So did eventually get a reply of the "tough luck" variety - no surprises there!!


It seems though that they deduct 28% from non-US sourced sales which is a new one on me - thought only US sales were subject to US taxes? 

Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me

So goes the old saying  ~ what sensistive little flowers

I'd suggest that it's the minus givers rather than receivers who are the sensitive little flowers - folks who can't bear an alternative POV.

open the "stock" folder and upload to there

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 24, 2015, 15:25

There won't be a lot of pregnant women from gay marriages, so I suppose they are still being consistent.

Personally, I don't care whether people call themselves husband and wife, husband and husband or wife and wife or partner and partner. Good luck to them. The one thing I would object to is if tax benefits intended to support the upbringing of children are grabbed by people who have no intention of raising children but who just want to game the system for their own profit. And I really don't know if that is a consequence of "gay marriage", maybe someone else does.

Many straight couples don't have children either nor want them.  On a planet with over 7 billion people, the idea of marriage being only about procreation is outdated.

I don't know what the tax system is in Ireland, but it would be odd to have a system that gives tax benefits for kids to any married couple that don't have them.

There are no tax credits for children in Ireland

Quote from: shudderstok on May 24, 2015, 11:50

That is my point! Before microstock came along (and this really had nothing to do with Getty as they did not purchase Istock till much later) basic web usage images were being sold for $30 - $75 depending on your source and royalties being roughly 30%-40%. Microstock brought that down to it's knees for $1 - 5$ per image and starting at 20% based on the canister system, if memory serves correct.  If that is not being a pioneer in the race to the bottom I really don't know what is.

Yeah ... but folk like me weren't allowed to play with the big boys, that's what created microstock. It turned out that, despite not being able to meet "professional standards" required by the agencies we could still provide what a lot of designers needed - and broaden the market. The total that is being spent on images now is much higher than it was when the prices were higher.

Best and most fundamentally accurate post I've seen in ages...

Quote from: tickstock on May 22, 2015, 14:05

 

Quote from: Semmick Photo on May 22, 2015, 14:01

Still missing the point Tickstock. Its about incorrect reviews.
 
 Anyhoo...
 

 I agree completely it's about incorrect reviews, accepting way too many images.  Just do a search of basically any common keyword and sort by newest it's pretty much a guarantee that there will be many many examples of huge amounts of similars accepted when just one or two would cover the concept or subject.
 

 
 go easy on him, he is from the generation that has never known the process of editing images and has a sense of entitlement that every shot he takes is acceptable.
 
 the following article pretty much sums it up...
 
 http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html

 
Why be a tool when you can be a condescending tool�.

I haven't contacted contributor help yet as previous experience is that they respond with some prepared script that doesn't actually deal with the question posed.  If tax is overpaid at work, my employer would refund in the next payment as long as it's within a current tax year so I would have reasonably expected the same from IS.  I don't believe either that all the sales were US sourced.  I was just curious if anyone else is in the same boat as it would avoid the blood pressure increase I'd suffer dealing with the service desk idiots at IS.

Yeah, they should start introducing soft rejections like their wholly owned site bigstock.

Devils advocate..


Soft rejections wouldn't help compliance.  One of my early batches got rejected because I forgot the "illustration" check box - didn't forget a 2nd time.

Thats not the point. Its basically what you and Mike are implying if I understand correctly. If I am missing the point, I am sorry, please explain differently, because sometimes that happens.

I think Shelma and I are implying totally different things.  My point is that this kind of high volume activity would be subjected to some form of statistical monitoring to achieve a consistent standard (as far as possible).  There may or may not be some automated QC of images but, frankly, some of the folks complaining would never submit images with the kind of technical issues that would be picked up by an automated review.  Again, logically, these must be human decisions based on company guidelines.

Obviously they would use software to monitor reviewers in the same way that service desk organisations monitor their people.  Most likely they would be looking at activity outside statistical norms rather than specifying some random required rejection ratio. 

 IS average: $1,59 per sale
 SS average: $0,55 per sale
 
 My overall income at SS is currently 9% higher than my overall income at IS (I joined SS 9 months after IS).
 

Yours may be - my RPD on IS is nothing remotely like that as the bulk is from PP.  If you exclude PP you may as well exclude subs from the SS figures.
 

Quote from: heywoody on May 03, 2015, 17:12

 Yeah, THAT is peeing folks off big time but they haven't done the IS, FT, 123 changing pricing structure or commission levels to grab a bigger piece of the action.
 

Still, their sub prices have stayed silly low, so feeding SS isn't likely to be, ahem, 'sustainable'.
 And although for a while, some people, who became the SS lovers, were reporting a lot of non-sub sales (though others weren't), I see many of these same people are reporting fewer of the larger sales than before.
 

I�m no SS lover as such and, while true they haven�t given any increases, unlike the others they haven�t given decreases.  Also, unlike the others, they seem to make good business decisions.  Also true that the return on images is lower there than it was but that is not unique to them and more to do with the vast oversupply of product.

FWIW, it looks as though SS has started on the slippery slope vis a vis contributors that iS pioneered.

Is this right?  I haven't seen anything to suggest that they have moved goalposts to the detriment of the contributor other than they are getting more choosy about what they want to add to their database.


In terms of the OP, IS pays around 1.50 for a credit dl for the lowest rank, less than SS and much less than DT.  The subs are also lower commission  than once you reach  $500 on SS (fairly quickly achieved) and, again, much lower than DT.  Their PP does generate similar volumes to SS but subs are subs wherever the come from.


I hate to say it but RPI hovers around or slightly below SS overall.  I have been screwed twice by them in recent months and very reluctant to upload there.  Reluctant also to remove my stuff altogether because the RPI is still better than most.  Frankly I wish they would crash and burn / go out of business which would make the dilemma go away.

And now fotolia is broken on microstockr app

Yup, that would happen - have to modify my images and sales extract scripts (bummer)