Author Topic: February 2024 statements - how did you do? (Read 18031 times)

Roscoe · « **Reply #50 on:** March 21, 2024, 12:29 »

I don't like complaining, but good riddance, has February been a bad month.
Even without the negative earnings it would have been on the low side.

Adobe Stock aside, all agencies have performing below average for me in 2024, despite regular uploads.

JustAnImage · « **Reply #51 on:** March 21, 2024, 13:26 »

Quote from: synthetick on March 21, 2024, 03:01

Kelvin said on the forums that there is no need to open a ticket, they are already looking into it.

Thanks for the info - I'm very curious to see what comes out of it - if anything :-)

I'm "only" in with 7 refunds at $1.83 - all from November and all from Washington (5x editorial, 2x commercial).

stocky · « **Reply #52 on:** March 21, 2024, 14:58 »

Terrible sales month.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #53 on:** March 21, 2024, 15:47 »

Quote from: zeljkok on March 20, 2024, 17:30

This is all Uncle Pete fault for starting thread too early

I gave that a plus!

Quote from: synthetick on March 21, 2024, 03:01

Kelvin said on the forums that there is no need to open a ticket, they are already looking into it.

Well we can hope?

I pretty well came up with two personal answers, that could cover this. 1) Someone bought a whopping big package and downloaded everything they could, until Getty figured out the payment was a fraud? or 2) Accounting Error.

It just seems odd that so many people, even someone like myself who barely does $10 a month on IS, would have so many refunds. Or if it is #1, someone just downloaded most of everything from IS.

Just a note, the two I sold, that are refunded, were the same image, two times.

zeljkok · « **Reply #54 on:** March 21, 2024, 19:05 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 21, 2024, 15:47

Quote from: zeljkok on March 20, 2024, 17:30
This is all Uncle Pete fault for starting thread too early

I gave that a plus!

Always a good sport

Seriously, this is not even so surprising. iStock Platform is so inflexible and outdated. Once a month reporting (anyone else doing that??) , bloated and completely unnecessary "managed keywords" system, open a ticket if you want to modify keyword (

?), standalone heavy "Deep Meta" (when everyone is doing lightweight Web Front End), List goes on. It's like having an old car; change brake pads, but now battery won't start. Replace battery, but ignition fails. Etc. It's time for a new Car

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #55 on:** March 21, 2024, 21:14 »

No refunds for me, but the lowest month in over four years... by a long shot!

cobalt · « **Reply #56 on:** March 21, 2024, 22:51 »

14 dollars after all the washington refunds. haven't seen sales like this since 2005.

Not motivating.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #57 on:** March 22, 2024, 01:17 »

One of the most poorly conceived and cynical cash-grabs I've seen in my lifetime.

synthetick · « **Reply #58 on:** March 22, 2024, 06:31 »

We have an official response from kelvinjay on the iStock/Getty forum:
" UPDATE: Refunds / cancellations

Some contributors have noticed an increase in cancellations on their royalty statement this month.

A large corporate customer who licenses a high volume of content mistakenly selected these uses as royalty-bearing when, in fact, they were for comp / low-resolution image use. It is standard industry practice that comp uses, for client pitches, mock-ups, etc., are not a royalty generating license.

We subsequently met with the customer to reiterate the correct licensing requirements and reversed these transactions. Due to the customer's sizable team, some assets were selected for intended comp use multiple times, necessitating multiple cancellations

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements. Please note there is no need to open tickets regarding this issue.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused during this process."

synthetick · « **Reply #59 on:** March 22, 2024, 06:35 »

Due to the massive amount of refunds reported that's a surprisingly large number of comps and doesn't seem right,

Pacesetter · « **Reply #60 on:** March 22, 2024, 06:39 »

Quote from: synthetick on March 22, 2024, 06:31

We have an official response from kelvinjay on the iStock/Getty forum:
" UPDATE: Refunds / cancellations

Some contributors have noticed an increase in cancellations on their royalty statement this month.

A large corporate customer who licenses a high volume of content mistakenly selected these uses as royalty-bearing when, in fact, they were for comp / low-resolution image use. It is standard industry practice that comp uses, for client pitches, mock-ups, etc., are not a royalty generating license.

We subsequently met with the customer to reiterate the correct licensing requirements and reversed these transactions. Due to the customer's sizable team, some assets were selected for intended comp use multiple times, necessitating multiple cancellations

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements. Please note there is no need to open tickets regarding this issue.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused during this process."

This well articulated response to the above from istock forum member Bulgac....

"I can't believe what's written in this statement. It's utterly outrageous!

Firstly, it's alarming that such a fundamental misunderstanding of licensing terms could occur with a "large corporate customer." How could they mistakenly categorize high-volume content usage as royalty-bearing when it was intended for comp/low-resolution image use? This reflects a severe lack of diligence and competence on their part.

Furthermore, the fact that this mistake led to multiple cancellations due to assets being selected for comp use multiple times is simply unacceptable. It suggests a systemic issue within the customer's team regarding understanding and adhering to licensing terms.

The nonchalant tone of the statement, suggesting that such occurrences are just part of the norm in the industry, is appalling. This is not standard industry practice; it's a glaring oversight that should have been addressed swiftly and rigorously.

Moreover, the suggestion that affected assets for actual published projects will be accounted for in future statements does little to rectify the inconvenience caused to contributors. This situation could have serious implications for their income and workflow, and a mere apology is insufficient.

In conclusion, this statement fails to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and the impact it has on contributors. It reflects a worrying disregard for proper licensing procedures and accountability."

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #61 on:** March 22, 2024, 07:19 »

In addition to the comments above about how outrageous this vague explanation is, I noted (and posted about it in the Getty forum) the strange wording about "...low-resolution image use...". What exactly is that and why is it free?

