I seem to remember Sean posting quite pointedly about the Vetta fast track (pre Agency) that some contributors appeared to have and also the self-inspection that some contributors have. When exclusives were waiting for longer than usual times and the work of the anointed few got to end up online the same day, I remember Sean saying something about that in the forums.

There was an inspector whose work was for sale on other sites and after a brief forum fuss and some time where the portfolio was offline, all went back to normal. I had a hard time imagining that other exclusives would be given so much benefit of the doubt.

There was also the little giveaway of double RC credits during the Vetta sale at the end of 2010, which seemed to me a way to get the favored few their royalty rate for 2011 when the ridiculous Vetta price increase had caused sales volume to drop.

I don't see a lot of consistency from where I sit (even where I used to sit, as a diamond exclusive).

The PP is seen by some (me included) as a way to transfer sales from a high royalty outlet (up to 40%, 50% on ELs before they took the 10% bonus away) to a low royalty one (20%). No RC credit for any sales via the PP, so over time, you have a harder time maintaining your higher royalty payments at IS.

It's about monthy return on your portfolio, and SS has been doing pretty well over the long haul with that.

You can look at the various "Image pack" options on both Thinkstock and photos.com to see all the ways buyers may pay,

What you make is found here.

@ Lisa - I like "portfolios" as a euphemism here.

Perhaps we can stipulate that all three of them loathe one another equally and just move on?

I got it last night and filled it out. It's not a category that interests me (interchangeable lens compacts). Still have the small sensor, thus not that great for quality, so I'd rather not deal with a compact that's no longer all that compact and which needs a bag for the extra lenses.

I think Getty wants to make the most money possible. They don't have any particular wish to destroy competitors, but that's collateral damage given how they operate.

We're a cost and driving down costs is what they're trying to do. Unfortunately for us, there is no control over supply and the barriers to entry (for new photographers) are relatively low, especially if you're not being too picky and there aren't any "name brands" that customers demand.

I don't underestimate Getty, but I also don't want to overestimate the value of my photography to microstock customers. There are plenty of other people out there who will supply Getty if I don't. I will keep my new stuff off iStock for a bit so it shows up elsewhere first, but other than removing my vectors from iStock (which I already did) I don't think removing all of the independent iStock content from Getty's subscription sites would be more than a temporary setback for them.

Unpleasant realities, I'll grant you, but that's what I see.

I get an average of $5+ for an XL, $4+ for Large and $3 for Medium downloads on iStockphoto, Shutterstock pays me $2.85 (or for 80% of my sales there 38c ) for an XXL download, Dreamstime have a sliding scale but the average is way lower than iS.

Are you talking P+ images here? Those IS averages sound very high compared to what I see for regular collection images. I'm making 18%, so even if you're on a higher percentage, I'm not sure that would account for the difference. P+ has helped a lot, but I'm not sure even that would pull my averages up that much.

Also, on other sites, I haven't seen the 12 cents for an XS download that I have seen on IS (again regular collection). That's not the average, but it's pretty painful to see some of the numbers when IS has heavily discounted the credits.

My memory sucks.  Wasn't Istock disambiguation before the sale?

No. DA'ing was a result of adopting Getty's CV. We had a prior iStock-invented conversion from old to new categories (which I think was how they were going to try and solve the problem Gettty thought the CV addressed), so those of us who had been around a while had already been through one "new and improved" conversion already.

There were also bulk editing tools promised to contributors to help them with the conversion, and they were never released. They never helped in any way to educate contributors about the structure of the CV (which some of us did by walking the tree in the edit image dialog to learn how it was put together). There were massive amounts of contributor hours put into that effort. Hence the complaining.

This week at iStock (weekend hasn't happened yet, to be fair, but these days that's generally pretty small) has been less than half last week (and that was less than the week before that). That's not just one day off for Labor Day, but as I say more and more these days, thank heavens for SS!

I did read it through, but it seemed there wasn't anything out of the ordinary in there.

I was looking for anything that let them flog our personal data to make them more money, but it looks like all the items you'd expect regarding them or third parties operating site services and sending out contributor newsletters and paying us, etc.

I was a bit puzzled as the reference to "click here to opt-in or opt-out of our use of your personal information." took me to my preferences where it didn't appear there was anything new - just the newsletter opt ins.

Did I miss anything?

Keeping accounts open is a good idea for a couple of reasons.

One is that you wouldn't want someone to start selling stock with your account name and effectively you're reserving your name by having an account there.  Another is that if there are benefits that accrue on the basis of having been a member since mmyyyy, or having sold so many images,  then you can have those if you want to later reactivate your portfolio.

Another is that you get contributor news (for those that do such things) which can be helpful if you want to keep up with what's going on.
 
When I went exclusive I kept my accounts at all the sites I was able to (FT deleted mine). There's no conflict having an inactive account anywhere

When on the can system, they never paid for the time it took for the can to update.  That's just how it worked. You're not the first.

I don't have any old documents to back this up, but I don't recall anything saying that you'd get paid immediately. I think that language in the new rate schedule is what makes this different from before.

I wouldn't argue that it's likely they'll try to brush any request for payment  off, but the fact that you've gotten away with something for a long time doesn't make it OK. I think in the past contributors were more likely to overlook things like this because overall iStock was very fair. Lately - with the fraud clawbacks, EL payments messed up (and on and on) - things have become much more "letter of the law" from iStock's side.

He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword, as they say...

Regarding the profile pic - seemed like the only say to let people know I've been banned, rather than I'm suddenly thrilled to bits with everything iStock does

Youre an idependant? you dont get anything for moving up a pinhole, as an indie, commission stays the same, doesnt it?

Once upon a time, when all was 20% for independents, that was true. Now, you move up from 15% to 20% as you climb the RC ladder.

@KB

There is something that can be done - they can issue a manual payment the way they have for other site eff-ups. When the EL bonus was incorrectly removed months early, as an example. FWIW, I'd pursue this with contributor relations. I think they are contractually obligated to pay you the higher rate for the sales following you reaching that milestone, and I think it'd be worth arguing the point with them.

You might not win, but I do think it's important you don't just accept their initial "no" at face value. This is a bit like dealing with insurance companies that just say "no" to almost everything in the first place because they know that a huge portion of people will just let it go, thus saving them money.

[nostalgia mode]Many, many moons ago when I was a relatively new iStock contributor I had a very large jump in my balance one day. When I looked, there were six large sales of the same image, just seconds apart. I figured this had to be a misclick mistake on the buyer's part, so I contacted whatever contributor relations was called then to ask them to refund the duplicate sales. I got a reply back which included a comment that it was contributor attitudes like that that made the site a great place. How much things have changed since then[/nostalgia mode]