|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - Elenathewise
Pages: 1 ... 5 6 7 8 9 [10] 11 12 13 14 15 ... 35
226
« on: February 28, 2013, 12:17 »
I do wonder whether their right to change the terms gives them the right to abandon the lifetime guarantee that they gave. Surely that promise explicitly ring-fenced the arrangement against the "we can do what we like" clause? It may have been an unwise promise but trying to unsay it years later strikes me as rather dodgy.
I am sure there is a fine print somewhere that referral program terms are subject to change; just as all our "agreements" with stock agencies. And since the position of SS is very strong right now, they don't really need a super-attractive referral program - just look to the right at the "Earnings Ratings" in microstock poll results, those numbers alone would attract new contributors. So I am not surprised they changed the terms; and I am actually impressed they balanced the change with a 25% increase of short-term referral payments. Of course it would be nice if you could refer a few high-selling photogs and collect money for the rest of your life:) alas, this would be just too good to be true.
227
« on: February 26, 2013, 23:03 »
It was interesting to hear his point of view on the "free" image use on the internet - he says they sell to businesses mainly, so it's not an issue if someone takes an image and posts in Facebook or Pinterest; but where do you draw the line? Is it ok for someone to "steal" the image for their school project? how about to illustrate some event in your church or community center? or put it on your website? All these things are happening, Google image search change is only making it much easier, and photographers are seeing their images plastered all over the internet in a mix of illegal/semi-legal/legal uses. I still think that someone making let's say a newsletter for their college should acquire legal rights to use the images, yes it's not a business use but seriously they can afford paying a dollar to the agency or photographer, with prices so low they shouldn't even think twice. There has to be a way to protect photographer's copyright even in these cases, what would be nice to see if Jon and his team with all their computer/internet technology expertise would come up with an easy way to do it!
A candy bar also costs just a dollar, and yet it's illegal just to grab it off the shelf and eat it without paying; why images are different? All convenience stores these days have security cameras in them to prevent the theft of candy bars, we really need corresponding technology to prevent the theft of images.
228
« on: February 26, 2013, 18:23 »
229
« on: February 22, 2013, 11:47 »
At least Istock is not ignoring the Google Drive issue, and changing things between big corporations does take forever. I see this update as a more positive development (it's "we heard you and are working on it" instead of "take it or leave it"), but will need to see the actual changes before forming a final opinion. My expectations are not too high since I don't see how Getty can possibly back out or substantially change the deal, but let's hope they can make it slightly more digestible.
230
« on: February 14, 2013, 18:32 »
Maybe, he'll makes some new friends to make up for losing Poncke.
Made me laugh:) I am impressed with the guy. Looks like SS is on top from technical point of view, moved in successfully into non-sub business, doing corporate licensing (taking the territory from traditional Getty grounds), and generally managed not to piss off their contributor base....
232
« on: February 14, 2013, 11:46 »
I love their hair at the end of the shoot:)
But yeah, shooting with kit lens in low light will result in lots of "out of focus" rejections, and rightfully so. The thing is, they don't need stock quality - even it the image gets printed in a cookbook/magazine or gets shown on TV screen, the dimensions are not that big, so you can size down from your 18 MP or whatever and it will still look great. So many people don't realize the pain that stock photographers have to go though to get perfect sharpness and low noise levels at 100% resolution for huge files.
233
« on: February 11, 2013, 18:23 »
I am really blind to what iStock (or Getty rather) feel they are gaining by removing Sean's port. If they say it is 'purely business' they must feel they are better off without his images or his presence on iStock. I just don't see it that way... quite the opposite actually.
Tyler, they are just acting like we're their employees - "you make trouble we'll fire you" or "you try to work somewhere else we'll fire you". I wish their bosses understood we're not on their payroll - they are simply our agent. So what, this particular agent dropped Sean - well I am sure there is line up of others waiting to pick up and represent his work.
234
« on: February 11, 2013, 12:01 »
.... or they're not very bright and haven't a clue what they've just done.
That one:)
235
« on: February 11, 2013, 11:40 »
Oh-oh.... here comes the competition! :-)
On a serious note this is absolutely in line with other Getty's policies. They are still under illusion they can control the market and flex their power, and it is so ridiculous and obsolete one can only laugh.
Sean will restore most of his income within a month or two and eventually will be making more money with independent agencies, I know that for sure; and Getty not only lost his highly salable images, but also created more bad publicity for themselves... so who's in a better position now? It's just mind-boggling how determined Getty is to dig their own grave.
I better up my game now with such IS exclusives entering independent market:)
236
« on: February 11, 2013, 10:40 »
Based on the first week of February my Fotolia earnings are lower than earnings on Dreamstime.... For the first time in 7 years. And I have less files on DT - 11,676 versus 13,160 on Fotolia. I guess lowering the prices for emeralds didn't help them with their sales...
Sad - Fotolia used to be among my top 3 earners, sometimes number 1.
