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Topics - ShadySue

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176
Image Sleuth / 60 watermarked images
« on: March 30, 2011, 04:48 »
I make no comment on the premise of the site, just that the 60 images are watermarked with a large variety of stock libraries from Getty to thinkstock.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/60-completely-unusable-stock-photos
(Very first photo: I remember way back when I was a student seeing a poster campaign featuring a 'pregnant man' with the slogan, "If you could get pregnant, you'd use contraception' or similar.)

178
Alamy.com / Alamy targetted by theives
« on: February 22, 2011, 18:18 »
Reported via the forums. It seems that all whose images have been stolen have been contacted directly.
Interesting that this theft has been done via legitimate log-ins.
http://www.photoarchivenews.com

179
Off Topic / UK liability insurance
« on: February 19, 2011, 09:41 »
UK photographers only: anyone have a insurer to recommend for public liability insurance (e.g. bumping into someone and injuring them when stepping back, or someone tripping over your tripod) and whatever it's called if someone sues you because their editorial picture is used in an unsuitable way?
I was previously covered by my 'day job' Union for these, but now I'm out of the Union.

180
I thought we'd maybe reached the bottom at iStock. I had one download yesterday and two today. This is grim beyond belief for weekdays.
However, my total just dropped $16.50.
In the absence of an email (so far) I hopped onto the forum, and it turns out they're clawing back the money that was fraudulently taken from us.
I didn't even think any of my downloads fitted any of the profiles suggested, so I'd expect some will be losing much, much more. I'm sorry for me, but much more sorry for those of you who are suffering huge losses.
Don't worry. They're letting us keep the RCs.
According to RM, "Due to the nature of our online business, all of our credit transactions are what's known as 'card not present transactions'. When fraud is reported in this kind of transaction, iStock not Visa/Amex/MasterCard - is responsible for returning the money to the credit card owner."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=299222&page=1
Sorry again to those who will suffer huge losses.

181
iStockPhoto.com / iStock hires new vice president
« on: February 02, 2011, 08:32 »
iStockphoto today announced that it has hired digital media industry veteran, Nick King, as vice president, international. King will spearhead the companys international development and will focus his efforts on reaching new customers and markets around the globe.
Nicks experience will be a huge asset to the iStock management team as we prepare for our next phase of growth, said Kelly Thompson, COO of iStockphoto. Building our international presence is a fundamental part of our strategy and Nick brings a unique skill set that will be instrumental in making that happen.

iStockphoto is an incredible company that has deservedly reached rock star status in its industry, said King. Im looking forward to working with the talented people throughout the organisation to help build an even larger and more diverse global fan base.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110202005411/en/iStockphoto-Hires-EMI-Nielsen-Entertainment-Virgin-Music

Good luck to him.
I wonder if they're going to have a new Head of Progamming too.

182
iStockPhoto.com / Kelly announces slightly downsized RC targets
« on: January 07, 2011, 17:04 »
Just up.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=289922&page=1

"As 2010 wound down, our data gave us a more and more complete picture of how the year went. We've now been able to crunch everything down and examine how performance matched up against our predictions.

And I must say, thank you to everyone for helping iStock with an exceptional year. With your hard work, we continue to meet and exceed our goals. We were almost exactly right on our credit burn targets, but the distribution was a little different from what we expected. Weve adjusted the credit targets to better reflect that. Some targets have stayed the same, some down--none up. So good news."


So.
We "contiune to met and exceed our goals", but we're still unsustainable.
What's wrong with these people?
At least he knows who's doing the hard work. And shafting us anyway.

183
iStockPhoto.com / Search
« on: January 04, 2011, 14:52 »
New readers: the file is in the Dollar Bin. my brain has gone AWOL.

I was mulling with a member of my CN the balance of sticking with Alamy for editorial or trying iStock. I used the example of a file I've had on iStock since March 07, which has sold twice (in 2008) for a total of $1.13. I also have files on Alamy of the same building, taken a few years apart, and from different angles, from which I've had two downloads, to totally different markets, at $64.61 to me.
To be fair, I thought I should check my 'rivals' for that subject on iStock.
That's when the mystery started. I typed "People's Palace" and the search showed up no results.
I went into my own portfolio and typed Glasgow, and got 34 results, but that file wasn't one of them.
I had to fire up Deep Meta and type in People's Palace to find my file, then type in the number to iStock to confirm that I hadn't deactivated it for some reason. It's file #3066870. It's active. It has the keywords People's Palace and Glasgow, as the first two keywords which show on its page. People's Palace (Glasgow) is in the CV, and when you type People's Palace, the search system suggests completing it as People's Palace, but even clicking on that gives you zero results.
I have emailled Ducksandwich to see if he can find out what's going on. (I'm still banned from the forums, so can't post there).
I've tried searches for some of my other files, and they're still showing in search results.

The bottom line isn't really that that one file, which would never be a big seller, isn't being found, it's how many other files are totally lost to the search for no obvious reason - pissing off buyers and resulting in loss of earnings for us - and even more for iStock?

Added: I just searched 'Glasgow Green' another keyword on my file. My file didn't show up there either, but others did and have very few dls between them, sort-of confirming my original suspicion.

