sorry but nowadays you either sell on Getty (RF or RM) or you will just make peanuts with the other agencies.

micros : they're a good place where you can dump and sell images that don't fit or sell on Getty.

each and every agency is sort of "specialized" on something, people thinking about exclusivity should really think
twice about it unless their specific niche is really selling like hotcakes in that specific agency.

then maybe it's 500px.com ?

what's the point exactly giving away your work for free ?

i can understand the fun in showing pics around, imagine a camera club where on a big table everyone show their best prints in A4 or A3 ... great ...they can look, they can touch, but they can't steal it ... but on the web they can and they do and they will !

i sold an awful 6MP photo on alamy a few months ago for 600$ gross, i can't complain.

10K gross ... hmmm you must be really really lucky to score such a single sale.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 14, 2012, 11:27
To my extreme surprise, I see that UK base rate income tax is currently 20%: I thought it was more.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/basics.htm#6
(I paid 40% in my old day job, so hey - something else to cheer about, as well as feeling smug because term starts tomorrow!)

yes, low taxation in UK and low overhead to setup a business.
said that. the cost of life is still way too high, how much they ask for a shabby office in London for instance, crazy prices ... and what about food ... UK is no match with asia and never will.

if i had to setup a digital business in europe, Berlin is probably the place to be at the moment.

Quote from: cardmaverick on August 13, 2012, 18:50
It's not a free market.... no system of banking controlled by government instituted central banks is free.

As for undervaluing, it's true, China does, but it's only hurting them in the long run, eventually they will see they don't need to sell to countries like the US. They can sell to their own domestic market and do just fine.

they're already selling inside china, go in any chinese house and you wil hardly spot one single foreign-made item !
just about everything is made in china .. their car, their microwave, gas cooker, dishes, forks, spoons, furnitures, tv, dvd, hi-fi, computers, mobile phones, cigarettes, food, beers, clothes, eyeglasses, watches ... it's unbelievable .. if they've some money they will eventually buy some korean and japanese stuff as it's perceived to be high quality but that's all, no european or american stuff AT ALL .. zero .. only cars eventually if they're rich and want to show off their brand new BMW or Mercedes or Ferrari ... and then the eventual french wine or champagne, italian designer clothes, but not much .. the average chinese can easily live 100% on chinese items all his life, they're the only ones who can do it.

Quote from: pro@stockphotos on August 13, 2012, 20:34
So anyone who pays taxes in the U.S. has no reason to "give back". 

there's no need to ever "give back".
it's a business, and to stay in business you need to make profits.

maybe Yuri is so successful he has even spare time and money for these things.
good for him, but not all of us could afford it.

Quote from: Vonkara on August 13, 2012, 21:43
Hahaha hilarious quote! Typical "American discovering the world through the internet" reply actually. What do you think about someone paying taxes in Denmark? Do you believe it is all spent for the sweet buns world production?

is Denmark too expensive or the rest of the world too cheap ?

the gap is mainly about labor costs actually from what i can see, i can't blame Yuri for moving to
greener pastures, not at all.

Quote from: sjlocke on August 13, 2012, 22:19
Ha ha, true, 'dat.  My effective tax rate was about %30 last year, iirc.

Anyways, I didn't bring up the "charity" thing.  Just responded.

30% is very good, in europe it would be 35% at the very least, with peaks of 40-45% in some countries.
in plus, the cost of life in europe is among the most expensive in the world, especially Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia.

i can't see many incentives to be based in europe nowadays apart the availability of local models and the fast
internet connections.

by opposite, last time i went to the HongKong Chamber of Commerce they prospected me a 15% to 25% tax rate,
permanent residence (HK-ID), everything was quick and easy to setup and you can make it all in just one week,
foreigners can open bank accounts in half an hour, no BS as in europe, that's the way it should be, too bad now
in HK the living costs are skyrocketing and it's ain't cheap anymore, i mean it's maybe cheaper now to go
in Berlin actually despite germany having 35-40% tax rates.