237
« on: February 08, 2013, 22:55 »
Interesting news.... I don't like exclusivity though, even image one. Will be a tough sell unless they are planning to bring in enough customers to make it work right from the start.
238
« on: February 06, 2013, 12:45 »
I am not quitting, but at this point I am not planning to give them any new content. My reason is this: We're in 2013, era of internet, crowd-sourcing, new innovative technologies in data searching and presenting and so on, and Getty still operates on principles of inflexible corporation from 1980s or early 90s. Times are changing and they are not adapting. If they keep going on like this - and at this point I don't see any indications otherwise - they will go down in flames and will get bought by Shutterstock ... and who knows how many more stupid mistakes they'll make along the way. So, unless I see signs of modern and inspired and educated leadership, I'll concentrate my efforts elsewhere.
239
« on: February 06, 2013, 12:33 »
If there was money to be made, wouldn't we have lots of copyright lawyers here offering their services to us? I can't think why the sites wouldn't go after people that have used their watermarked images if it paid well.
Most photographers here don't have big enough portfolios. Copyright "trolling" for lack of better word works with large numbers - they usually intimidate people to pay up and very rarely go to court. For enough people that would get intimidated and pay you have to have quite large number of people to go after. Apart from Getty which already is involved in this I know a number of other smaller agencies that also work with "copyright protection" companies. It doesn't matter if the image is exclusive or not - if the person actually purchased the image, they can provide a proof of purchase and that's would be the end of it. If the image is stolen, then the unpaid royalties are up for taking by whatever agency (or their copyright lawyers) found the infringement. There is an opinion right now that you can brush off "copyright trolls" since they won't take you to court - it's too expensive - but this is changing, small copyright claims will become cheaper and easier, at least in US: http://www.copyrightalliance.org/2013/01/copyright_and_113th_congress#.UQjd9R2E2nO
240
« on: February 05, 2013, 19:54 »
I just did a search for one of my bestsellers - it's mind-boggling how many unlicensed uses already.... It's being offered as "free wallpaper" on many sites (with no copyright or contact info of course). Ability to easily find those is not necessarily a bad thing - I could hire a "copyright troll" company and make sure all these are taken down or the right license purchased. Copyright trolls usually work for percentage of the gain, I don't think you have to pay them upfront. Maybe this is where all the latest developments are heading, with Getty and Google and such. They'll make the content easily obtainable and then they'd go after the infringements since it's also very easy to do. Smells a bit like entrapment but not really illegal. Adding transparency to the internet is not a bad thing but one needs to adapt to changing rules.
About "less traffic - less sales" - sure there will be less traffic from people looking for freebies, but that will affect *all* stock sites, so really the overall positioning shouldn't change. Search results for someone looking for a "stock photo" will be the same.
LOL. I've often wondered if there was more money in lawsuits than making the artwork and selling it. I guess I could always switch my focus.
I suspect there is more money in lawsuits... <mock shock  > Now imagine how Getty can increase their revenue if they go that way.. which they're already doing, Google "deal" and the new image search just makes things way easier.
241
« on: February 05, 2013, 19:17 »
I just did a search for one of my bestsellers - it's mind-boggling how many unlicensed uses already.... It's being offered as "free wallpaper" on many sites (with no copyright or contact info of course). Ability to easily find those is not necessarily a bad thing - I could hire a "copyright troll" company and make sure all these are taken down or the right license purchased. Copyright trolls usually work for percentage of the gain, I don't think you have to pay them upfront. Maybe this is where all the latest developments are heading, with Getty and Google and such. They'll make the content easily obtainable and then they'd go after the infringements since it's also very easy to do. Smells a bit like entrapment but not really illegal. Adding transparency to the internet is not a bad thing but one needs to adapt to changing rules.
About "less traffic - less sales" - sure there will be less traffic from people looking for freebies, but that will affect *all* stock sites, so really the overall positioning shouldn't change. Search results for someone looking for a "stock photo" will be the same.
242
« on: February 05, 2013, 13:39 »
I am in the process of removing about 12,000 files from Thinkstock that were there through one of my distributors... I guess we could add that to the count, too:)
243
« on: January 24, 2013, 12:28 »
Interestingly enough this is exactly what I think made iStock successful: Yes, it certainly did take away some business from traditional image buyers but it was mainly growing because it found a way to make imagery available to millions of people who could or would not afford three digits for an image they wanted to use in a local brochure or on their website. They brought image licensing outside of the traditional business into an SMB or even consumer market. Just like Apple is making a fortune by selling 99 cent songs. The potential consumer market for imagery certainly isn't as big as the market for music but it definitely adds up to a huge amount.
The reason I am disappointed with iStock - or actually Getty because things went down only since they decided to become more involved in decisions made at iStock after letting it successfully run almost independent for four or five years - is that Getty still does not understand this part of the market. It knows the customers it used to deal with for a decade or two with personal relationships between a sales person and an image editor or an art buyer.
