Thanks to KB for answering my question about the timing of the price rises. It is slightly reassuring to know the $7 price was introduced in May, I was afraid is was more recent. At least with this timing, this isn't a new shock about to further reduce my sales, it's most likely already built in to the system (probably in two stages, when the credits went up in May and when prices were shown in September).

Working with iStock is a rollercoaster of nerves now, and we seem to be on it daily. Every day something negative crops up. Short term I can increase my output, but long term I don't know what to do. Going non-exclusive would be only a temporary solution, as ALL of the companies involved (including Alamy) are "technology companies", whose only real long term interest is to debase copyright into practical nonexistence, so they can position themselves as search engines offering access to free content.

I think the only real solution is to work truly independently, with a handful of select others, in a niche market, our own agency. But on this one I'm struggling, haven't been able to find a vision to success, not yet anyway.

Congratulations on "winning the business", and commiserations on a royalty that's way too low for the usage. But that's the game we're in.

What truly surprises me, is why on earth they opted to use a stock image in this poster. They paid for the central object in the image to be created, with a little more expense, the whole could have been done. Or they could have sourced an RM image on an exclusive basis.

There's nothing stopping anyone using the stock photo in another dark, blue toned composite. What recourse would that leave the film-makers? It's practically impossible to protect copyright of an image if it is a derivative of another. "Penny wise, pound foolish" comes to mind.

Quote from: cclapper on December 07, 2012, 21:10

my guess is that they ARE seeing a drop in their revenue ..

Of course they are. It's mathematically impossible for so many significant contributors to be reporting drastic falls in sales for that to not be representative of the greater business. They're in a tail-spin with very little chance of pulling out of it. The greedy f*cks have blown it.

I don't think you can be so sure about this. For every significant contributor, say an exclusive on 40%, who is seeing falling income there will be a handful of highly productive newbies creating even better work, at 25-30% royalty. I am seeing this in occasional research on the site. And it doesn't matter much to iStock if overall sales are in fact down. If they've covered the difference with their higher take, all is well as far as they are concerned. 10 to 15 percent difference in royalty payout can cover a lot of lost sales.

It is also fair to observe that iStock still presents better quality work than competitors. There are two reasons why this is not so easy to see. Quality has gone up across the board, so at first glance it seems competitors offer work just as good as iStock. Additionally, if you're an old contributor like ourselves, we are somewhat blinkered, we tend to research the contributors we've known of for years. But I think the quality that disgruntled buyers keep coming back to iStock for, despite all troubles, is now largely coming from new talent, people you're not even aware of. The distinction can be subtle, but I'm seeing high end work on iStock that you definitely cannot find elsewhere.

Do some deeper research and you will find that the situation at iStock is more complex than it appears and the oversupply of quality work from new talent is key.

F*^%$! I wasn't going to visit the site so as to not provide them traffic, but now that I've taken a quick look, I want this sorted yesterday. Here we go.

------------------------------------------------
MATTHEW PRINCE - co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mprince

"Attorney and corporate executive with substantial writing and public speaking experience. Substantial work with government and law enforcement officials in the United States and abroad."

Member of "Anti-fraud experts" and other internet security bodies.

QUESTION: How will Mr Prince look to his customers, clients and associates in the legal world when it becomes known his company is providing services to the very fraudsters he purports to fight?
------------------------------------------------

Will post more as info comes in. Don't stand by, people, take action. You only have yourselves to blame if your property is stolen from you while you do nothing about it.

I think Cobalt is spot on.

Credits are a source of profit for iStock, and have been incorporated in the latest redesign, they're unlikely to go away. What iStock is doing with the campaign is being nice to customers because credits are about to be redefined, their value will change. Customers could be upset by this come the announcement, but with this initiative the potential damage is limited. The new credit system will be presented as better value, so there should be fewer customers saying next year "I wish I hadn't bought that large bundle last year".

For contributors who have files at Getty or TS, this is neutral to good news. For those of us who are iStock only, this is neutral to bad. Getty wins, they will sell more at lower royalty.

So is it systemic, business-related and terminal or just a (big) site glitch? I don't know. Can't figure out how to tell.

Speculation welcome. It would distract me from having to change my underwear so much more often.

I draw comfort from the fact sjlocke seems to be reasonably happy, not too worried. And a few others, some have done very well in October and are not heard complaining in November.

It is clear iStock is able to distribute sales almost at will, and this has caught many of us off guard. So iStock's share of the proceeds have increased, and increased further with CC sales. Given such success (for iStock, not us), it's difficult to see our perceived decline as terminal. Maybe they really are doing well overall. Or perhaps they're engineering lower royalties for a lot of contributors, or sending traffic deliberately to Getty and TS.

It is also quite possible they have announcements in the pipeline that require desperate contributors to launch successfully. I guess we'll get a clearer picture of things in the next few months.

There you go, i hope that's useful speculation.

This kind of BS interpretation of the "intellectual property" laws can only lead to greater support for the Pirates. There should be a clear distinction-

-- A photo of a picture, yes there may be a case to answer, depending
-- A photo of a product, no case, unless usage amounts to false advertising

End of.

That's funny, I was just yesterday looking at some rather expensive sunglasses for a trip to Australia, now I read this! Which brand is it? I want to be sure I don't buy their model. Commiserations, Yuri, and good luck in resolving this.

I think that behind all this 'mobile photography' nonsense, what they really want is photos that look like they were taken by young people.  I am totally serious when I say this.

You're right! They're looking for people under thirty making faces at the camera, awkwardly holding their bikes, scooters, skateboards or bottles of water. Pants drooping, perhaps held up with a buckly belt, loose t-shirts and old trainers. Their bodies should be all elbows and wrists and wobbly knees, and the make up on the girls should look vaguely goth. Their hair should be pointy or flattened, the boys' a carefully arranged mess. They should look like they are on their way somewhere, but not in a hurry, like from point A in the park to point B in the park. Or they're at a festival and just hanging out in front of their tent. At least one of them should be laughing, another look confused, while the rest are making faces. You'll get rich if you shoot that!

Thanks for the update. If it's a watermarked image on a blog, it's not worth pursuing. That's blogging without a budget, too pathetic to waste time on.

Peter Beavis?

Quote from: ShadySue on July 13, 2012, 16:10

Quote from: ffNixx on July 13, 2012, 16:03

Quote from: corepics on July 13, 2012, 14:46

Perhaps a client demanded a refund on a sale which istock never reported to me in the first place?

Have there ever been sales at iStock that weren't reported?

How would we know?
AFAICS, the only way of catching that would be if you found an in-use of a file you'd never sold, that had only ever been on iStock, and you reported it as used without a sale and there was no reasonable explanation. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening. Once, someone thought he'd found that, but it turned out it was a Getty sale via V/A, which was reported a few weeks after the sale, as usual.

That happened to me once.  Found a photo in use that had never been reported as downloaded, and as I'm exclusive, it had never been uploaded anywhere else.  I reported it to CE, got the canned letter, and IIRC, I followed up on it later and found it still there, and had to report it again.  And I'm not near home now to check, but I think I will follow up on it when I do get there.  There's probably no way of telling if something was an unreported sale or if someone just lifted it off the site (which has happened a few times).

What do you mean by "someone just lifted it off the site"? Do you mean hacked into the iStock servers and downloaded the full size file?

Do please report back what you eventually find out about the unsold photo you found in use.