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Messages - ShadySue
14776
« on: November 07, 2010, 04:42 »
[Double post]
14777
« on: November 06, 2010, 18:56 »
Unlike you and Sue, I would definitely see this decline in sales numbers at Istockphoto as a serious problem.
I definitely see it as a problem. My October was dire compared to Oct 08 and 09, especially the last week. My files uploaded in the past 18 months are DOA (last week I noticed that two acceptances were well below best match position 100 on their main keyword about 24 hours after appearing in my port). To be fair, this week has rallied a bit, but overall it is still worrying and unsustainable for many people.
14778
« on: November 06, 2010, 11:39 »
But then, that seems to be their strategy - fewer downloads at a higher price point. And actually, there's nothing wrong with that in itself.
Absolutely not: the model worked for many years and is now called 'macrostock'.
14779
« on: November 06, 2010, 11:16 »
Partially failed inspection: But they do, it has happened to me . . . but only once.
Since the size of your partially failed jpg is 114Kb, it was clearly far too small for Alamy and auto-rejected at upload, as has been explained above at least twice.
14780
« on: November 06, 2010, 11:07 »
The demand for images from the UK worries me. I never did good with Fotolia and I think that was a lot of the problem...UK images. Maybe I'm wrong but as for US I think you gotta have something that is in demand that is of US origin. Is there a way to determine how many downloads a photo gets on Alamy? I know I have photos of things that are found on Alamy, but in short supply. I'd like to be able to look at the download demand for that type of image to see if it's really worth the effort to edit these images.
Nope, you've only got that 'All of Alamy' thing, FWIW, which only registers their selected 'big buyers' (almost certainly most/all from the UK), and generally doesn't indicate sales from searches. Also, if you want to know if someone searched on e.g. New York shopping, you'll get a different result (six searches in past year) than if you type shopping New York (16). However, they cut contributers' percentages specifically to establish a US base, and made a request a few months back for US content, so I guess it depends how much marketing they do. Which is a question I've always wondered about.
14781
« on: November 06, 2010, 10:41 »
Hi Sue,
Great info thank you for sharing and educating. Many agencies ask for releases on dogs and horses. Getty is one in their Macro collections. We have had to comply on several occasions.
From time to time on iStock, the same issue has come up on the forums, but I can't remember what the current 'bottom line' is, since the forum search feature is grim and searching 'pet property release' didn't help. I've had some horses accepted recently without PRs. {Of course, I've altered the blaze pattern!) But if often depends which inspector you get.
14782
« on: November 06, 2010, 05:11 »
Talking of which Interestingly enough I always find that I gleam more from when certain normally vocal parties remain silent than anything else 
Oh yes. It's called the Threat of the Ban Hammer.
14783
« on: November 06, 2010, 04:47 »
Hi CC,
When we use a persons horse or dog for a stock shoot we need a release from the owner of the animal, I wonder if the owner of the lion signed or was he just shot at a zoo. Interesting point thanks for pointing it out.
Again, although I can only find this reference ATM, it seems that you don't actually 'need' a release, though it may be considered 'good practice' or agencies may insist on one. http://www.photoattorney.com/?p=22
14784
« on: November 06, 2010, 04:26 »
That's another good point Sue. I wonder if wild life sanctuaries allow images without property release or if it's just a wild lion. Seems pretty hard to pin down with a lion.
I can't find the original reference that I've seen Sean reference a couple of times, but here's one, specifically with re San Diego Zoo from Photo Attorney http://www.photoattorney.com/?p=121: "First, the Zoological Society never cites a law to support its policy because selling photos taken there does not break any laws. Second, selling images in a gallery or on the Internet does not necessarily qualify as a commercial use. Third, the Zoological Society may not rely on a term on the ticket/receipt as binding since a person would have not noticed it at or before the contract was entered into when acquiring the ticket (hence the need for I Agree check boxes on websites and shrink wrap packaging on software signifying your agreement for the license).
