't like this lottery, some people make nothing while others get lucky.  If they have to do this, why don't they split the days takings and give us a share proportionate to our portfolio size?  Wouldn't that be much more fair.

Not sure I understand, it was fair, everybody got 100% royalty.