If you believe in freedom of speech, then they should be allowed to be here.

I don't when it comes to stuff like this. And any forum is bound by whatever rules those who run the place decide to enforce - heck, we've seen that in the iStock forums. No such thing as free speech there... But again, maybe its just me.

Is there a reason that admins are allowed in this forum? Couldn't membership be controlled so that we don't have to worry about them butting in here too?

They've shrugged at similar scams arrangements in the past - where a husband and wife team put essentially the same stuff on iStock exclusively and elsewhere as independents. Of course, they were standing side by side when they clicked their shutters, or one would press the button and move away from the tripod to let the other one press the button. Entirely right and proper, no doubt, and a great way for a family to get all the exclusive perks plus all the benefits of being independent.

But they can, as someone pointed out, terminate your membership whenever they like without having to provide a reason, so you'd better be very clear about it being OK before trying something like that.

I've often wondered why people don't (perhaps they DO and I'm unaware) simply have one body of work they upload as an exclusive to iStock and then just upload other stuff to the range of other micros under a different user name. This would be fantastically easy I'd think, if you had a cooperative wife or husband for ID and banking purposes. 

Rob Sylvan at Stocksy United just reported that iStock/Getty is canceling  his account in 30 days and only referred to the  ASA stating they can do so.

I don't find this all that surprising, really. If he's going to have a role in the competition at (I assume) some administrative level, then it seems perfectly reasonable they'd delete his account. I can think of others that have had the same circumstances.

Quote from: blackwaterimages on January 26, 2013, 17:13

I just found it applied closely to MY situation - after a decade at iStock, 10K images approved (although many now deactivated) all the time spent with disambiguation, etc - its simply too much to consider packing up and going elsewhere.

OMG, that's what most battered wives say too!

Well, the difference here is simply financial, but don't think I haven't thought of that same comparison years ago.  From where I am now, I'm just riding out the last breaths of the industry. (I know people will debate that that is not the case, but its how I see it).  Its WAY too much effort to restart and since I make a terrific living with a lot less effort through print sales and other work, I simply can't be bothered with jumping through hoops to start up again.

I don't know about anyone else, but I found some real parallels in this article in this weeks Time Magazine between the services described and those of us who might LIKE to bail on long-standing accounts with certain micros, but can't.

Staying Power
By Bill Saporito

My cable bill arrived the other day with an unexpected $20-a-month increase for the same package I've been getting for years. A cheery customer-service representative explained that my discount for bundled services had expired and, although she would truly like to, she couldn't restore it. When I mouthed off about hoofing it to another provider, her response fell into the category of "Good luck with that."
If she figured I wasn't going anywhere, she was right. Although I wasn't facing any exit fees, the idea of setting up a new account elsewhere--which involves not only waiting for the cable guy to swap out three cable boxes but also learning a different remote control and repopulating my DVR--proved too big a burden, despite the prospective savings of $240 a year.

I had become trapped by what economists call switching costs--the barriers, financial and otherwise, that prevent a customer from getting rid of an underperforming product or service provider. Given the rising volume of advertising for insurance, mobile phones, cable service and credit cards, it seems companies must be winning and losing customers as the struggle to grow revenue intensifies. They aren't. They're just tightening their grip on us. Verizon spent 21% more in the last quarter trying to reel in new subscribers and keep existing ones, even though fewer than 1% of its customers jumped ship. And that low churn rate is not unusual. Cell-phone industry consultant Chetan Sharma says that annually only 2% of U.S. subscribers change providers.

"The longer you stay with something, the less likely you are to switch," says marketing professor Vijay Mahajan of the University of Texas, who sorts switching costs into three buckets: financial, procedural and relational.
The first one is straightforward. Breaking a cell-phone contract, for instance, costs money. It's in the other two categories that companies have really been working hard to jack up switching costs in various ways. Bundling has raised the ante procedurally, in part by adding complexity to the equation. To switch Internet-service providers, you won't just need to get a different cable box; you'll need a new modem, and you'll have to adapt to a new system after having spent the time to master your current one. Going up the learning curve of a new provider is yet another switching cost. The reason cell-phone companies spend so much on advertising, says Sharma, is not necessarily to lure new customers but to upsell old ones from feature phones to smart phones to tablets, from a single data plan to multiple--leaving them tangled in a web of technology and family plans.

And the more deeply invested you are in a brand relationship, the higher the so-called relational cost of leaving it. If you break with Allstate, as some of its current advertising suggests, you risk getting lousy service somewhere else. So go ahead--put your loved ones at risk for a few bucks. It's a neat bit of marketing psychology, says Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School: "The company is saying, 'We're not trying to hold you hostage.' Instead, you hold yourself hostage."

 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2134518,00.html#ixzz2J7CXsm4G

Its too little, too late.  Completely meaningless for many of us.

Quote from: Ed on December 01, 2012, 20:10

How on earth can they justify a little piece of metal costing $230?  A cast iron frying pan only costs $20!!

I bought my thumb grip from LensMate for $49 for the X100 and $70 for the XPro1.

The X100 and X-Pro1 are my everyday cameras now. I rarely pick up the 5D and hate it when I do. Getty and iStock have had no problem accepting the images - including those upsized for Getty from the 12mp  files from the X100.

The list I posted assumes that ShadySue is shopping for a phone and wants one with a good camera. The fact that Getty has (for whatever reason) selected that list of phones might be an indicator of the potential quality of images they could provide. Just a starting point.

I know this is an iStock question but -  the iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, iPhone 3Gs, Samsung Galaxy I & II, Droid Incredible, HTC Evo, HTC Evo 3D, MyTouch 4g Slide, Samsung Droid Charge, Nexus S 4G, Motorola Droid Razr, Motorola Droid Bionic are the only phones Getty is accepting mobile images from at the moment.  Might be a good starting point if you're looking for a suitable phone.

My guess is the company in question is  Luxottica. They're notoriously aggressive. They bullied Oakley into being bought out by them, for example. http://www.luxottica.com/en/

I know not everyone (or even most people) can afford a $9K camera body, but its still less expensive than a new medium format setup, particularly if you can use all the same lenses. I wouldn't be eager to spend that much but rumored specs I've seen for that body might make it worthwhile and I can afford it if need be. Granted, I'm not relying exclusively on microstock income to pay it off.