I think the changes at Fotolia will make a change ...let's see. I wonder how many contributors are not supplying images to small agencies with minuscule returns and those that have minimal commissions. And that is lagging behind....sooner or later buyers realize that the competitor has a broader spectrum of images. Since I left exclusivity I have not supplied with new images to Istock. Why? Because I rather sell the image at a site that pays me a minimum of 30% that a site that has the lowest subscriptions (for nox-ex) and smallest royalties of the whole industry. So yes I think the agencies will have to adapt or fade away. Natural market forces

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on June 16, 2015, 07:42

Interesting.  For me the average monthly RPI on SS increased every year from 2009-2012 then stayed the same for the next three years.  So far this year it has dropped a penny compared to the last three due to the last two months, where it has been back to where it was in 2009.  So far this month it also is low.  Hmmm.  Of course it is still three times higher than at iS but the drop is worrisome.  If the new changes at FT lead to positive buzz there then maybe it will cause the other agencies to consider contributors as well - we can hope.

Looking through past reports it looks like SS had a steady RPI at 19 cents until this year when it dropped to 17 cents.  They are still accepting massive amounts of files so that number will probably drop again.  It doesn't do much good to compare nonexclusive istock RPI to SS RPI since most people will contribute to both at least it's unlikely anyone would just be on iStock and not on SS as a nonexclusive.  RPI should compare exclusive to total nonexclusive RPI to be meaningful.

The new changes at FT probably won't make an overall positive change.  How many people will stop contributing to other sites because of those changes?  That's the only way other sites will change.  I doubt anyone is going to stop uploading to SS because of those changes.  If FT gains market share how will SS respond?  I don't think they gain anything by increasing royalty rates since that won't stop people from uploading to FT, they may lower prices but that won't be beneficial to contributors.

This is great news. Let's see how this will translate in numbers for the next months. I have also jumped to silver.

All in all makes my "new independent life easier". I wonder if this action will make other "unfriendly to contributors" agencies make a move.  How many independent contributors are no longer submitting to agencies that pay below 20%? I hope that the times of DPCs shady third party deals (DP) etc etc will slowly dissappear . In any case here we have a start.........

All my images are there too!   

Then why are you in microstock?  Does someone have a gun to your head?

And what is "art"?  It's such a touchy-feely term.  It can apply to anything, so it's meaningless.  Maybe if you like something you can call it art, and if you don't you can call it garbage.  Is everything anyone creates "art?" 

What matters to me is, Do people like my stuff enough to pay for it, and do I feel what they're willing to pay is fair?  I look at how much time it takes me to create an image, and how often it will sell, and for how much each time.  I make the cold, hard decision that the equation works for me.  I feel justly rewarded for my work. 

Notice I didn't call it "art."  I consider myself a business person, not an artist.  Microstock is for business people, galleries are for artists.  If you feel your work deserves to be in a gallery selling for hundreds or thousands of dollars, you're free to go that route and see if the market agrees with you.

Unfortunately "business persons" and beancounters have taken over photography nowadays.........

That's interesting Lucato. I am still too young to post such numbers as it has been only 1 month that I am independent. But on this first month Shutterstock and Fotolia take the lead by far. I don't upload to Dreamstime yet as I want to have my options open in case I don't see that independence is working for me. The 6 month lock and deactivation of files one by one make stay away for the moment. With Deposit I didn't like at all the 3% matter so I will wait with this agency too and see in the next months what people say about it.

 Bigstock is selling ok but the revenue is very low as there are very few credit sales and the subscription rate is very low, 123 RF is ok, Envato is Ok, Canstock only have few images up as the review seems stucked at the moment, Pond 5 I like their upload system and prices a lot but no sales so far. Veer the upload limits and keyword striping makes this the weakes option at the moment.The first month at Shutter I have sold over 1000 files and have arrived to the 0.33 $/download although the numbers don't seem proportional by portfolio growth so I am worried about it. Fotolia has started more gradually but the growth in earning is equivalent to port growth.

And Istock....well I remember when I got exclusive my earnings jumped 8x (I could not believe it at the beggining). Making now the opposite way on the first month my earnings have fallen about 60%. I hope that in 6 month the picture will get clearer and I will take a decision if I stay independent in micro, go back to exclusivity or just dump the whole micro adventure all together. The last year I haven't produced anything for micro and have concentrated on macro RM although revenues are low too. The market is really oversaturated now......

Just discovered the keyword stripping. Seems really random   Someone talking about shooting themself in the foot..........

