...Until there is a more obvious divide between companies that can get the best content and companies who can't because they pay too little, I don't see how we get off this road to lower and lower pay.

So in addition to increasing the gap in content quality between companies who pay well and those who don't, I'm now recognizing more and more that we'll always have to fight against our own content as well. Even if these low-paying companies can't get content from me, they'll just take it anyway:



Fortunately I think most savvy buyers will still recognize that knock-offs usually aren't as good as the originals, and hopefully they'll still go where they can get the better versions. But still, it's another element in this discussion that will always be there and always make it harder and harder for us to keep any ground we gain in the effort to push for fair pay.

Lifetime earnings is an odd stat to use to decide who gets invited. It should maybe be something like average of the past 2 years or something.

...but as the opt outs from DPC have shown by their action, there is a limit to how far creators of content will allow themselves to be fleeced by their distributors.

The DPC opt-out did make a statement, but ultimately it didn't stop DPC from moving forward.

It's great that we value our work enough to draw a line in the sand and tell these companies that they've gone too far. I'm just not sure that these companies care. DPC has 30+ million images, more than they had even before the opt-out was made available. I'm sure SU will get plenty of content, either from their exclusive channels or by persuading contributors to sign up. No matter how bad the deal is, if they're offering any money at all, people will sign up. And maybe that's all these companies need. Does it matter if they have mostly mediocre content? Do they really need the best content to succeed?

Until there is a more obvious divide between companies that can get the best content and companies who can't because they pay too little, I don't see how we get off this road to lower and lower pay.

I've asked this before but I don't think anyone answered so maybe you can:   I think most people agree that as a buyer you would rather have the flexibility to download 750 images at any time throughout the month rather than be limited by 25/day right?  If it won't result in buyers downloading any more images on average why would shutterstock keep the 25/day limit?  Is the argument that no buyers ever wanted flexibility?  Is the argument SS never realized buyers might want it?  Is the argument it doesn't really matter and SS is wasting time and energy changing?...

Since it's probably a zero-sum change for most people, gaining the freedom of the removed daily limit but most people not needing 25 images every day anyway. You'd have to ask Shutterstock why they didn't remove it before. Only they know the answer to that.

My point has been that this isn't the big deal you're making it out to be. If this even affects 5% of users I'd be amazed the number of people utilizing the removed daily limitation is even that high. Most people don't use 25 DLs per day. Most people don't come close to 750 DLs per month. That's how SS stays in business and stays highly profitable. This change gives an extremely small number of users who sometimes needed more than 25 images in a single day the freedom to get those images as long as they still stay within 750 total in the month. That's all. This is a largely inconsequential change for the vast majority of buyers and contributors.

...StockUnlimited�s CEO is Christian Toksvig, the former head of business development at Getty Images...

It's worth mentioning that Toksvig wasn't just employed at Getty. His specific role was Vice President for Business Development for Getty and iStock. And he's also currently on the Board of Directors for Yuri Arcurs Photography.

When he left Getty, his stated reason was, "I've accomplished the main objectives that I was brought in to do, particularly around our presence in emerging markets and creating new digital business models and partnerships. On that background it makes sense to move on and work in a more entrepreneurial context."

Sounds like he maybe had a microstock startup on his mind for a while now. The entrepreneurial bug was certainly there when he parted ways with Getty.

I just think it's interesting that this new company is helmed by 4 guys with specific microstock experience. One of whom it sounds like maybe had microstock (or nanostock it seems) startup aspirations and teamed up with 3 guys from 123RF.

If I go and try to renew, it currently still says that my subscription would be a 25/day deal. Maybe they're not rolling this out across the board yet?

You don't think there will be more downloads?  I would expect there to be more, otherwise why would they put in the restriction in the first place?

