Quote from: WarrenPrice on July 19, 2013, 19:44

Quote from: Olga on July 19, 2013, 19:18
...

Hmmmmm... I don't see any examples for Olga? 

There is no need as I never claimed I have invented the wheel or that someone stole my unique idea of walking down the streets.

Hi, zager!

I am amazed by how fiercy requierements are being made by people with little or no files at all on Pond5 or whose most downloaded file has only two downloads.  ,,What we should improve" is a very serious issue and should be discussed only on Pond5 forums. The microstock group ID offers no guarantee at all that the requests are being made by the righteous people.

Some of the previous commenters feel they are genius and everybody is looking to steal their unique, never before seen work of art. Have you invented the rule of thirds or the shallow depth of field?

@ cobalt: What is that unique thing that has been copied from you and has never been seen before, and sold cheaper, could you please make a single example?

Quote from: cobalt on April 13, 2011, 19:33
Thank you for ... something productive.

Sorry for not quoting your entire post, but I do not want to upset our fellow posters.

It is not only about 15%. It is about all the points in that list, it is about the fact that iStock has a very wrong attitude towards submitters, it is about the fact that iStock has a too large market share and is ABUSING its position.

Quote from: Tom on April 13, 2011, 19:13
Argumentum ad hominem - a classic logical fallacy, quite common here unfortunately

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Unfortunately that is true - both online and in everyday life.

Quote from: disorderly on April 13, 2011, 19:24
... My first reaction was to tell the OP to piss off. ...it's bad manners we're reacting to and not the message.

Bad manners? Could you be please more explicit, could you give me a single example from my first post of bad manner?

Quote from: rimglow on April 13, 2011, 18:46
Seeing a portfolio validates him (or her). It gives some creditability that we are not dealing with some 12 year old locked away in the basement trolling away.

I should have asked to please see a portfolio link. It would have been nicer.

Your argument is simply absurd as many iStock management arguments. 85% is a fact and one does not need a portfolio to validate this information unless he is 12 or less.

.

Quote from: alexmk on April 13, 2011, 17:03
[... IS still has the best collection and that's why  buyers are there. It won't last forever that's for sure but look at the other agencies.
Apart from Shutterstock the others are full of crap especially Dreamstime.         

Are you an iStock employee, are you financially involved in iStock other than being a submitter? This kind of advertising is really crap. All I can understand is that iStock has a serious problem with Dreamstime.

Quote from: ShadySue on April 13, 2011, 16:42

Quote from: Matemir on April 13, 2011, 15:32

I know is hard to instantly shut down one's iStock account.There is a lot of work in it.
Regards,
Dmitry

Apparently it's not difficult at all. You just write to Support and ask for your account to be closed and to receive any monies due to you. If your portfolio is quite small, you could even just delete your images manually if you don't want to wait until Support do it for you.

What I really mean is that is hard to give up all you have done until recently, all the effort of shoot/edit/upload. I did not mean the effective process of deleting account.

.

• Highest rate in the industry - 85%  comission
• No protection at all against credit card fraud
• Privacy intrusion - screenshot request for CG(as if they were providing us access to their books)
• Very hard to upload process - with an ironic end "I love to upload to iStock!"
• Impossible logic: commission rate is conditioned by the number of sales > number of sales is conditioned by the number of uploads - number of uploads is conditioned by iStock => comission rate is LIMITED by iStock!

For me it's enough. I decided to STOP UPLOADING = STOP FEEDING THE BEAST!

I know is hard to instantly shut down one's iStock account. There is a lot of work in it. But why should we continue? As long as one keeps uploading is simply feeding the beast. And the beast is asking more and more. Next step? 95%? Or what else? The managers are very creative people. The middle way to get out of it is to simply stop uploading to your iStock account. This way, your income will not drop down instantly and you will have the time to find other ways of selling your images.

Regards,
Dmitry

I have a feeling that the OP just made a joke. I searched on the stock sites he/she mentioned and I could only find a SIFD member on DT with no pictures in portfolio at all. Of course, the OP might use a different ID for stock site account.

The submitters have become kind of new age slave: he/she has the main duty to upload as much as she/he can, to be well equipped, and mostly to obey all the absurd requirements of stock sites(to swap each and every pixel of noise, to explain how he made certain animation etc.) When it comes to money, the submitter has to wait as long as the stock site is willing as if the money transfer is done through stone age ways.
It would be an easy way to transfer money into someone's account directly from the site's one, instead of pumping money into MB and PP.

On short: the stock has all the rights and power it wants, the submitter has almost no right at all. It is time to organize ourselves, some kind of union, some kind of institution to represent and defend us against the increasing power of stock sites. The relation between the sites and submitters is almost humiliating. I heard someone from a stock site saying: what if X photographer is leaving? I get tens or hundreds to replace him/ her.

It is time to do something to defend ourselves.