An increasing number of organizations are complaining about photographs of their property. A list can be found on the Picture Archive Council of Americas website. They make all kinds of claims trademark violations, trespassing, property ownership/control but none of them are supported by law except for protection of other copyrighted works (statues, but not buildings) and in a very few cases, trademark infringement/dilution."As I mentioned above, at Memphis Zoo, the only mention I could see, and I looked very carefully, was on a brochure someone else had discarded (I wasn't even given one!) which said that "Memphis Zoo", "Ye Ye" and "Lee Lee" are trademarks of Memphis Zoo. That was all, and it could be that it was only the names of the pandas which were trademarked, not the actual pandas themselves. (You can easily recognise individual pandas by the shape of their dark eye patches). That of course if based on US Law. An animal collection in the UK used to have a clause on its tickets prohibiting 'commercial use' - this clause was visible nowhere else (e.g. website, adverts), and they advertised 'Photographers' Special Days' from time to time. I questioned one of their admins about it, and he admitted it had no standing in law. The clause isn't on their tickets any more.
14785
« on: November 06, 2010, 04:11 »
the last time (last week) i submit to Alamy, i guess it is still 1 failed and all batches failed.
when i checked out those sold images that post by alamy contributors in their forum thread, i found out that a lot of 'editorial' kind images can be like a 'snapshot', a sink with dirty dishes, a potholes on the road. It is quite different than what i thought a stock photo as. I had mentioned some links in my blog http://wp.me/pPDGb-2H or u can just go alamy forum to check out what found alamy images that had been used.
It seems like alamy accept any kind of shots since their sales results showed that their customers bought all kind of images.
But dont get me wrong that i criticize those shots technically poor or suggesting we should submit that kind of photos to alamy. But they are shots that will reject in many agencies.
But those shots i refer are more 'editorial' and not using in advertising.
Also remember that iStock's images can't be 'real' because of possible copyright issues. e.g. if I took a photo of the pile of dishes I'll soon be washing up, even if I managed to get a tripod in front of the sink and control the lighting, reflections and hotspots, still iStock couldn't accept it because even my plain white dishes are probably recognisably M&S, not to mention all the other brands you'd find in there. For editorial use, that's not an issue.
14786
« on: November 06, 2010, 03:58 »
I haven't uploaded to them in ages. Been there since 2007 and always had trouble with their "up-sizing" policy. I got 64 photos there and got $32.00 in sales from 07 til now.
Do you know if they still reject the whole batch if one is bad or have they renewed their ways? That always irritated the crap out of me.
Now they have something like "Partially past inspection", so if one of the images does have a problem the batch is accepted but the image has to be re-uploaded or ignored.
That's for special cases, one I had was that somehow one image in a batch was slightly smaller than the minimum size. I got an auto message about this at upload, then the batch went throught and 'partially passed inspection'. If one fails, all batches in your queue fail, and it takes a week to get notification. No change there. Also if there's a technical problem with uploading one of your images, though then a week after submission someone goes in manually and sorts it and the others are QAd. Despite a lot of advice on the forums about what might be wrong with your image to make them fail at upload, all mine which have 'stuck' have gone through, without change, when resubmitted.
14787
« on: November 05, 2010, 18:08 »
Hi CC,
When we use a persons horse or dog for a stock shoot we need a release from the owner of the animal, I wonder if the owner of the lion signed or was he just shot at a zoo. Interesting point thanks for pointing it out.
Since the top image is a poor isolation, how do you know it isn't a wild lion extracted from a natural background?
14788
« on: November 05, 2010, 17:21 »
That's a shame. Maybe we should get another appropriate image up there. I'm thinking this one sums up IStock at the moment:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-2386660-where-are-my-keys.php
-----------------------
OMG This is the saddest rating ever! It was done by an Istock admin DoctorEvidence, who gave it a 1/5 cameras. http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=862744
So some admin is pissed off about this image being so popular, so he gives it a bogus rating while hiding behind a screen name. How old are we now?
Usually Lobo eliminates such BS ratings and blocks the offending member's ability to so in the future.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The 1/5 rating seems to be gone now; at least I can't see it.
14789
« on: November 05, 2010, 12:17 »
If J.P. Morgan is buying images directly, you have to ask yourself what they're likely to be doing with them. I'll tell you. It's most likely to be for in-house Powerpoint presentations which are shown to half-a-dozen people in a meeting and then chucked in the wastepaper bin. So what if J.P. Morgan buy a subscription package and get images for 36c or whatever? That's brilliant, as far as I'm concerned, because before microstock they'd have been trawling the web for suitable images, copying and pasting them into Powerpoint and not paying a penny for them.
