I was leafing through the most recent Photoshop User magazine and the most recent Fotolia ad caught my eye. Good that it caught my eye, but I thought the content was more tasteless than edgy.

Have they been running this campaign for a while and I missed it, or is this new?

A dense page of all caps type in black, with only the word FOTOLIA in green.

"WHEN YOU CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE AT THE #1 STOCK PHOTO HOUSE IN EUROPE, YOU SHOULD IMAGINE US ALL HERE TOPLESS, REEKING OF UNFILTERED TOBACCO, OVERPRICED CHEESE AND THREE DAYS OF ONE NIGHT STANDS. THE MEN CAN'T BE ENTIRELY TOPLESS AS THEY NEED JAUNTY SCARVES, AS THIS IS EUROPE, SO THEY ARE TOPLESS BUT FOR JAUNTY SCARVES. WE'RE ALL IN CUBICLES DESIGNED BY PHILIPPE STARCK ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF A SIXTEENTH CENTURY BUILDING ONCE OCCUPIED BY N*A*Z*I*S, NOW AN INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION WAREHOUSE FOR JEGGINGS. YOUR RINGING WILL ECHO THROUGH OUR HALF NAKED, CHEESE-SMELLING, SCARF-WEARING OFFICE WHILE OVERLY ENTITLED INTERNS TAKE TURNS IGNORING YOU, TOUCHING UP THEIR MANICURES WITH WHITE OUT AND FLIPPING THROUGH FASHION MAGAZINES THAT AREN'T YET AVAILABLE IN NORTH AMERICA. FOTOLIA. THE SEXUAL TENSION AROUND HERE IS UNBEARABLE.

This page (23) is in the index of advertisers as being a Fotolia ad - i.e. it's not a competitor trying to make them look bad

I was all set to install and then realized that Cool Iris doesn't yet work with Firefox 4 on the Mac - coming soon, whatever that means.

I then decided to hold off for now as I don't know if there's a compatibility checker to see which of my add ons will or won't work with Firefox 4 and I don't want to have to go check each one. Sean's greasemonkey scripts, the EXIF reader, how does it do with ICC profiles.

I looked at Mozilla's short video, but it was virtually content free, essentially saying it's wonderful and faster.

Does anyone know of a list of stuff that works with Firefox 3.6.x that isn't supported any more with 4.x?

Here is PDN pulse's summary.

The comment about SAA's founding was that it was to advocate for photographers and against Getty trying impose less favorable terms. Sounds like a familiar theme, no?

Unfortunately it seems they couldn't figure out how to navigate the many competing interests of their memebers. There's some=http://old.nabble.com/Getty-Premium-Access-lawsuit-td21105696.html rambling back and forth here over why RM photographers left SAA when they found - horrors - that SAA was supporting royalty free as a business model.

They got involved in fighting Getty's introduction of the $49 web use of RM images.

As far as I can tell Getty has just steamrollered through and keeps on cutting. Seems the approach they took - mostly saying "no" to things - just doesn't work. What we could use is an organization that ensured that whatever money Getty makes, photographers get a fair share of it. Getty just keeps increasing its share of the pie instead of growing the pie as a way to increase its revenues.

And this article, Turkeys Vote for Christmas, is very funny about the SAA and RF, including microstock RF. Such lovely digs as:

 "Best of all however was the claim that by allowing RF photographers to join, the SAA would suddenly have Getty Images, their b�te noir, quaking in their corporate boots. �Zut alors!� would be Getty�s reaction. �The SAA isn�t just a grumpy minority of our RM contributors: they represent everyone!� You can just see Jonathan Klein clambering onto the ledge now, can�t you?"

and about microstock members:

"On what basis would the SAA face control decide the status of, for example, Lise Gagne? For those who don�t know her, Lise is �the world�s first crowdsourcing photography star�. As one of the most successful iStock photographers she�s one of their poster children. That same token makes her a figure of such extreme dislike within the SAA that it�s been claimed that she may have been secretly funded and promoted, even that she doesn�t actually exist, but is merely an iStock marketing fiction."

What this all boils down to is this - istock is proposing a 25-33% cut in royalties to vector and video artists and this is our way of saying no thanks.   

If the experience with the partner program is anything to go by, if you can get enough contributors to withhold their content, they'll come back with a better offer. In the case of the partner program, the better offer was still a stinker, so they're clearly trying to get whatever they're looking for at the absolute minimum cost to them.