Quote from: cardmaverick on August 13, 2012, 08:04
All this talk about money.... the real culprit is the Federal Reserve and useless paper money that's being printed like crazy. Heck, there are foreign currencies being printed like crazy that are backed by US dollars being printed like crazy.... If you want to blame something. Blame those two things and you're on the right track. Don't blame Yuri, he's just trying to survive and thrive in a world that is destroying his gains via printing presses.

it's not so simple.
nobody forbids thailand or china to make their currency as expensive as the euro or the dollar.
but they don't do it or they would lose instantly all their exports and most of their national economy would
go in turmoil.

go in china and while the unskilled workers have a very hard life, the white collars are doing pretty good
in the last 10 yrs, and this happens also the in whole SE asia.

raising the Thai baht 30% in the last 4 yrs already had a huge negative impact on thailand tourism and
in thai exports, they're no more the world's top rice producer and exporter, as Vietnam is not nr.1 due
to cheaper price and improving quality, Burma also is pushing in the same direction.

now thai farmers are asking for help or they will lose their jobs, government is doing F all and even refusing
the 300 baht/day (10$) minimum wage.

this has prevented a further domino effect in inflation, but for how long ?

you think it's a matter of printing paper money, but it's more complex than that.
money will be soon in electronic form, no need to even print it, it's already like
that for some central banks, as they only print on demand.

cambodia is also using a dual currency, Riel and US Dollar, they can't print dollars but
they can print Riels .. let me say they're not getting rich with that and their whole economical strategy
is still primarily based on begging to foreign powers.

i can't see what this fuss about donations, charities, and philantropism is all about.

i live in a poor country at the moment and we're flooded by greedy NGOs and if you
could come here and see what i see on a daily basis you would think twice before
giving these guys half a dollar.

Quote from: lisafx on August 11, 2012, 19:20

Quote from: StockBottom on August 11, 2012, 12:40
i disagree.
if istock layoff people recently it means they're NOT making big profits, if at all !

Sorry, I couldn't make it through your long, rambling, disjointed post, but had to respond to this part. 

You clearly don't follow basic economics.  It's not only unprofitable companies that lay off staff.  Vulture capitalist companies often lay off staff of very successful businesses, just to jack up the good profits into obscene profits.  That's what happened at Istock.  Try to keep up.

i know and years ago it happened in the company i was working for, but in the case of iStock i disgress.
they're not doing fine, all indicators confirm istock is losing buyers and sales.

and maybe they simply overhired while they were booming and suddenly realized they've been too much
optimistic.

CEOs dont get usually fired for nothing, something smelly happened but we will never know the details.
maybe as you say they just wanted obscene profits rather than good profits but i've a sixth sense for these
things... and Getty isn't yet a public company, nobody knows their real numbers, no shareholders breathing on
their neck to score mega bucks in the next quarter, the real story here must be more dirty than what they
told us.

Quote from: stockastic on August 12, 2012, 16:53
Facebook is maybe the biggest 'free', ad-supported business model.  And it's hitting a wall, as all the people who bought FB stock on day 1 will now tell you.  There's just no way they can generate the amount of ad revenue needed to support their huge organization and meet its impossible profit targets.   

One critical problem is that users are increasingly on mobile devices that just don't have room to display enough ads.

People are already getting turned off by FBs endless in-your-face tie-ins to profit generating 'apps' and other inline spam generators.  I think it's inevitable that FB either faces big competition or starts to talk about a paid 'premium' service.  This might turn out to be the high-water mark for the 'everything online is free' model.

too late, LinkedIn is already market leader in paid premium social networking, and rightly so as LinkedIn is a useful service for business networking $$$.

Quote from: Tabimura on August 11, 2012, 11:23
I doubt the sites owners will care too much about this. Those interested in breaching copyright (aka theft) already know where these sites are.

i will believe something is changing when sites like HeroTurko will be not indexed by google or yahoo.

it's a cut-throat business.

when they reach this stage, giving the product away in order to profit with in-game upsells (which is the same Zynga is doing) i think it's a bad sign for the whole industry, as the next step is giving away the product for free to profit from advertising alone, and finally to close down the company and file for bankruptcy, we've seen this scenario in many other industries already, it's nothing new, and frankly kids should better play football rather than going retard with MMORPGS or whatever the name.

