And the funniest..... I won't give the person's name:

"I am a newbie on stock photography. I find your work very impressive and your sales even more impressive.
Thought I can get inspired by your work and would find a direction as to what to shoot, by looking at your images."

After deep contemplation, I decided to decline 

"Study: 7 out of 7 reviewers have eight different opinions.
Impress them the first time with
original content available only from iStock.
Visit iStock.com for the best content at the right price. [iStock. logo; free the creatives logo]"

Set in a sans face (helvetica bold or something similar) reversed, white on black with yellow spot colour on bottom line.

Is that the best they can do?

The target audience must be people who are already aware of iStock, not new customers, since the advert gives no idea of what is on offer except something called "content". Is "reviewers" a cool synonym for "customers" or "advertisers"? I've never understood it to mean that.  The absence of any images surely implies that there is no need for anything iStock sells in order to make an advert since words and black ink do the job better.

Or am I just too old-fashioned to understand something that is crystal clear to every graphic designer out there?

Oh, yeah - and if each reviewer/client has eight different opinions, then they're not capable of being "impressed first time", are they?

I had a GI Connect sale (black bar in the IS stats graph) appear for Feb. I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago. Lobo says this is perfectly normal because ALL content, exclusive and independent is included in the GI Connect programme.

OK, fair enough, I thought. I didn't know that.

Now my February GI Connect bar has vanished - so my concern about why it was there and what it means has returned.

Are Inde images being sold on GI Connect or not? If they are, are they being reported? If they are not, how could a sale appear in my stats? Or are sales not being credited properly to the right people, was it someone else's sale that appeared in my stats? Or was it my sale properly recorded that has now been taken away when it should still be there? Are inde images being sold on Connect when they shouldn't be, and therefore not being recorded?

I have no idea of the answer to any of these questions. When I raised it in the first place, Lobo made a deal out of pointing out to everyone that it was only 23c, completely missing the point that it didn't matter whether it was 3c or $30,000, what mattered was whether we were receiving correct reports.

Since it has been taken away again, I presume his response was wrong when he said that everyone's files are meant to be in GI Connect, so it's pointless going to him for information.

Does anybody else know anything about this, or has anybody else seen black GI Connect lines mysteriously appear or disappear from their monthly stats graphs?

Vote on sales volume, not sales value, please.

My sales over the last week have been about 50% up on the average I've been running so far this year (taking the week as a quarter of a month). It seems clear that the dollar bin pricing has pulled in some sales, though actual earnings are well down on the earlier average (most of what is selling was previously in "Photo+").

There are two obvious questions: One is whether my experience is typical of indes. The other is, if so, have we just pulled some sales away from exclusives or does this reflect an iStock strategic triumph, pulling hordes of buyers back to the site. I think the questions above should give an indication of that, if there are enough replies.

I received the following message from the government. It sounds to me as if our worries have been addressed, but others may have further information:

+++++

The e-petition 'Stop Legalised Theft of Copyrighted Works' signed by you recently reached 27,880 signatures and a response has been made to it.

As this e-petition has received more than 10 000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response: This petition appears to address a measure in the recent Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (ERR Act) concerning orphan works. In fact, the Act ensures that the work of photographers and illustrators cannot simply be taken by others through a number of strong protections for creators� interests. Orphan works are copyright works (such as books, photographs, films and music) for which one or more of the copyright owners cannot be found. Without the permission of all the rights-holders these works can only be used lawfully to a very limited extent. There are millions of such works held in the nation�s museums, archives and libraries. With regard to the removal of data about the ownership of the copyright work (metadata), it is already a civil infringement under UK copyright law to knowingly and without authority strip metadata from a copyright work. If the infringer communicates the work to the public it may be a criminal offence. It may also be a criminal offence under the Fraud Act 2006 if the infringer claims to be the rights holder. The Government wants to enable these culturally and economically valuable works to be used while protecting the interests of the missing rights-holders. Section 77 of the ERR Act contains powers to allow the Secretary of State to appoint a body to license the use of orphan works. Any person wishing to use an orphan work will need to apply to the government-appointed authorising body for a licence. As part of that process they must undertake a diligent search for the rights-holder which will then be verified by the Government appointed independent authorising body. The absence or removal of metadata does not in itself make a work �orphan� or allow its use under the orphan works scheme. Only once the diligent search for the rights-holder has been verified by the authorising body and after the licence fee has been paid will a licence to use the orphan work be issued. Licences will be for specified purposes and subject to a licence fee which is payable up-front at a rate appropriate to the type of work and type of use. The licence fee will then be held for the missing rights-holder to claim. If the work is not genuinely orphan then the rights-holder should be found by the search. If the search is not properly diligent, no licence will be issued. The proposal for an orphan works scheme was the subject of a formal written consultation and extensive informal consultation with all stakeholders, including several representatives from photography organisations. There were a number of genuine concerns which have been addressed by various safeguards, such as the verification of the diligent search and the requirement for remuneration to be set aside. However, some media articles have contained a number of inaccuracies about the scheme. Under these powers copyright will continue to be automatic and there is no need to register a work in order for it to enjoy copyright protection. The powers do not allow any person simply to use a photograph or any other work if they cannot find the rights-holder. A Working Group has been set up by the industry-led Copyright Hub to consider the issue of metadata and try to obtain cross-industry agreement on ensuring that metadata is not removed from copyright works. This e-petition remains open to signatures and will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee should it pass the 100 000 signature threshold.