And the icing on the cake is not notifying contributors ahead of time about this mess. Did they think we wouldn't notice?

I had to modify my spreadsheet where I track this stuff to correctly count downloads as only those items where the sale amount is >0 as bundling (in my case 10) refunds in with the licenses really makes a mess of the totals, RPD, etc.

Unfortunately Todayis20 makes the same naive assumption

FHphotography · « **Reply #62 on:** March 22, 2024, 07:23 »

I feel there is STILL something wrong( despite negative earnings). I am missing ALL the sales from US on my iS earnings graph in February ( I see them in pdf ). How about you?

Julied83 · « **Reply #63 on:** March 22, 2024, 08:31 »

Half earning for Feb. Very strange.

BT1976 · « **Reply #64 on:** March 22, 2024, 09:12 »

This incident is what we noticed. Who knows what is happening that we do not notice and that is not reflected in our participant accounts...

Snowblood · « **Reply #65 on:** March 22, 2024, 09:19 »

Quote from: FHphotography on March 22, 2024, 07:23

I feel there is STILL something wrong( despite negative earnings). I am missing ALL the sales from US on my iS earnings graph in February ( I see them in pdf ). How about you?

The same

BT1976 · « **Reply #66 on:** March 22, 2024, 09:33 »

There are many thieves among the participants. He steals our photos and sells them here. Again, participants investigate, find and disclose. is checked and the thief account is closed. So, what happens to the visual money sold by the thief until then? If it is below the $100 payment limit, the thief will not be paid. Are the profits transferred to the original owners of the images?

No.

So why is the mistake made by someone else being blamed on us, the participants?
When I checked again, one of my videos had previously been sold for $54 and was returned days later. And many more images. How do we know that these images and videos, which were sold and returned, were not returned after use?

never....

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #67 on:** March 22, 2024, 10:58 »

Quote from: synthetick on March 22, 2024, 06:31

In future, if the customer licenses and downloads some of the affected assets for actual, published projects, these will appear on Connect statements.

Oh I feel so much better, that maybe, in the future, I might get a fractional, 1/100th of a cent, Connect credit for this error.

Shuttershock · « **Reply #68 on:** March 22, 2024, 14:07 »

Regardless of the explanation there is a problem, I never go under $150 a month and feb it shows $5 for the month. I do not believe my warnings can drop like that and iStock owe a lot of money to a lot of people for February. Everyone should raise a ticket.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #69 on:** March 22, 2024, 14:17 »

Quote from: Shuttershock on March 22, 2024, 14:07

Regardless of the explanation there is a problem, I never go under $150 a month and feb it shows $5 for the month. I do not believe my warnings can drop like that and iStock owe a lot of money to a lot of people for February. Everyone should raise a ticket.

If you had royalties of $155 for February and refunds for $150 (from all those November licenses that were refunded), that'd leave you with $5 net. Your earnings probably didn't drop (if you exclude the refunds)

Getty's charts are useless and are incorrectly showing your percentages of February's total sales. They are tallying the negative refunds with the positive sales and presenting the net result. In my case they stay Premium Access was 31% of my February total, but it was actually 40% if you just count the royalties for February and not the November refunds.

When you look at your royalty statement (the PDF), do you see a bunch of licenses that are negative numbers?

Look in the Getty forums - Kelvin Jay has provided a statement and said there's no need to raise a ticket as they know about the problem. I doubt ticket responses will provide anything useful as an answer

yuriy · « **Reply #70 on:** March 22, 2024, 14:51 »

i don't see anything to complain about, look at this useful and informative chart

Shuttershock · « **Reply #71 on:** March 22, 2024, 15:06 »

In terms of money;
Subscription earned non returned images $50.67
Credit Pack earned non returned images $25.25
Premium Access earned but returned -$73.03

Surely at least the subscription and credit pack earnings are safe as they were not returned and premium access should just be $0 as all images were returned but instead I only get $5 plus it is unlikely all my premium access sales were from only one company. Defo not convinced there is a problem and we all need paid for non returned images.

zeljkok · « **Reply #72 on:** March 22, 2024, 16:05 »

One more thing that comes to mind from all this: Level of communication between their departments. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure people would be unhappy and want to know what happened. Calvin Jay comes in and posts that vanilla "IStock Royalty Statements" thread before royalties are published. He probably wasn't even informed about refunds. Why didn't someone tell him what is going to happen and to post bit of explanation ahead of time. There would still be grumbling but at least more transparency compared to this debacle now.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #73 on:** March 22, 2024, 18:30 »

Curious why still the views, interactions and downloads have not been updated. Probably because it will reveal a huge discrepancy.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #74 on:** March 22, 2024, 18:46 »

Quote from: Pacesetter on March 22, 2024, 18:30

Curious why still the views, interactions and downloads have not been updated. Probably because it will reveal a huge discrepancy.

Kelvin Jay's post on this was that it's a separate technical problem, only affecting some contributors (mine haven't updated either). Someone will resolve this next week...

I have, effectively, a report on all my February downloads from the royalty statements along with payment. I'd rather be missing the list with pictures of the downloaded files than the payment

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Author Topic: February 2024 statements - how did you do? (Read 18031 times)

Roscoe

JustAnImage

stocky

Uncle Pete

zeljkok

SpaceStockFootage

cobalt

Pacesetter

synthetick

synthetick

Pacesetter

Jo Ann Snover

FHphotography

Julied83

BT1976

Snowblood

BT1976

Uncle Pete

Shuttershock

Jo Ann Snover

yuriy

Shuttershock

zeljkok

Pacesetter

Jo Ann Snover

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