They are coming ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcV71liAMwc

Great (Don't tell the drone-phobes that Audis are likely to kill a whole lot more people than drones, or they will be wanting to outlaw cars.)

capitalism is  a modern slavery even if you are paid well - then, you are a well paid slave

capitalism Socialism is  a modern slavery

If Jon at SS is really a billionaire, then I'm guessing that he alone has made more money than all the contributors to SS put together. It doesn't seem fair, but the truth is that just about any of us could have done what he did back in the beginning of microstock if we had the foresight, energy, and business savvy. But we didn't. He did and he gets the big payout. Neither whining about it nor wishing for a Communist workers paradise is an attractive alternative IMHO.

If we don't like it, we can stop contributing, which in fact is what I personally have done. We're not slaves.

So far some of the list of possible Getty buyers from this thread include:
...
Did I miss anyone?

Autodesk. They are a competitor of Adobe and already own Creative Market. The acquisition of a traditional RF image seller might make sense for them. A lot of photographers and 2D people don't understand that Autodesk is huge company and in some ways a bigger player in the larger world of graphic software than Adobe is. The production of almost every big feature film uses Autodesk software and Autocad is to the design of real-life products what Photoshop is to photos. Compared to Autocad, Adobe Illustrator is a cheap toy.

I use some Autodesk software and am not necessarily a big fan of the company. Autodesk suffers some of the same flaws and faults as Adobe. However, they literally could not be any worse than the present and past management of iStock, who were and are dishonest incompetent fools.

Quote from: stockmarketer on February 21, 2015, 15:59

Quote from: Anyka on February 21, 2015, 15:53

Does the fact that the $2 royalties are being paid out mean that Google (or DST) has finished selecting the images?
If yes, is it "safe" to opt in again?   (the "old" opt-in I mean)

Seems to me that there have been two distinct waves of the sales showing up... mid day on Friday and very early on Saturday... Nothing for the past 12 hours or so. 

So it may be safe to say by now you've missed the boat/narrowly averted catastrophe, depending on your level of paranoia over this.

They said that after a unspecified length of time (up to a year but hopefully sooner) they will change out non-performing images with others, so if you want to be sure of not having images in this deal, you should stay opted out of partners,

From the DT forum: "I had 5 sales on a batch, 4 photos and one illustration. The illustration is a good seller, but the photos were all bad sellers"
Maybe the reason so many bad sellers are being chosen is that all the Genius Artists have opted out their Priceless Masterpieces? 

Quote from: Hobostocker on February 20, 2015, 04:35

i warmly welcome very strict laws against as-s holes running drones.

That's easy for people to say when they're not small video producers like myself that can't afford to get a pilot's license for something no more dangerous than the thousands of gas-powered radio control airplanes already out there.

The beauty of the DJI Phantom, etc. is that their low cost allows producers like me to provide a great service to our clients at an affordable rate.

Elvinstar, you are so right.

At the same time the FAA came out with prohibitive restrictions on drone use by American citizens, the Obama administration announced that it will sell weaponized drones to foreign countries. We lose our freedoms, and foreigners are empowered to kill people using technologies paid for by us taxpayers. And some people think that is right. 

Was fish jumping from a bowl a clich� until people starting stealing the concept ? I would love to know who came up with that first.

Interesting question. The first person I remember getting big sales with versions of that was Lise Gagne on IS.

I wonder how many of the iconic stock images - ones from which so many derivations have originated - we could trace back to their original creators. 

SI is probably shrinking, losing subscribers, like most all of traditional media. They may be laying off others as well as photographers.

"This hiker... might just have killed someone" made me LOL. 

In an ideal world every contributor would delete their account in unison, and the SS would have absolutely nothing. That way they may respect that contributors are their only asset. One day stock photographers/videographers may find a way to use their collective power in a way to gain control or at least respect from the agencies.

We built this city. The images we created are the bricks in the SS/IS/FT/etc billion dollar empire. What if someone created a petition for microstockers whereby we the signers promised that when a total of 5000 of us had signed we would all delete all of our images in unison from the top 3 microstock sites. I would sign it, in blood.

"Last year, a group of media organizations, including the Associated Press, New York Times and Tribune Co., filed an amicus brief in a case challenging the FAA�s legal authority to regulate drones. They complained that the FAA�s �overly broad policy� violates the First Amendment and has already had �an impermissible chilling effect� on some journalists� reporting."

or

"In countries where drone rules are less restrictive, journalists are already using them to gather news. Drones helped show the scope of recent protests in Thailand and Hong Kong. BBC has used the devices to do some reporting. And last year, CBS News used a drone to explore the contaminated areas around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine."

You can be sure that gov wants to be able to watch you but they don't want you to be able to watch them.

As far as safety concerns, should we outlaw something because somebody somewhere might be injured someday?

What about kids riding bicycles, they get going pretty fast and some of those kids are big. What if one hits somebody and injures them? Better make bicycles illegal. And what about home swimming pools? You know how many people drown in them every year? Better make those illegal too. And silverware. Those knives and forks are too sharp to be used at the dinner tables of people who might suddenly decide to stab each other or do so by accident. Only plastic spoons should be legal.

...I have been in microstock for 8 years... I have no idea what do to when microstock dies completely. Depressing times.

We need some new market for images to open up for microstock refugees. Too bad I have no idea what it might be. Maybe some day some entrepreneur will pop up with the new thing. Sure hope so.

FT will get a greater visibility because of the Adobe brand, I expect to see a slight increase in downloads.

I think you may be right. I have seen a bump up in sales; of course, it could well be ebb-and-flow, but it seems possible that a number of people may have had a look at FT out after all the publicity from the deal.