Quote from: averil on September 09, 2010, 06:05

I believe istock is encouraging big producers at the expense of smaller producers. Only the biggest producers will be able to access the best royalties. The long term effect of this will be a lack of diversity, with a huge number of similar images in the library. Short term profits but long term death.

+1

Hmm, I see very many diamond and even black diamond contributors voicing the fact that they will see huge cut in the IS forum. Or are these not considered big enough to be big producers. If not, then there is only handful of big producers, two or three?

I don't believe anyone threatening to drop exclusivity will do it. the cost would be far greater to the contributor.

You are not considering the option that other major players could offer the big (diamond) exclusive special deals. FT openly talked about this months ago and is actively promoting their willingness to "take care of" people now.

So if such a big player with worthwhile portfolio calls them, it is quite possible they will just put their portfolio up in one step, give them reasonable level and ensure their images are properly ranked.

My other question, never got answered. Does ThinkStock pay exclusives more than the rest of us peons? I don't think so. I've never seen anything over the stinkin' quarter per download.

I thought they get from 0.3 to 0.38 based on their canister.

Yes, that is how it looks like.

^ Yes. Although I doubt many people leave any significant amounts there.

Well, there may be exceptions, like FD :]]

is there a date cut? like before the date all the payment isn't taxed?

if there is a date, contributors who got affected should drawn it before the date.

15th September

I no, not another stock site that got it wrong regarding the requirement of an ITIN for non-US citizens. Wonder how long it will take to convince Dreamtime that the only requirement is the W8-BEN without an ITIN. I still remember how both SS and FT also insisted on the ITIN. It was only after mass hysteria from contributors that they were forced to do their homework properly and acknowledged that an ITIN is not required. Dreamstime is very late to comply with the tax law requirements. I would have thought that by now they should have learned from the mistakes of the other stock sites.

Oh boy, exactly.

I never touched the prices for my uploaded files, so I guess mine are set to a minimum...

This sound like normal (i.e. the only possible) credit price for all non-exclusive files and non-exclusive contributors up to Emerald level when you can start to set this normal prices higher.

      Maximum sales price
Ranking    Contributor royalty (%)    Standard Licenses    Extended
   Royalty Free    Royalty Free    Royalty Free    Royalty Free    Royalty Free    Royalty Free    Royalty Free
White       25    1    3    5    7    8    10    20
Bronze       28    1    3    5    7    8    10    50
Silver       31    1    3    5    7    8    10    100
Gold       34    1    3    5    7    8    10    150
Emerald       37    2    6    10    14    16    20    200
Sapphire       40    3    9    15    21    24    30    200
Rubis       43    4    12    20    28    32    40    200
Diamond       46    5    15    25    35    40    50    200

It's certainly not proven that it is the IS staff. It is more likely to be the Getty side of the operation. IS has said that it simply posts the numbers when the data are delivered to it.

Quite possible. IS staff attitude regarding the topics in the forums cannot be explained by that. Well, other than that they are theirs employer.

It is nearly September now and we still haven't got the partner program royalties for July. Is it just me or is this much of a delay totally unacceptable?

I was just reading the iStock forum topic about this and was wondering what . is going on there. While I personally don't really care, it is obvious that this can't be just technology. I think there are two main things in the area of PP:

1. They appear to delay the earnings report more and more. Now it seems to hardly hit before the end of month folowing the month for which the earnings are.
2. There appears to be problem with opting-in new files for many months (at least that's what people tell in the IS forums). Their staff aknowledged that it is really the case but that's it.

As I said, this can't be technology that is blocking these two things from being fixed. There must be more to it. I also highly doubt this is just ignorance. It seems that they don't want to fix it and they have a reason for not doing it. What reason?

I aslo feel ashamed by the approach that IS staff takes to these two topics in the forums. They play games with contributors a) pretending that everything is just fine with the PP earning being reported this late and b) bashing anyone that complains about the PP opt-in problem telling them that that is not the topic of the thread. Unethical. In may early days of microstocking I got the impression that IS is the best place with the best staff. It is sad it turned this way.

^^^ Ok. You are right guys. I bumped my portfolio there from 27 to 39 images via the last attempt. And I won't be uploading anymore unless they raise the commission.

Lisa, I don't know what I did differently, but when I search your portfolio on FAMILY, I get 607 hits, and BUSINESS gives 837 hits. 
I just did it by typing FAMILY in "search Lisafx portfolio", nothing else.  In advanced settings, nothing is ticked, so my default settings don't filter anything. 

They said few posts above that they have fixed the issue...