Quote from: rubyroo on August 11, 2012, 13:15
Yes indeed Cathy.  This is the bit that confuses me the most.  How, when and where did agencies decide that they had the right to do anything they like with our property without any dialogue with us?  I really don't understand this.  Can anyone tell me if the trad agencies behave this way?  Is this established practice in the agency/artist relationship, or is it a recent thing?

you signed or agreed on a contract, and it's all in the contract if you ever read it.

and yes, same happens in RM, see what getty did dumping part of its RM/RF portfolio on Thinkstock
just sending a "take it ot leave it" email.

Quote from: Smithore on August 11, 2012, 13:10
So, our, microstockers,  have to be humans and clever for the future. If we want to be strong, maybe it's time to build a real community before becoming real "voluntary slaves". Microstock market is' nt dead at all, crisis is here, but customers can buy pictures for a good price, the proof is the ridiculous percentage we are earning from our selling. If the agencies was paying us only 30%, we could learn almost the double, and many more microstockers could make a living instead of feeding only powerful agencies.
If we don't find the power to say "no" to greeding agencies, I'm afraid we'll have to find another professional activity in some years.  

sorry 100% wrong.

if you want 100% more, you can only double your portfolio.
or launch your own site or small agency.

if doubling your portfolio isn't financially sustainable, well, welcome to reality as well ... the sort of images
you sell aren't sustainable on RF micro, try RM eventually, or give up, it's written nowhere that any micro
contributor can or should stay afloat, as by logic only the top ones shooting business and lifestyle could make it.

Quote from: jsnover on August 11, 2012, 12:59
IS was laying off people because H&F was siphoning money out of there with a big fat straw. They have taken over $1B out of Gettty in "dividends" for themselves.

There is a huge difference between changing the business model as microstock did - lower prices with higher volume, similarly to mass producing cars or furniture versus hand crafting it - and keeping the business model and sticking it to the contributors which is what the agencies are doing at the moment.

The first is smart business, the second is as close to larceny as you can get

there will be ALWAYS demand for stock images, both expensive and cheap.

what is to be seen is how this new mixed micro/macro market will adapt
but considering it's a getty monopoly it's maybe a question of how getty will play
its card and what sort strategy it will play or rather impose on buyers.

if the top agencies tomorrow triple their prices you think buyers will instantly
look for a new supplier ? NO, only maybe 5-10% of them.

buyers will just buy less and pay more.

Quote from: loop on August 11, 2012, 12:28
While it's true that nothing lasts forever, it's true as well that I have been reading in forums the voices of self appointed prophets announcing the inmmiment end of microstock since 2004 (I wasn't aware of microstock before 2004). Every little change has been seen as the herald of "The End is Near". Had I listened to these inspirational voices now I would be significantly less rich.
I can understand that some people –like our poster-of-a-thousand-names, who probably is making his profecies in different forums since the year 2000-- would love seiing microstock crashing, but wishes and reality are often different things. Sometimes is good to be able to look ahead instead of consuming time looking back while swallowing sulphur. Remember that to have your wishes made real instantly, you need a magic wand.

(But well, as I said, nothing lasts forever. If you live long enough, maybe someday you'll see your prophecy fulfilled)

actually i heard rumours about the imminent death of RM since 2004 as well

i'm not a prophet nor (yet) a business analyst but i can tell you all the major micro agencies are here to stay.
what is going to change is about pricing and fees, will it be an abrupt 180 degree change or a step by step
change ?

however it turns out, things must change if the whole industry is going to stay afloat.
i can't see any way for photographers in this scenario to make more money, it's all going to be about quantity, not quality.

microstockers with small portfolio will just find themselves out of the game soon.
new contributors will also soon realize the entry barrier to make some many is way higher than expected.

but all this is not at all enough to kill micros, a small percentage of buyers will move to greener pastures,
but the bulk of cheap buyers have no way out, they're locked in microstock, may they like it or not.

