I report both Alamy and iS (Exclusive).

Getty bought iStock. iStock was run as a separate entity for a bit and then Getty merged them into the Getty database and system. ESP is the name of the portal that iStock people can use to upload and check their account. Off the top of my head I no longer remember the steps if you have an old iStock account and need to access via ESP.

Look at this topic not as a new contributor but as a long term contributor who has problems with copies. There is a forum here called Image Sleuth. Read that for a while and consider what it means for a long time contributor (you eventually and hopefully) who wishes to protect his work/copyright and not have it stolen by some newby that copies or slightly alters your personal income pieces. How will you feel when somebody copies your work and tries to make the money instead of you? Maybe somebody takes your work, that took hours to create, and puts it on Pixabay for free!  http://www.microstockgroup.com/image-sleuth/

100 have signed.

The object of an agency is to connect suppliers to customers and customers to suppliers. This can only be a three way proposition, suppliers, agency, customers. All must be considered. If you are only focusing on suppliers you have already failed and just don't know it.

An agency creates it's worth by connecting one supplier to many customers. It also earns it's worth by connecting one customer to many suppliers. In effect, a pipe connecting many to many. The agency has to facilitate the connections and generally makes it's earnings by a percentage of the pass-through transactions. Concentrating only on any one (or two) of the the three parts is a death nell to the system. Customers want low, or at least competitive, prices. Suppliers want high, or at least competitive, prices. Agencies want a viable percentage of throughput to run their business and pay salaries. Ignoring any of the three is disaster. Each single point of view plays against the remaining two.

So being in the middle of a transaction, your place is to ask and answer this question of suppliers and buyers: What can I do to help?  That is: What are the problems of getting your sale/purchase connected and completed and how can I facilitate that? So you have to provide a Win (sale) to your suppliers and a Win to your buyers (purchase) before you can collect a percentage of the pass through. What is your unique technique to make this three way plan work? What failures have you seen already in the industry and where/why did they fail in the transaction process? What will you do differently?

***** OLD THREAD ALERT!!!!  ***** charliegnomes is on a roll with restarting threads!

***** OLD THREAD ALERT!!!!  ***** charliegnomes is on a roll with restarting threads!

**** OLD THREAD ALERT!!!!!  *****

It's been a long while since I reviewed the Exclusive contract (and I am not a lawyer). But I remember this section as a definition under the RF Exclusive license definitions. IS defines RF Exclusivity. So the photog still has rights to sell as an RM license model to third parties. Now the sticky point is if IS reads your RM license and decides it is too liberal, even though it says it is an RM license, and challenges the photog as IS thinks the license is really operating as RF. Then all of the limitations of IS RF Exclusivity come into play in the smart minds of IS.

Another open discussion occurs, I think, when the photog is doing work for hire. But, the photog retains copyright and supplies such photos as IS Exclusive. The original hired work is also used as RF by the payer. Due to this concern I would consider writing an RM Licence for the payer even though it may be very liberal and nearing the gray areas above. Consider language in the RM license that would prohibit the organization from selling or giving away the photos (which would be competition to IS and IS Exclusivity and increase the chances of a problem with IS).

Maybe we'll see Getty's Custom Content Briefs eventually go the same way as ImageBrief. How long will it take?
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/imagebrief-throws-in-the-towel-and-is-closing-down/msg507993/#msg507993

Buyers come for a photo - top priority. Buyers may like a style or series so they poke around a portfolio - second priority. Buyers want something similar or special based on what they see in a portfolio - contacting a contributor is likely third priority or lower.

Since 2002 I have indeed been contacted a couple of times that resulted in decent deals that couldn't be filled under the standard stock site licensing. So having a profile, at least real name and location, can be useful for potential buyers trying to find you, perhaps by doing a Google search. This also implies the need for some Internet web presence that is vaguely linked to your stock site's profile. The better the linkage, the better they can find you.

Note that I have also had a number of cases where buyers expect special deals at Microstock prices or for "exposure". These are a waste of time. Even just returning Email to determine if the contact is a potential serious buyer costs time. Any custom negotiations, custom work, risk of money collections, and risk of failed business transactions, can only be done at a cost much higher than Microstock prices. Fortunately I don't see many of these so it is not a lot of overhead.

So, in my estimation, it is a slightly positive decision to at least include enough profile information to help someone make a contact outside of the stock site for a custom deal.

[snip]
Meaning other suppliers do better than most of us here (I can't poll for Alamy, as it would take my iS earnings out of exclusive, so both of the iS figures would be more inaccurate than they might otherwise be, and anyone else who is Exclusive RF at iS and RM on Alamy is in the same position).

I thought that iS polling alone indicated iS Exclusive in the Poll to the right. I was also under the impression that iS + Alamy was also scored as iS Exclusive. It's been a long time ago that I picked up that impression. Only Leaf could answer how the Poll works in this regard. I report iS + Alamy thinking my iS numbers go to the Exclusive number.

So how do we get some work done? How do we contact you? Just leave a message in this thread for all to see?