When giving out images for almost free to Google Drive, it did not just make a big single sale for themselves which I believe was celebrated internally, it also gave away images for free to the people iStock had proved are willing to pay a dollar or two for each of these uses. It did not understand that 400 million users of which maybe 10% would be willing to buy a few images per year spending $10 or $20 would add up to a market that is actually bigger than all ad agencies combined.
I think this is one of the biggest frustrations for people coming from microstock that none of the macro people will ever understand because their lack of vision that there could be a huge market out there if they for once were able to think outside their tiny box.
What a nice write up. Thank you for stating clearly everything I was thinking but was too lazy/tired to post. Great post indeed:)
244
« on: January 22, 2013, 22:42 »
Yes of coarse I am aware. The best part of that is I have an agency that will go to bat for me and wields a great deal more power than I do as an individual.
Again, sorry, but Rick (Blend) has said he has no problem with this scheme.
There are many third party agencies that are speaking to Getty right now and they will be heard much quicker than a handful of Istock Exclusives. One person does not get the same ear time as a leading agency does.
That's wonderful. How about we join together instead of being separated, or would it bother them to sink to our level? Jon, can we count on you to be our liaison to this group of leading agencies in this matter?
Sean, fyi, majority of high-priced images is sold through Getty - this is valid for any distributor agency, Blend included. If they drop Getty some of them will lose 90-95% of their sales, even though they boast they have many more distributors. They know it, Getty knows it. They don't have much leverage here really, apart from threatening to sue, but suing is a lot of trouble and money, it's so much easier to say -well this is business these days, whatcha gonna do:)
245
« on: January 22, 2013, 12:42 »
Many years ago, I either read or heard in a presentation, that Getty made as much money with their payment demand letters (Google "Getty extortion letter") as they did licensing imagery. I cannot find this information anywhere now, so cannot verify it's accuracy. However, if it is true, it seems they are setting the stage quite nicely to increase revenue substantially. I'm pretty sure, however, that contributors are not compensated from these post-use collected revenues.
Sorry but that has to be one of those 'internet myths' that go on forever. If there were any truth to it then you'd find plenty of 'evidence' as there are folk out there apparently devoting their lives to the 'Getty Extortion Letter' issue;
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/
The hypothesis that Getty is now deliberately flooding the market with 'free' but traceable images for the sole purpose of seeking damages from infringements, as their primary source of revenue, is utterly bizarre.
Well it is bizarre, but not that unbelievable. Copyright trolling is a popular business these days, and Getty has been involved in it for a number of years - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_images, "Controversial practices to enforce copyright". The idea is to bully people into paying up, they almost never go to court. I heard it's quite lucrative, since many people prefer to pay them some money rather than going to a lawyer and incur legal expenses. It's hard to say if Getty is planning to that with Google images, we still know pretty much nothing about the deal. But it's one or part of the possibilities.
246
« on: January 18, 2013, 19:07 »
wow... clicking on these links hoping not to win this lottery again... well that tells you how they are "listening".
<edit> hmm maybe we shouldn't wait till Feb 2 after all...
247
« on: January 18, 2013, 17:28 »
I just sent the link to Sean's blog post to my CN.
248
« on: January 18, 2013, 12:35 »
Listen fellas and try and understand something! this is a formidable and courages effort to make things better but go back in history a bit, to the stoneage in fact.
This scenario has been tried before, a unanimous effort and that was back when agencies were not this powerful and STLL, it didnt have any impact at all.
Imagine then whats it like today and with powerful agencies, this and that.
For every image you deactivate there are 20 being uploaded either by new members, old members or new applicants constantly knocking at the door.
Like we have all agreed on before, its a numbers game, got nothing to do with how good you are how well known you are its just numbers. Cant beat that. Its like getting a straight-flush in stud poker. And youre loosing money at the same time.
all the best.
Like it has been said before, this is more about protecting my images than it is making a giant fall down. There are plenty of other places that Getty don't have control over.
Yes there are A LOT of other places that Getty doesn't have control over, and this is where I will be concentrating my efforts from now on. @ClaridgeJ - it seems that you're quite out of touch with modern world. A company dependent on wide base of contributors/users CAN NOT survive a lot of bad publicity. With this thingy called internet news spread far and wide around the world. People deactivating images might not have impact on immediate iStock sales figures, but it sends a very powerful message to general public, both buyers and contributors. Apart from saving your work from misuse, it is also a political action. The problem is, most people who worked in stock industry for more than 10 years are still trying to apply obsolete concepts and rules to it. Getty's butchering of iStock is a telling example. The industry is very different these days, but somehow the rigidity of the minds of "traditional" stock people doesn't allow them to understand the changes... and this is not the first time in history... remember Luddites? "
249
« on: January 17, 2013, 18:10 »
Thanks Tyler, good video, very comprehensive.
Pages: 1 ... 5 6 7 8 9 [10] 11 12 13 14 15 ... 35
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