Quote from: Lagereek on August 11, 2012, 12:30
Only if the agencies are flawed, so are we!  having your own webb-site gives next to nothing.

and rightly so as long as you don't invest in advertising.

then you will discover you must spend 90 to get 100 back.
welcome to reality !

all these rants about greedy agencies are completely detached from the real world.

as a photographer, even in the very best scenario that means having my own sales agent
or selling to an art gallery they still ask 50% of any sales they make.

and why, because the costs involved, the risk, and much more are HIGH.

selling on the web is not like 10 yrs ago.
it's exactly the same like having a brick and mortar shop, or even worse as
you fight directly against your direct competitors, just like if they had a shop next door to yours in the same
street !

if me as company spend 50$ to acquire a buyer, many of these buyers will probably just
buy 10$ in credits ... who's going to pay back the 40$ lost ?

the other buyers will, but it's a fine line between staying afloat and going down.
too many factors involved, including seasonal drop in sales.

we photographer make the product, but ANYTHING else is done by the agencies.
too easy to spit on agencies and call them greedy and bla bla bla.

try launching your own and you will see....

Quote from: cclapper on August 11, 2012, 12:05
I don't think the microstock model is flawed, I think the greedy, rat ba$tard agencies are flawed. They are making deals with other people's property and not telling them. They are bargaining with images as though they have no value. That's not how the microstock model started out. Even the first images I ever submitted as a noob had value and sold. And as my photography improved, they sold better and better. It's some of the agencies that are supposed to be representing us that are changing the model to suit their own greedy pockets.  

i disagree.
if istock layoff people recently it means they're NOT making big profits, if at all !

now you can blame whoever you want for this, but despite grabbing 85% of a sale
they still don't make huge profits.

why else do you think they fired the old CEO ?

i know it may sound unbelievable to losing money while retaining 85% of the final selling price
but you guys must realize there's a huge cost in backend infrastructure, inspectors, and especially
in marketing.

buyers dont go to istock because they've been told so .. each and every client has been picked
up in many ways, each one of them costed getty maybe 20-30 or even 50$.

as company grows up the need accountants, lawyers, human resources, managers, and all
the other drones typically found in any corporation, that's a sh-itload of money per month, trust me.

microstock itself started because the istock founder, guess what ...had NO more money to pay the bills
for the server infrastructure and started asking 1$ per image !

now, we all know and they all know the issue is the very concept of microstock itself !
they cannot make decent profits while selling so cheap, they need to at least raise prices 50 or 100%.

but doing this they will kill microstock altogether as the prices will border or be in line with midstock.

it's a chicken and egg situation, and the conclusion is always the same : such a business model is NOT
sustainable when applied on a massive scale, as it simply doesn't scale linearly, the more they sell the more the costs go up until the costs are more than the earnings, same thing is happening for Facebook for instance ... growth is NOT linear ... and profits can be made when wokring in a specific "range" or users and buyers.

a 50/50 fee scenario is more than possible, but only with RM prices .. say 50 bucks per image.
it can't be done on 1$ RF, never ever.

prepare yourself for a new slash in agency fees, maybe around christmas or january.
or they could simply rationalize the whole pricing structure : 1$ per image to us, and 10$ per image for buyers, clear and simple, no matter size or whatever other BS.

Quote from: Lagereek on August 11, 2012, 07:26
I am surprised actually!  some ppl, are acting as if they thought this was going to last forever? some 5 years back, in this forum, I said this was nothing but a "flash in the pan", a five minute wonder, thats all.
Any business that is relying on constantly undercutting others in order to gain, is doomed!  yes they will have a few good years but the end result is always the same,  the lifeblood is drained.
I wouldnt say this is more of a surprise then GMs, business model buying up every brand there was and then comes the Japs, Chinese, Koreans, undercutting all of it.
Its like the, Undertaker, business, its a dying business.
In a few years, dont matter if youre a trebble black-diamond, its a gonner.

