Ok folks, we've seen that a petition can be effective. It's time for a petition to Getty. But we need everyone's input (anyone can write a petition, of course).

It's important that we keep the "ask" simple and send it to the right person. IMO we should simply request that Getty keep its current royalty structure and not reduce our subs royalties by 93% beginning November 25th, at the height of the holiday season.

What do you think?

Who should we address the petition to? Someone high up at Getty.

Seems like a total waste of time for non-exclusives.  I think deactivating images or closing accounts is more likely to make buyers look at other sites.  If istock can get away with 15% for so many years, they will always find enough mugs to supply them but hopefully they wont supply what buyers want and they will go elsewhere.

Getty may not want�or be able�to play ball. That's fine. If they collapse buyers will have to go elsewhere. But in the meantime they're still the #3 earner for many people (#2 for me) and the ONLY earner for others. The point is getting the word out that we will not accept 2� royalties. And letting buyers know the type of things Getty will do to the creative people that supply their product. Remember that their buyers are creative people too.

Please don't derail the thread. A petition will be written, and everyone has the choice to sign it or not. It doesn't stop you from deleting images or pulling your port, which are also perfectly great things to do. It's just another, public way to protest.

I would sign the petition no problem. I am a believer in hitting from all sides, pulling ports and petition, targeting their buyers, etc.  But Getty is a beast, always has been. The thing we don't know is how far gone they are. That breadth would determine what, if any, wiggle room we have as contributors to affect change on them. I mean, what if they lose that billion $ lawsuit? Even a chunk of that, say $200M settlement, would in effect ruin them. A company will do a lot of disparate things, and cutting our commissions is at the top of the list.  A rabid dog kind of thing....... MUST HIT THEM FROM MULTIPLE ANGLES!!

I will also say this and maybe I'll get flamed.  I don't want to see Getty/Istock fail if we're able to get them to at least maintain their current rates. I say that video has to go up more than we get now, though.  Too many people are reliant on the income and, to those who do this full time as their main income, I don't want to see them lose that.  This is a hard business, a lot of work from all of us goes into shooting, production, editing, key wording, uploading, file management, etc.....it's an exhaustive process.  To have people lose an income over night is horrible.  I look at this as helping fellow artists survive rather than my own wish to see them fail....a part of me wants to be able to say, you reap what you sow. But it's bigger than me.

Keep a few things in mind...

Firstly, nobody but you is responsible for where you market your imagery and GI knows this.
Secondly, I am pretty sure they read this forum and see all the slander from a select few and would not doubt be just as glad to rid of you.
Thirdly, they are in total selling very close to a billion dollars, yes that is with a B, worth of imagery per year and they really don't need you.

For those of you who have been around long enough nobody or organization has been able to make Getty a happy place to be. And buyers have other concerns to worry about than our royalty rates, that is why SS is so successful, buyers don't care if you make 0.25c or 0.02c for the use of an image.

At the end of the day it is all about who you choose to market your images as we all have options and are not forced into any one agency. I stood my ground years ago and did not accept the terms of SS as I always thought 0.25c was a shame.

There is no right or wrong in this game, rather it's really more about what will you as an individual tolerate? And we will all tolerate different levels that is why microstock became so successful, supply and demand, images makers were more than happy to sell their work for pennies, albeit multiple times as the justification and buyers were more than happy to pay pennies. Buyers have never cared if you make 0.25c or 0.02c for a download, and I really don't see them caring any time soon. All buyers work within budgets that they generally try to keep to a minimum, and microstock has fed into this successfully.

Hate to say it and burst your bubble, but it's a love it or leave it situation and always has been.

Food for thought.