184
iStockPhoto.com / Only noticed today
« on: December 24, 2010, 13:54 »
Somehow I managed to miss the announcement of this and any discussion of it both here and on iStock's forums.
I see that on Agency and Vetta files, the extended licences are on the files' page as add-ons, so that it's clear that they're needed for certain purposes.

But my question, which I can't ask on the iStock site, and everyone's 'home for the holidays' anyway, is:
Why aren't these 'add-on' options on the file page for each file? I'm perfectly sure that many ELs are missed, either because people are in a hurry, and just don't know, or because they won't be caught. Why don't iStock want to maximise their income, and by extension ours, on every file, not just Vettas and Agency files?
If this has already been discussed here or there, please point me to the link. Tx.

185
iStockPhoto.com / Vetta Sale at iStock
« on: December 06, 2010, 18:34 »
Wouldn't you hate to be a spin doctor at iStock.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=279912&page=1#post5318352
Basically, iStock is offering a sale of Vetta files until the end of December, but 'sweetening the blow' by doubling RCs on Vetta sales during the Sale.
So I guess that's Good News for the Buyers, and for those Exclusives who are near to their next RC target and who have a lot of good-selling Vettas.
No news for non-exclusives and exclusives with no Vettas, or none which sell within that time.
Bad news for exclusives who sell Vettas during the Sale, but aren't near their next target, as they're getting less $$$ and the extra RCs won't make a scrap of difference.
As I'm nowhere near the Gold Target (but over 9,500 dls), I'm definitely a Boo-hoo not a woo-way on this one.
Added: they can work out the code for this, but not to pay us our missing 10%, for several weeks. Ha!

186
This came up in relation to that EL fiasco, but it's worth a new thread.
In that EL fiasco thread1, a contributer got this in a reply from Contributer Support:

"Apparently what happened with our (at least my) really small EL download royalties is that they were purchased from a buyer who bought credits in huge bulk to the tune of 70/credit. I wasn't aware that you were able to get credits that cheap as on the "Buy Stock" page it says credits as low as 95/credit. I was told that this is a standard practice with huge corporate buyers. It's a little frustrating that we have been mislead about this. I also did not realize that subscription credits go as low as 24/credit. Did Kelly make mistake when he wrote "we are adjusting the minimum value of the subscription credit from $0.95 to $0.65"? Did he mean to say "pay-as-you-go credits"? In which case it is already almost that low."
Clearly, that would mean that an XS image bought by one of these Huge Buyers would net a non-exclusive as much as 14c, and even a (Black) Diamond would earn 28p.

Surely that is totally unsustainable for contributers and iStock. No wonder they keep it a 'dirty little secret'.

1 Reference: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=269152&page=1, about half-way down page 2.

187
iStockPhoto.com / iStock ELs not paying properly?
« on: October 31, 2010, 06:52 »
It seems that some iStock contributers aren't being compensated enough for extended licence sales.
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=269152&page=1
Better check your recent ELs.
I've sent a Support Ticket.

188
General Stock Discussion / How much to charge?
« on: May 16, 2010, 14:07 »
Yesterday, i was photographing at my local Cattle Show, mainly for practice though I'll probably send some to Alamy, not that last year's batch have done me any good! A few different people (officials) asked if I was shooting for Scottish Farmer magazine. http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk (I guess it was the 5DMk2!).
A farmer asked me particularly to photograph his cow and calf. In fact, I'd noticed them earlier and had taken several photos. At the end of the Champion of Champions round, he held back for a few seconds (the Grand Parade was about to start so it was literally a few seconds). He asked for my card (lucky I've got an iStock Moo card, though a bit irrelevant) and gave me his email addy.
So I processed the photos and shoved them some on my website http://www.lizworld.com/General/CattleShow.html and emailled him. I assumed he might want to buy a couple of prints, and had no idea of how much to charge. (Photographers go out of business within a year or two round about here, whether they charge a little or a lot - can't get enough people willing to pay anything.)
Turns out he's the bloke who writes the report for the Scottish Farmer, and he's emailled them and suggested they use one of my photos of his cattle. (What's the point of writing the report if you can't feature your own winners?!). He's not sure whether or not they'll use a picture, and I guess if they do, my rubric is "... at your usual rate."

He has also asked about gettting prints, and said specifically that he "didn't want big ones" I fobbed him off for a bit - I haven't a clue how much to charge, especially as I'll be submitting to Alamy. In other circs, I could exchange them for MRs for iStock, but I can't imagine there would be any interest on iStock, and anyway most of the pics have other people in the background, or objects which would need PRs.
I could do inkjet prints (I've got an Epson 1400), but thought I'd use Photobox, which I've used about three years ago. An 8x6 costs 37p there +p&p, so I thought 3 + p&p.
I know all you USian photogs wouldn't get out of your bed for under 100, but this is rural Scotland.
TIA
After I wrote the above, I thought that IF Scottish Farmer use one of my photos and IF the fee is good (which is by no means certain; I haven't located any info about fees on their website yet) I should send him the small prints free for the contact.

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