What does this have to do with micro stock? A photographer is being sued for the end use of an image, which he has no control over. The model is suing the companies that used the image illegally, that is the proper course of action, but there is no evidence that the photographer sold the image directly to the companies that are misusing her image. The photographer is also outraged at the misuse of the image so the model and photographer should be a team in the lawsuits not antagonists. The model suing the photographer is wrong, period. This woman instantly loses sympathy by her avarice.

They had an announcement and sent out emails a while back.

I didn't see that email, somehow i missed it. Thanks again.

I'm assuming that you submit images to PC? How is Getty working for you via PC?

They aren't charging for PC, it's free.

Since when? I never got that memo.

What's scary is how anyone can be sued for anything, no matter how ridiculous, and in order to defend yourself it will cost a minimum of 50 grand, I had a lawyer tell me that. Completely unrelated to photography, but my family was sued by a cousin and aunt (an inheritance / property issue) and they made false accusations, which in the end the judge recognized and acknowledged and we won the case. But it cost us 50,000 bucks over many years to defend ourselves. Afterwards we thought about suing them for emotional damages and for starting up a frivolous lawsuit but our lawyer said it would be long and difficult to win and we couldn't afford it. Who won? The lawyers.

I feel for you man, I wish you the best.

donating.

All the micro stock sites have been on a decline for me for the last couple years but Fotolia and dreamstime have just tanked this year. I'm just wondering if there is a secret to keeping sales with Fotolia that I'm missing?

I have images with Getty via their "Moments" collection which, if you don't know, used to be the "Flickr" collection. So financially Getty does a lot better for me than all my micro sites combined, in terms of return per image. The caveat is I don't have a lot of images with them, so the bulk of my money still comes from the micros. Getty Moments fairly recently started allowing 50 uploads per month, whereas before it was like 10 per month, then they actually stopped allowing submissions for over a year one time, and six months another time. I know some of you know all this. I had given up on them until lately. Anyway�

So here is my question: I would be submitting all my images to Getty and none to the micros but the problem I'm running into is that when I'm doing a photo shoot I usually get a whole series of images from that shoot. Getty will pick only one or two images from the series, leaving me with a half dozen similar images that can't be submitted anywhere else because they are to similar. I look at photographers work from other Getty collections such as stone or the image bank and see many, many similar's from photo shoots from other photographers but I'm guessing the editing is different for the Moments collection? And then, if they select only one or two images, then there is no option to cancel those uploads. Once Getty selects them, you're stuck with those images on Getty, as far as i know. So it's a risk for me to submit my images to Getty unless I have one or two random shots, but a series of images I just can't risk submitting.

Anyone else running into this problem?

It's funny to me that you say that because  I say the same thing to myself every time I have a good month there. I haven't been shooting very much lately so I will send a batch in a month or two after I have some fresh stuff. I sent a whole bunch of images to the micros about four months ago that I wish i had reserved for Getty. The images were ready to put somewhere at the same time I was have a bad few months at Getty so I  decided not to put out the money and risk it but then Getty had a few good months and that changed my mind, after the fact of course. So the next batch of new images I'll reserve a few of the better ideas / images for Getty.

No need to run Windows apps and honestly no desire to. Nothing but bad experiences with PC's in the  past. That being said however, I like to play games, primarily first person shooters and on-line matches and so I am considering installing Windows when i upgrade to 10.6 in order to play games, but that is the only reason, and it really irks me that more great games are not ported to the mac.

You must have been posting while I'm typing my posts, because I didn't see your replies until after I posted. Got it, thank you.

In case i'm not being clear, I mean deactivate / delete one of my own images on istock. Thanks

One and a half years ago I joined Getty under their pay to play scheme, the collection at the time was called "Lifesize" now it's "Photographer's choice." Unless something has changed since I joined, what they will do is either like your work enough to ask you to submit images under one of their collections, where each image will then go through a rigorous editing process or, the more likely option, they invite you to submit images to their "Photographer's Choice" collection, the pay to play scheme. You submit images, they have to pass quality control but they are not selected / edited on content. You pay $50 per image and you make 20% to 30% on each license. They may have a introductory deal going on where your first 10 selected are free, or half price $250. Every image you license within the first year of submission you will be able to submit another for free. My profit per image from Getty is more than the micros however, I only have 20 images on Getty and only about half have been licensed, so it wold be easy (for me at least) to submit images that don't sell and eat up profits in placement fees, so I'm hesitant to send in a lot of images. At $50 per image it's gets pricey fast. But I know a guy who has placed over 200 images under this scheme and he insists that he is in the black.

