Ouch! Thus, one of the problems with crowdsourcing.

Quote from: sjlocke on May 11, 2009, 10:32

That's sort of a weird gauge of success.  Learning to produce what sells for peanuts doesn't seem very sensible.

Depends on how many peanuts, doesn't it?  Collect enough peanuts and even elephants won't go hungry.

Maybe, but the poster was inferring that the "total" was peanuts.  Not the "per sale", if that makes any sense.

But I think it's a perfectly logical question and relates directly to the original poster's complaint.  In order to use the keyword "business" do I need to have people in the photo who are obviously engaged in "business"?   A quick search on IS tells me the answer is "no".  There are many shots of objects that relate to "business" far less directly than a pair of handcuffs relate to "arrest".

Read this thread:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=85022&page=1

The thing with subs is, from a business point of view, it is bookable revenue for a company - that is why subs are so attractive because for a business, especially in these times when companies are struggling with cash balances and credit issues, it makes their revenue more "forecastable" and stable.

With per photo sales you can look at trends and guess about future revenue based on those trends and market conditions but you never really know what your per photo sales will be and this is especially true when the world's economy is in the craps - subs are golden for a company because they are guaranteed bookable revenue the minute a sub is purchased. The other thing about subs a lot of people don't realise is that there is no cost for the company if they already are selling the images per photo - you have the general cost of course of having them on your server and admin costs - but you have those costs already whether you have subs or not - a lot of people keep saying companies will lose money if they sell subs too cheap - but there is no cost associated with selling them as part of sub packages - so the low percentage the contributors get is actually pretty insulting in the light of the fact that it is pure profit from the sellers point of view (though this is not the case with places like SS that are 100% subs).

I'll disagree.  A month to month subscription is no more stable or forecastable than someone buying a point package at iStock.  Yes, you have the cash in hand, but when those credits/time period end, the person could go elsewhere.  A year subscription?  Same as a thousand point package or whatever.

"The other thing about subs a lot of people don't realise is that there is no cost for the company if they already are selling the images per photo - you have the general cost of course of having them on your server and admin costs - but you have those costs already whether you have subs or not"

That makes no sense to me.  Each image has an associated cost regardless of how you are selling it.  You've got to inspect it, host it, pay for download bandwidth, pay for overhead, etc.  That is separate from how you actually collect money from putting it in people's hands.  In fact, SS probably has most costs associated with this, because people are constantly pumping everything they can in there to keep their cash up, so they probably have more inspection and hosting costs.

This is why the JIU/Photos thing is so egregious.   There are no overhead costs.  The stuff is already inspected.  It just needs to be shunted over.  And for that, they keep 80%?

http://www.kachoozie.com/

gesundheit !

I have images with Getty, Acclaim and Alamy in addition to many of the micros, and so I tend to think conceptually when it comes to keywords, and since I haven't uploaded to iStock for a while it caught me off guard that they became so sever in their policy of only wanting literal keywords. I had 20 out of 24 images rejected for keywords, that is such a waste of time. What they should do is accept the image, send an email scolding you for the keyword infraction, list the offending keywords and remove them. Saves everyone a whole bunch of time and still gets the point across.

How would it get the point across?  People'll still do it next time, if there was no penalty.

Quote from: sjlocke on May 11, 2009, 06:25

... and once again, ranting about keyword rejections without showing the image in question is useless.

True enough ... but then ranting about it at all is generally pointless.

Well, no.  Hopefully the OP will learn from this that it is not ok to, for example, keyword a object image as if there were people in it.

The feeling is that any exclusive boost in the BM2.0 sort has swung a bit too far to the independent side this time.

BTW, my question really was, is it "infringement" if they purchased a license, but are using it against the terms of the license.

They've already sent a cease and desist to the site.  Unfortunately, the company is in the UK, but I believe the host is in the US and more likely to take action when prodded.  I'm just tired of waiting.

sjlocke and company, who used to be much more eloquent ,  if you are in a state of shock, you better get out of it and start thinking of alternatives with all of us included.

I don't know what you are expecting.  We're sort of in a holding pattern until stage 2 of the discussion, thus the little bit of fun and games to blow off steam.

Quote from: whatalife on May 05, 2009, 15:12

The current iStock subscription program is, at least for now, completely different than the newest scheme they are proposing. The guarantee is .96 PER CREDIT, not per sale, and it is far better than the no guarantee/good possibility of 3 cents PER SALE at photos.com and JUI.

IS royalties on subs are much lower than 0.96 per credit.  I have received a royalty on a sub for 0.34 and I'm sure it goes lower than that.

Of course they are.  They $.96 is the credit price.  You get your cannister royalty based on that, which for $.34 means you're probably gold, right?