People who max out their subscription quotas daily are a very small percentage of subscribers. I've known a good number of subscribers personally and been one on and off myself, and I've never encountered anyone who frequently used up the entire day's quota. Or came close to 750 per month. I'm sure some people/companies do it, but they must be the exception, not the rule.

Keep in mind that the point at which the cost of a subscription makes sense over On Demand packs is pretty low. If you need more than 25 images per month, it makes sense to just subscribe instead of buying images individually or in packs. So there will be a lot of people who never even come close to downloading 750 per month or 25 per day. You could literally download 1 image per day and the subscription would still be worthwhile.

Releasing the 25/day limitation isn't going to change the buying behavior of most subscribers.

There's a lot to be concerned about from a contributor standpoint, and I think the reasons are obvious. The pricepoint is eerily similar to DPC, so it's hard to ignore the possibility that the $10 buy-in might have partly been inspired as a means to compete with Fotolia's entry into this nanostock market.

But there are also some things going on with SU (can I be the first to use the acronym? ) that are actually really good ideas.

A few random thoughts as I read through the article and browse the site...

� I'm biased for sure, but I really like a company launching with vectors ahead of photos. And without a "photo" name. The value of vectors is still largely overlooked despite them being significant in the earnings of every company that offers them. I'm still amazed that so many startups launch without vectors and sometimes without any plan to offer them at all. I think SU got this part right, launching with a high-value product that is a bit easier to handle without the need for model and property releases.

� Being founded by people from within the business, there is no way that anyone here isn't at least a little bit more intrigued by this factor. We see stock startups all the time where the founders don't have a clue about the business and are just looking to get rich quick selling pictures. Having people at the helm who have been there before, it's infinitely more interesting.

� Exclusive content. This is huge. It's been discussed here before, that the only way for companies to differentiate anymore is through exclusive content. It doesn't help anyone to launch a site with just a small fraction of the exact same content everyone else has. I'm on the fence about exclusivity in general, but the strategy SU is using to launch with all exclusive content that they commissioned is pretty smart. What they lack in quantity they make up for in offering stuff that no one else has.

That said, I also wonder how this might affect the contributor. Obviously the company will prefer that their exclusive content get downloaded more than 3rd party content, since the exclusive stuff is already bought and paid for. Will they modify search algorithms to favor exclusive content?

� The site looks good, seems to work well, and aside from a horribly kerned logo the overall look of the company is clean, modern, and professional.

� The content they feature looks interesting. Like all companies, they lead with their best foot forward. But digging deeper into the site, I'm not impressed. They have a few really really good images, and then piles of mediocre stuff. Not all bad, but mostly not good enough to really compete with other companies. If high-quality premium content is a major consideration for a buyer, I don't see anyone choosing this over Shutterstock no matter how much of a savings it is. SU lacks the trendy vintage stuff, the more intricate illustrations and popular badge/emblem graphics. Designers want to buy the kind of stuff they're seeing at sites like Dribbble, and SU has almost none of that kind of work.

� The Tech Crunch article is weird. Lots of ideas in there that I don't particularly agree with. Like the notion that competition pushes prices down. While that's not totally false, I think in some cases the opposite is true as well. Not all competitors are intent on fighting the pricing wars, with some companies finding success going the other way.

I also disagree with the Netflix analogy. This is commercial use content, the Netflix comparison doesn't apply. And the idea that this service will do any better of a job of bringing image pirates in from the cold is just ridiculous. There have been good, affordable alternatives to image piracy for years, SU doesn't offer anything new in that area.

And the idea that getting lots of content onto the site and that being a significant factor in getting contributors on board is only half true. Having content to show so that new contributors know the company is for real is helpful, but the interest will be dead in its tracks if the offer to contributors isn't good. Which brings us to...