I think about everything they did starting since September 2012 and everything, and I mean every single change they have "made for the better",  has resulted in a pure and measurable additional net loss of income for me.

N

Agree on that. I finally jumped off the boat because I think 2+ years was more than enough to change direction of the cruise lines. But those changes got worse and worse for contributor. Now looking back I think the biggest mistakes were:

1- the MOST important one was ever increasing prices. Subscriptions are a bad deal for photographers in whatever light you look at it.If Istock would have remained in the 1-7 credit range clients would have not moved away to other cheaper options mostly subscription services. Once Getty was in the hands of private equity firm Hellman Friedman it was not more about long term success....it was about * the last drop of blood from the company......and prepare about the sell out. They killed the goose of the golden eggs.

2- Lots of Measures to demoralize many Istock contributors. The Redeemed Credits system being the worst but there were others.....Punctum day disappearance, driving traffic to Thinkstock and photos.com, goggle fiasco,......

3- At a later stage they made another huge mistake when they automated the E+ selection. So they though if a photo was selling a lot it should cost more. This IS a big mistake. Bread sugar or water don't cost more because they sell a lo. It's about scarcity if you want to raise prices......in every industry......such a stupid move could only respond to the greed of inflate artificially the numbers but the consequence was logic....client pissed abandoning the ship in droves.

4- Get rid of the quality control. Again if you want to ask for a premium and before subscription Istock was the highest priced micro, still is for credits. But clients are no fools.

5- Finally when the new manager saw the disaster they saw that it was they didn't have anymore quality advantage so or it was subscriptions or goodbye. But the subscription clients are already in other agencies....again it would have been wiser to slash a lot credit prices and I think both Istock and contributor would have won with this move

It is really amazing that a company that was in total leadership 5 years ago has done so many wrong moves. No wonder that nobody wants to consider exclusivity as the latest poll here in microstock group. And the exclusives that stay do so because it is hard to establish a portfolio at this stage at other agencies (I am experimenting this now), are inspectors or moved to other fields beyond micro and leave those RF images there.

I really had a great time as an exclusive till 2012 too. At that time I had a monthly rpi of 4$/image. Before leaving exclusivity I was at 0.5$/image/month. All said.......

"This has significantly shifted the business economics"  You bet it has........man do I hate this corporate talk. Just say how it is " This has destroyed many photographers -business economics-"......

My guess is that this will relate to the IPTC data having been saved using the old IIM schema - as opposed to XMP. Or vice versa. There will probably be a setting in Photo Mechanic which allows you to select one or the other, or both.

You probably want to select whatever option gives you embedded XMP (ie not IIM and not using a sidecar file). It may alternatively be called Dublin Core (different but compatible). Or it may be that you are best having the data written to both XMP and the legacy IIM.

IPTC is not a single format. photometadata.org is a great read.

Thanks for your help. I have looked for what format does Photo Mechanic use and it is the modern XMP. I have the option checked When writing IPTC/XMP Add embedded IPTC (XMP will always be written) activated.

I don't think Photo Mechanic is the problem as when I upload directly from this software no IPTC data gets truncated. It is when I upload to Photoshelter first and then I ftp to all the sites that this happens. Only random images on 123RF and Canstockphotos and the same for both. I don't know what is wrong but it has to be on Photoshelter.

On the other hand I am using now Stocksubmitter which is great so far. The only negative is my VDSL connection with slow uploads. I wish I had optic cable here at my home. Sending so many files too different agencies will take me forever .

Cheers

Hello:

I am having some problems with 2 agencies reading my IPTC data. I keyword with Photo Mechanic upload to Photoshelter and from there I ftp to all the agencies (except Istock). All the agencies read my metadata fine but not 123RF or Canstock where some of my photos appear blank (usually keywords and title missing and sometimes only title missing) It happens every 6 images and the same images are affected in both images.

 What could it be. Is this also happening to you? Have you found a solution to avoid the problem. Right now I am copying and pasting the missing metadata but it takes forever.

 Bruge Gilden....one of the big ones....amazing work as many of his Magnum colleagues (Martin Parr, Elliot Erwitt, Cartier Bresson, William Klein..... No problem photographing strangers on any public property. And the ones that don't find it right don't quite understand the importance of freedom of press/information and history documentation........maybe too much time photographing green apples on a white background....... 

  Rejection frenzy at the moment at Shutterstock. Not worth the time resubmitting.....nearly always rejected with another reason.......let's see if things calm down in a few weeks