And I know a contributor with more than 4000 files who is so hooked on Vetta he continues to upload and nominate his work into the collection.

The point is, if there are people willing to accept a 28% royalty on an exclusive basis can you really blame iStock playing the pusher to these junkies.

While I think Yuri will take on contributors, my hunch would be that it's going to be invitation only. Top talent that can expand the range on offer. I certainly don't think he'll play by the established "rules" of the business - it's time to innovate. That said, it's anything but clear whether he has the vision to succeed. His announcement, on second look, has holes you could drive a truck through. Namely, you don't attract the best professionals on a freelance and part-time basis.

None of this is conclusive. Personal accounts of shockingly bad days at iStock, including mine, are not conclusive either. Alexa traffic data is not conclusive. The only way to establish buyer behaviour reliably enough is with market research, and this can be done by one person. Call 10 design and ad agencies from large to small and read this:

"Hello, my name is Joe Bloggs and I'm calling on behalf of a group of iStockphoto contributors to establish current buyer trends. I have three questions for you that won't take more than sixty seconds of your time. Firstly, are you currently spending more with iStock than you did last year, or are you spending less? Secondly, are you spending more on stock photography generally now than last year, or less? Thirdly, in the foreseeable future, will you be spending more with iStock or less? Thank you for your time."

It helps if this done by someone with experience of market research, so they can answer questions if a conversation develops. This matters if you have to explain some legal aspects, such as their answers being confidential, no data being shared, data used in aggregate only, etc.

Unfortunately, I can't do it myself - if circumstances were different, I would. But seriously, we're at such a worrying stage of things at iStock now, we need concrete data. Someone should do this. Or better yet, team up with one or two friends, have a market research 'lypse. Just do it. And report back here. Please!

EDIT: If you're minded to do this but lack the confidence, start a new thread and I and others will help you iron out your text, answers to questions that might come up.

My previous post about this got lost in the noise it seems, so once again: check your XXL and XXXL files, there's a problem with some of them, the XXL setting appears before XS, with no pixel dimensions. It isn't just me.

Yep they Banned Curt Pickens. Yep thats me !! Oh well. Sometimes the truth hurts. I need a break from that caompany anyhow. Now to do more research on other sites.

Looks like this forum will be going from strength to strength... when's PeskyMonkey coming on board?

Back on topic, did anyone notice a problem with XXL sizes (poss. XXXL as well, haven't checked) on file pages? It shows as first in the size list, before XS, with no pixel dimensions given.

Quote from: sjlocke on March 14, 2011, 15:22

Quote from: caspixel on March 14, 2011, 14:42

iStock keeps claiming there's no insurance to be purchased.

Right - that's why I want to know if someone somewhere has an actual policy that would cover it.  Maybe John G. could chime in?

I doubt very much that any insurance company would touch this with the proverbial barge-pole. They simply would not have any means of accurately assessing the risk or the potential losses. Therefore they could not possibly price a policy with any expectation of covering potential losses or making a profit.

Even if they did have statistics covering the history of previous years, internet fraud is growing and changing at such a rate that they would be no guide to the future. It's not really something that could be defined as 'a risk' either as it's almost a certainty. The only thing that changes is the scale and the frequency of such theft.

This is simply not true. Anything can be insured, ultimately through Lloyd's of London, if no other intermediary provider. And in fact, going through Lloyd's is standard procedure for multinationals. But there's no need, a quick search brings up this:

http://www.allbusiness.com/business-finance/business-insurance/930590-1.html?yahss=114-3470923-930590&siap=1

Search a little deeper, I'm sure you'll find more examples.

What's the point of being defeatist from the very start on such a key issue?

Excellent thread, thank you. I hope the 5 representatives will read it.

I have one question, the only question I think is worth asking:

Why doesn't iStock have insurance to cover losses due to fraud, when other high profile companies do have such insurance? If the answer to this question is that it is too expensive, ask two things: 1) how does the cost of the insurance compare to the loss contributors have suffered due to fraud; and 2) how does the cost compare to the yearly profit iStock makes? Drive the point home: unless iStock demonstrates otherwise, their assertion of insurance not being a viable option will, quite reasonably, not be believed, and may lead to accusations of negligence in the future.

Quote from: donding on December 14, 2010, 20:21

Ummm....wasn't the issue with the fact that they couldn't filter out the Vetta/Agency collection so they wouldn't have to dig to find the cheeper images??
The way it is they can filter out the cheeper images but not the Vetta/Agency. So basically what they did was not address the problem of filtering out the Vetta/Agency

Well, yes, but that's a different issue.

No, it is not a different issue at all.

The issue is one of "quid pro quo", of treating all contributors fairly.  Those with Vetta/Agency files will be served nicely by their buyers having a faster way of drilling down their searches, but contributors depending on sales in regular collections have to contend with *their* buyers not being able to do likewise with the regular collections.  It's the inequality of opportunity that I suspect bothers many of the non-V&A contributors.

That said, it has been interesting reading the variety of responses here, thank you all.  What I get out of it is that there are enough contributors supporting V&A to ensure iStock is going to win this over the wishes of most contributors and buyers, and will not bring back the ability to filter down to regular collections only.

I'm more than 50% down in downloads over Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday, over 70% down in dollars. This tells me that the European share of sales has fallen dramatically this year... How are your figures?