I started stock about 4.5 years ago with Alamy and My Loupe, and about 3 years ago with Acclaim. I made one sale in one year on Alamy with around 600 images. I bought into the hype that micros were evil, but I was desperate to make money, and because of circumstances in my life (which I wont bore you all with the details) basically helping a family member, I couldn�t work a full time job and needed a very flexible part time job which I couldn�t find. So I started uploading to the micros and low and behold, I started bringing in money right away. So I kept shooting low-budget (to no budget) production still life�s and my income continued to build almost every month. I was also occasionally assisting a professional music, fashion, and Digital Vision / Getty stock photographer so I got to see behind the curtain of Getty production shoots and some were north of $20,000.

About 2.5 years ago I submitted my images to Getty, Corbis, Jupiter, Masterfile and a few boutique, high-end stock agencies. All turned me down. Getty (paraphrasing) wanted photographers who had advertising experience, had worked with art directors, and were willing to fund their own productions that were directed by Getty art directors. So basically, the Getty AD says here�s what we want you to shoot, but you pay the bill and take all the risk. Jupiter basically said the same thing but wanted only �paid for hire� contracts. Corbis never replied to a number of inquires. One of the boutique agencies told me to go to iStock, the other wanted 1000 slides to consider, and all insisted on a photographer exclusive contract. I was blown away, I mean micros were cutting into the trades big time by this point and all were making the entry into traditional photography that much more difficult.

Continued micro, my income continued to rise. I continued with Alamy and Acclaim and started to make monthly sales with Alamy but still the two together only amounts to 1/8 of my total sales. A year and a half ago I started with Getty under their Lifesize collection, now Photographers Choice (the pay to play scheme) and technically make a lot more on a per image basis than with everyone else combined but the caveat is the $50 per image entry fee and that some of my images do not sale so it�s very daunting to consider placing a lot of images with Getty at $50.00 per image. I could easily lose a lot of money in placement fees.

Nine months ago I submitted a select group of images to Masterfile, Getty (asking for entrance into a different collection that I didn�t have to pay for) and Corbis. Corbis didn�t even look at my images, they just told me to send stuff to Snap Village. Getty said no, and Masterfile said no thanks. So, more for the micros.

Now I know my stuff is low production, and mostly still-life, but much of it is comparable to stuff I see on the big agencies, and clearly some people are paying top dollar for it (hence the sales on Alamy, Acclaim and Getty.) If the top agencies want to stem the micro flood they need to be more willing to help photographers get into their agency, a trial basis with a select number of images perhaps, some system and not just an entry barrier to all but the most experienced.

Anyway, I love shooting stock, I don�t make a lot but I don�t work that hard, very low key, part time job that pays the bills and allows me a lot of freedom and free time. I wish I could get into the better agencies but I see the barrier as more of a production costs issue than a talent issue. The photographer I assisted had assistants do everything. She would just show a tear from a magazine and say �I want this lighting� and the assistants created it for her, she didn�t know how to do it. She had more of a director�s perspective than what most of us think of a photographer. I helped her out on a few small projects that didn�t require any technical lighting assistants and her stuff was just OK. I believe 90% of her success was being able to throw enough money at the problem. I�m not saying she wasn�t creative but I think many of us could recreate her success under similar circumstances and with enough money.  I�ll keep trying for Masterfile and Corbis and slowly submit to Getty but Micro is paying the bills and without it I wouldn�t be a photographer.

Thanks. Maybe the better question is, what is an affordable video cam suitable for stock footage. The obvious nice aspect of the Nikon, or Canon DSLR is the shallow depth of field, but if i'm buying something primarily for video then perhaps I shouldn't consider a dslr. Is there a favorite affordable video cam (under $1000) among the micro stock crowd?