� Pricing. Obviously the pricing scheme of $10 monthly subscriptions is problematic. There's really no way to see this working out well for contributors. Let's say (hypothetically) they can offer a royalty rate of $0.25 per download. In order to still make money on the subscription, they need the buyer to download less than 40 images from 3rd party contributors per month. Seems like a risky proposition for the company. Especially if 3rd party content eventually outnumbers wholly-owned exclusive content. The odds that a buyer will surpass whatever break-even number they come up with is too great. They'll need to pay very low royalties per DL.

I definitely can't imagine them paying any better than $0.25 per DL, and more likely they'll have to pay half that or less in order to be profitable. Not a good proposition for us.

And like DPC, being able to jump into a subscription for just $10 sends a really troubling message throughout the industry, that stock images individually aren't even worth $10 anymore, and in fact they're hardly worth pennies and can/should be bought in bulk.

I want to take a "wait and see" approach to SU but it's almost impossible to see any scenario where they can take $10 per month per subscriber and offer anything decent to contributors within that kind of system. I just don't see how it's possible that this could ever be a good thing for us, nor does it do the stock image business any good to offer unlimited subscriptions for the same price that many of us still sell single images for.

Jonathan and I could not be more proud of where Getty Images is today. From digitization to e-commerce, crowd-sourced imagery, keyword and image search technologies, visual trend expertise and novel content partnerships, Getty Images, the biggest player in the visual content business, continues to embrace disruption and drive the global industry forward,� said Mark Getty, Co-Founder and Chairman, Getty Images. �Jonathan has successfully and passionately driven our company forward for 20 years as CEO. He moves on to his new role at a time when Getty Images is in strong shape and well placed to continue to lead.

Is this the new corporate script they're running with? Claiming to embrace disruption even though the very company that originally disrupted Getty and they therefore acquired hasn't fully grown into the flagship product they predicted it would a few years ago?

This whole thing is just so grossly disingenuous, acting like everything is perfect and that they "could not be more proud" of where they're at. It's such an empty statement, and really a flat-out lie. Of course they could be more proud. I think they'd be more proud if iStock were still the top microstock company. Or if they didn't have Shutterstock showing them up. Or now had to worry about Adobe putting pressure on them. Or they had a respectable relationship with contributors and had high-profile photographers wanting to work with them instead of leaving them and publicly speaking out against them. Thomas Hawk comes to mind. There are literally dozens of ways they could be more proud.

This reads like they're happy with where they are. And if they are indeed happy with where the company is today, it's hard to imagine that they even want to attempt to fix any of the glaring problems they have, not to mention growing beyond that and regaining any semblance of respectability in the industry.

The press release reads like something from a company that is likely to crumble under their own hubris. I, for one, would be glad to see some other company grow into the Getty of the next 20 years while this current Getty fades away.

...Do you get a lot of refunds?

I've had zero complaints or requests for refunds.

Buyers at CM will definitely be expecting highly useful files, and if you don't provide that they might get upset and want a refund. But as long as you give them enough to be able to easily use what they're buying, it's not an issue. For vector stuff, especially files with text, you need to provide a file that leaves the text "editable", and also provide a list of fonts used and preferably where to get them. For some files I'll include a fully-editable PSD, if I can make one easily enough (in some cases it's just way too time-consuming to produce a good PSD from a vector). I also sometimes include PNGs, where appropriate.

As long as you're giving the buyer enough so that they can do pretty much anything they need to do with your files, I can't imagine you'd see many (or any) refunds.

She might actually have more money than him. There have always been rumors that she's broke, but I wouldn't buy into it. She and Jon made something like $75k per episode of their show at one point, and they filmed 140 episodes. They had piles of money. Maybe they blew some of it and the divorce cost them, but still, they had tons of money before. I suspect she still does at least, even if Jon blew through all of his. And she works, writes books, etc. She's making good money still.

I also have a question for people who have been selling at CM for a while. What's you download/view ratio?

Just glancing over my sales, at a very rough estimate I'd say it's around a 1 sale per 100 views on average.

Equating anything in the stock image business to slavery is insulting to people and families who have endured actual slavery.