i think anyone doing RM agree wholeheartly on this.
we all "told you so", and now step by step the sh-it is hitting the fan.

even Yuri in other thread is scared about flat earnings and agencies squeezing contributors like a lemon
including himself who is the self appointed top micro seller ever.

if they can scre-w Yuri, imagine how they can scr-ew the rest of us.

next they will tell us that due to economic crisis prices must go down furthermore, along with yet another small
cut on photographers' fees.

so you will get 10% of a sale, next year maybe 5%, they don't care, plenty of new and fresh contirbutors joining in droves
happy to get 0.10$ per download.

and i can tell you, of course they're happy, they have it better than on Flickr where they get zero !

i don't think it's a dead business, not at all, it's a great biz for the agencies and they're here to stay,
there will be always a huge demand for rock bottom cheap images suitable for design and web.

if prices are too cheap they will just blame us for having a small portfolio .. work harder nor smarter !

again, we all told you so, and we laugh.

Quote from: sjlocke on August 11, 2012, 03:47
"However, to play devil's advocate...  assuming that an extended license royalty is paid out, how is this technically different than other online usages?"

Because they are redistributing for people to use ( use, as in 'derive value from' )..  There is no value in a game icon.

all these images will quickly spread everywhere, they will be used for free on POD sites, downloaded in zip files for free, and finally becoming so popular to be considered public domain, the photographers will never see a dime from all this and considering the zero value of a single image nobody could possibly justify the cost  of a lawyer to sue the infringers, just as it is already with micros by the way and with cheap RM images,minimum price needed is for the photo to be sold for 250$ as far as i've read.

yet another proof the microstock model is flawed.

getty and google probably signed a very cheap deal for unlimited use of the whole thinkstock RF portfolio.
how much money will go back to photographers is hard to imagine, certainly a lot less than the peanuts they already
receive by thinkstock.

now what about SS or Fotolia doing similar deals with microsoft, facebook, whatever other big company offering online services and needing photos and vectors ?

sounds like we reached the rock bottom and started digging.
imagine getting royalties of 0.05$ from Google Docs .. with some luck you will one day get the money for a beer
while dozens of people is using your images to make business presentations or even pirating the whole stuff around
with their friends.

first google fonts, now google images/docs, next ?

Quote from: djpadavona on August 10, 2012, 06:30
I watch it plenty. Still not sure what your point is. Yahoo stock is up 15-20% over the last 12 months. Google's rise is similar.

Facebook was a terribly priced IPO and the stock is being pushed toward fair value. It has nothing to do with their business going bankrupt. Zynga is small potatoes compared to the other 3, and I really don't feel their business success is indicative of anything in this discussion.

i repeat, a big company selling digital products and making net profits above 30% is the exception, not the rule.
investors are getting wild about Google announcing 35% rise in profits for instance.

but NO WAY micro agencies like SS or IS are doing 50% or 80% as someone here thinks erroneously.
if true, i would seriously buy SS shares and get rich and that's not the case.

if they go IPO is because they peaked and they want to jump crap soon after, just like the FB ponzi scam.

Quote from: Digital66 on August 10, 2012, 13:14

And what's your definittion of "living fairly well"?

i can give you the example of Bangkok, a big city, expensive by thai standards.
- small apartment for around 100$/month with  tv/fridge/washmachine/hot water, eventually a couple fans or aircon.
- a honda scooter
- a smart phone
- cheap chinese clothes
- 1$ meals, anywhere at any corner of bangkok, 24hrs, always someone selling food around take away.
- weekend : getting drunk with friends on cheap beers (1.5$ for 66cc bottles) or Thai rum (Sang Som) or Thai whiskey (2-3$/bottle)
or even the awful Mekong Whiskey (1$/bottle !!).

THAT's what they call a normal life and believe it or not they can make it with 150-200$ per month
and with great fun (sanuk) in the spare time !

if you say Yuri is underpaying his drones well i can't confirm it as we should know the prices in Cape Town
but i can say in most of the countries i've been that salary would be high-end, not rock bottom.