The other big advantage I think you have is no big block of admin/inspector content to put into the video/illustration Vetta collection to get it going (which there was/is for photos).

The video folks are keeping track of the percent of video diamonds opted out - might be harder to do with illustration diamonds as there are more of you, but being able to say what percent of diamonds were opted out (or what percent of diamond content if that number makes your case better) would be good marketing weapon.

This addresses the bigger picture about the ability to negotiate terms and conditions. It seems like everywhere else on earth where two businesses agree to do business together, both would have some say in the compensation of each party. Is it even legal for them to automatically opt you in on an agreement where you NEVER had a chance to voice your concerns?

If the contract you signed says that the powerful party can change any and all terms at any time for any or no reason, sure it is, at least in the US. Some parts of the contract might end up being unenforceable if anyone took it to court, but given the power and money disparity they know that's very unlikely. Not to mention that there are some weasel words that say it's all arbitration in Alberta for disputes.

Your option as a contributor is  to quit if you don't like it. Not always appealing, I grant you, but such is the nature of contracts where one party is much more powerful than the other.

Quote from: ShadySue on March 22, 2011, 05:07

Quote from: aeonf on March 22, 2011, 03:35

Could some one please explain me what makes illustration Vetta different from photo Vetta ?
Why so much negativity against it with illustration but not against it regarding photos ?

When photo Vetta was introduced, the deal for producers was much better, then having lured us in, they shafted us.

Yes i know this, but now its the same deal for illustration and photo vetta. so why not rebel against photo vetta as well

If you read the vector and video threads about this you'll see that the issue is that iStock priced things such that it was more than likely the actual dollar royalty would be lower with Vetta than it is now. So they added a 5% "bonus" which at some point will go away to try and make the deal more appealing. Vector and Video were already a more expensive product, so they didn't want to increase the price too much, especially at first.

I did "rebel" against photo vetta and dropped it in September. They subjected the buyers to highway robbery (nearly doubled the prices) and got existing contributors to be happy with that by sharing some of the extra with them. For those who were heavily invested in Vetta it was as if they were hooked on something addictive already, so there was no fuss for the most part (except from buyers).

With next year's royalties driven by RC targets and high-priced images being a way to try and meet those targets, I doubt anyone could get much traction trying to get Vetta/Agency photographers into rehab and weaned from this. If buyers rebelled and just stopped buying, that might be a way this would rewind back to what Vetta started out as (which I think was a good idea, before the royalty rate reduction, introduction of fake-exclusives from Getty, etc.).

So rogermexico said that there'll be a "gradual tweaking" of best match this week to improve the position of new content. I guess they think things are just fine then...

Of course the total to be matched across all contributions is $25k.  No reasonable person would read it any different.  These kind of things sponsored by a business always have a maximum cap the company matches in the aggregate.

I don't think that's universally true. My husband's company has deep pockets, I'll grant you, but they match up to $12K per employee per year for charitable contributions.

...That would be a cheap shot.  Although with the cut in royalties, that's the only kind I can afford.)

Ha!!

Why somebody just dont say to this smacks on IS that they only have right to return money to contributors and too make they mendacious mouth shut with deep bow prepared to take kick in they greedy but.

I dont believe in they "donations" for Japan too. They will steal this money and eventually return few percent to exclusive contributors and then we will see another wave of Woo Yaing on they lets say forum.

If I'm taking your meaning correctly, you're saying something completely ridiculous: that IS would steal the donations intended for Japan.

I'm no apologist for IS, but if you're going to bluntly call them thieves, I think you need something to back that up.

Even if your shots are only of security preparations for a visit like this, that may have long term (not just news) editorial value too.

Wednesday and today are like weekends; yesterday was great - if you don't count the fraud subtraction

Given how good March usually is, it's particularly disappointing to have all this messing around with search, sort order of results, etc.

Quote from: chrisboy2004 on March 17, 2011, 18:04

... am sorely tempted to reply to the call for contributions for Japan with a sarcastic comment, but I'm better than that ....

I know what you mean.  I fully intend to donate to Japan, but not through some fund administered through Istock.  After all, I want the money to actually GET to Japan.   

We donated through my husband's employer so they match our donation. If we didn't have that option, having iStock do a match (and trying to look on the bright side that the money will make it) would be a good way to get more money to those in need.