View the response to the e-petition

Thanks,

HM Government e-petitions http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Anyone stopped to look at the front page? The One Thing contest, where you are invited to submit entries for video or print to show "One Thing everybody agrees on"?

Look at the list of judges ... CEO of MTV, boss of a media company AND the Senior Vice President, Creative, at GETTY IMAGES, no less! http://zooppa.com/contests/one-thing-we-agree-on/brief?isource=EN_HS2

It's a great concept, isn't it? One thing that we can agree on that some of the media industries top bosses will judge personally... I know a lot of you are much more creative than me so I just thought I would alert you to this wonderful contest, in case you skip the iStock landing page the same as I do.

Perhaps some of you could post your entries here, too, for us to admire.

It just depends on thinking up one thing we all agree on.

So now we have the new system, when are the totals going to be updated? My tally for 2012 was 2063 (level 4) but the site is still showing 1997 (level 3), which means they will pay me 11% less than is due for any sales I make until they correct it.

These are meant to be updated monthly, presumably at the conclusion of each month rather than some random part of the way through it, so if they are doing this to us then they should get it right and adjust the totals at midnight on the end of the month.

Here is my chart of earnings per file per month versus portfolio size and sales volume since December 2004. I think it tells us everything we need to know about microstocking:



Return per image per month peaked in May 2006 at 36c. Today it is running at between 6c and 8c.

Sales hit a max in October/November 2006.

Earnings per file have fallen to less than a fifth of what they once were
Sales have declined steadily for six years despite the continual growth in the porfolio which has doubled in size since November 08 and quadrupled since November 05.

Note that both the growth in portfolio size and the fall in earnings per file are roughly linear (despite all the various price hikes and schemes).

To have maintained my iStock earnings I would have had to roughly treble my upload rate since 2006.

As my commission rate is 17% it seems reasonable to assume that a newbie will be getting about 6c per month per approved upload, but only 3c per month per upload if he has a 50% rejection rate. With initial upload limits of 5 or 6 per week, that works out to maybe 25 files per month getting uploaded, giving a yield of $0.75c in the first month $2.25 in the second month $3.75c in the third month, etc.  However, that could translate into no sales for a couple of months and then $5 all at once.

Even if he uses up his entire upload allowance every month, it is hard to see an average newbie getting to a payout within a year (whereas back in 2004 I was able to make $300 in six months).

I find it hard to see what possible incentive there is for new artists to join iStock today, or to bother continuing to upload after the first month or two when the prospect of ever reaching a payout must look dim.

Meanwhile, there is no reason to suppose that the trend won't continue. My RPI has halved in the last two years and it seems reasonable to assume it will fall from 7c per month now to 3.5c by late 2014. The only way to maintain my current (uninspiring) level of earnings until then would seem to be to upload 2300 images a year (allowing for 15% rejections), which is a bit unfortunate as my upload limit is 1976.

With the earnings potential now at around 75c per upload per year, it's reaching the stage where the only reason for someone like me (50,000+ sale diamond non-exclusive) continuing to upload is a concern that failing to upload could speed up the decline in sales.   

It looks to me as if every sub dl I have had at iS since at least the beginning of the year is a multiple of 11c. That is surely impossible according to the principle that we will always receive at least the same payout as for a standard sale of a given size, and a bonus if a subscriber uses less than the entire daily download allowance.

So I take it that we've been screwed over on the quiet (since most of us probably don't look at the subs tab very often). Or have they announced the scrapping of the original payment scheme without me noticing?

I've just noticed that my sales pattern at BS has shifted dramatically from the beginning of this year. In the 2010- mid 2011 it was roughly 60-40 in favour of non-US sales, now that has completely reversed.

The consequence of this is that instead of one third of my sales being taxed at 30%, costing me about 10% of my earnings overall, now two thirds are being taxed, costing me 20% of commissions.

It's like having a hidden 10% pay cut on top of the continuing poor performance of BS.

As the pre-tax earnings level is almost the same as last year the site seems to be losing ground in non-US markets and making up a bit in the US.

There's a petition started by FAA for submission to governments seeking action against image theft. Signing it can't hurt

http://www.change.org/petitions/protect-artists-businesses-from-fraudsters

At least I now know how to take a photo, thanks to Yuri's new site: