I revoked permissions for the partner and promotions programs. I discovered that I had files in the dollar bin and deleted them. I have also deleted some images from 2004.

88 so far. I only had 730 to start with.

I don't know that they are looking to sell the company. I think David hit the nail when he mentioned that IS was switching to mid. That would give Getty a "Traditional" agency, a "mid" agency (to compete with Alamy), and a micro/subscription (thinkstock).

I think they are also going to read a false positive as buyers use up the credits they have left before the annual new year price hike. At the end of January I think they will see the real affects of their changes as buyers don't renew their subscriptions or purchase more credits.

MM is a social gathering place for models, photogrpahers, MUA and anyone else that is relevant to that world. It's a lot more like this site then a model agency. No one is paid, Gatekeepers volunteer to make sure that profiles meet the minimum requirements and Moderators volunteer to make sure the forums don't get to out of control and that those who violate the rules are tossed.

It was first started so that models who couldn't get into an agency could have a place to advertise. 

I would just hate to see the only free modeling site, all the others require a membership fee, go the way of IS because big business decided it needed more profit. In the interest of full disclosure I'm a GK there.

And sugar in the end after woohaying.
This image without stickman who is opening umbrella someone clever exclusive want to bee Stokas or exclusives logo or they want to apply on T-shirt on some of Stokalypsy 

One of the first Agency images was a slide puzzle with this unicorn barfing a rainbow. At least now I know how it passed inspection. LOL

For what it's worth my royalties went up when I left exclusivity and started contributing to other sites. My first year as an independent I made $300 more than what I was making at IS. I wish you the best David.

A friend tweeted me to say that he will be shopping elsewhere.

I think istock will do remarkably well out of its new direction. The NUMBER of contributors and buyers leaving is not a very useful measure. All members are equal but some are more equal than others. As long as their most prolific contributors and biggest buyers are happy, especially if they get more prolific contributors (Getty pros) and bigger buyers (agencies who want only macro quality) they won't care. And they'll still be offering micro, whether it be branded as istock or Thinkstock doesn't really matter much. Many independents will stay - how much is a sub sale on SS worth?

Shutterstock pays 25 cents per sub sale. According my math that's 15 more cents than IS will be paying me for a non-sub sale under the new program.

Is editorial one of their new content streams?  (Mostly sports editorial in this case?) 

This announcement was made on Wed 8th (the day after the Istock announcement).

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100908005304/en

Paul Melcher's take here:   http://blog.melchersystem.com/2010/09/12/under-the-carpet/

Melcher's closing words ring so true This is not about fair competition anymore, where the best image wins, this is becoming a real monopoly. Heard that, Justice department ?

I don't know if it's part of this or not but in July Examiner.com announced that their writers would be able to use Getty images for free in their articles.

Quote from: hoi ha on September 09, 2010, 04:07

Actually the more I think about it the more I am convinced that Istock/Getty/Hellerman know exactly what they are doing and they have structured this change to create exactly the result they want. The people who are talking about leaving are exactly they people they want gone. They are changing the structure of who they are and the vast majority of people contributing to the site they no longer want or feel they need. Thinkstock is the old istock - the new istock is going to be something different.

I'd agree with this. They've had nine months to carefully craft this program. It's getting the exact response and results they expected. It's pretty clear they want people who constantly produce a high volume of fresh highly sellable exclusive images. In other words, the good performers.  It's probably safe to say the people most negatively affected aren't what they now consider good perfomers so if they protest or complain it doesn't matter. They probably don't want those people anyway.

Another thing that just hit me is that this is just the beginning of the weeding-out process. They will probably continue weeding-out the poor or even average performers who decided to stay anyway. These people will see rejection rates will go higher from tougher inspections. Eventually, if not already, your Redeemed Credit performance will affect your search placement further pushing down poor performers. They will continue to discourage people they don't want.

This is most likely the case. At least one diamond as mentioned getting a personal phone call from an admin on the IS thread. I can only guess that they are soothing over the stock house contributors so that they will stay exclusive while not caring if the others leave.

Rob posted in the original thread that it's almost ready - that was 15 minutes ago.

No announcement yet but they are deleting any threads that ask about it or are negative in nature - not just locking - deleting.

Welcome to FT... Oh wait this isn't FT???

Someone has mentioned in the IS thread that this is simply a ploy. They want to do something but they know we won't like it. So, they announce this fiasco to get us upset. Now they will announce what they really wanted and it won't seem as bad as the fiasco so we will accept because they are "meeting us 1/2 way".

I stand by what I posted in the other thread. I contracted for 20% - if I'm not guaranteed a minimum of 20% then there is no reason for me to stay. IS already has the lowest percentages in the industry so there is no reason to lower them.

I've tried 3 times to upload MRs from a recent shoot. All there times the system acts like there was no problem but then won't show the MRs on my releases page. I've emailed support but only received the canned "We got your email" response. Anyone else having this issue?