On the other hand, teachers are a huge market out there (I was one until last week). Where I worked there was no way we could buy images for our powerpoints (I probably used upwards of 60 images a day) through requisition, and we'd have had to buy personally. I only did it once, then agonised whether it should be a multi-seat licence if I wanted my colleague to be able to use it, and that was just ridiculous. I don't mind buying occasional posters - they might be on the wall for a month - but paying for an image which would be seen for about ten or twenty seconds was a non-starter at the small bundle rates. But I'm still far more concerned about the people who really don't know they should be buying ELs, so don't.
14790
« on: November 05, 2010, 07:36 »
And Logo program?!?!? Maybe it's a main FIASCO ever (and it's not so easy in last Istock times). Almost one year since launch and still not released for sales.
And, unless I've missed it, no real explanation for the holdup.
14791
« on: November 05, 2010, 06:55 »
are you seriously think that dirty sink photos are technically more difficult than taking some attractive models in studio?
Absolutely. Once you're got the setup, and the models (expensive, I'll grant you, and I can't even find any, but that wasn't the issue) and you know what you're doing, that's the job done.
14792
« on: November 05, 2010, 06:31 »
But again, there is such a small number of us that want to do the right thing and leave.
Fair enough, but following this forum for a couple of years doesn't make me think that moving elsewhere would be morally any better. There are regular complaints about the other micros, though the current iStock shenanigans trump everything that's gone before. A lot of the agencies which start up promising a fairer deal for the photographer either don't deliver with sales (60% of nothing is less than 10% of something) or fold very quickly. Aren't bulk discounts the norm in business? Even before the revelation of these 70c/credit sales on iStock, deep bulk discounts were in force. Rightly or wrongly, that's how business works. Seems the other micros work the same way.
14793
« on: November 05, 2010, 06:24 »
it is not creative, not newsworthy, not eye catching, not difficult to take,
Totally disagree. The 'creativity' is in realising that a certain shot might have a value. What's less creative about composing a pile of dishes in a sink than sticking a lot of fake-looking 'businesspeople' in front of a white background? A pile of dishes in a sink certainly catches my eye (more than said fake businesspeople ever would), because it has relevance to my life. Who'se to say how difficult pics are to take. Maybe it's easier for someone with plenty of attractive models, a big studio and all the equipment to take the fake businesspeople shot. In my kitchen, it would be pretty difficult to take the sink shot because of lack of space to set up a tripod. Even though I almost never use a tripod, I know it would be necessary for that. Of course, there will be many more sales for the FB shot. That's why I said originally, it's a big market, but not the only one.
14794
« on: November 05, 2010, 06:00 »
what i am trying to say those alamy sold photos are more like editorial, or just some photos that simply to accompany some essays or news. I don't think the buyer think about how it looks, is it eye-catching, noise, sharp.
most aren't used as advertising, it is just a photo that snapped by anyone.
it is not creative, not newsworthy, not eye catching, not difficult to take, and to my surprise that kind of images get sold aren't just random and low percentage.
That's the difference between 'real' and 'fake'. Take the photo of dishes in the sink. Looks fairly 'real'. I've seen pics of so-called untidy rooms on micro which have clearly been set up to look untidy. Again, on Micro, you can't have reality because of logos and recognisable things etc. For some purposes, that's totally useless. That's why you have to say whether you have digitally altered an image. A micro buyer has to accept that the tog may well have altered salient features of an image. I've sometimes wondered what would happen if, say, a guidebook used a micro photo of a tourist location with some possibly-trademarked feature cloned out and the owner of said feature objected. In the UK, you certainly couldn't use a 'perfected' photo in certain adverts. For example, a few years ago there was a case in which a hotel or guesthouse had cloned out a pylon from their photo of 'the view from our dining room' or suchlike and were 'done' for misrepresentation. (If they'd been able to find a suitable angle from which the pylon was obscured, this would have been OK!) I guess RF on Alamy must follow micro-type rules, but I don't look at RF there, for now at least.
14795
« on: November 05, 2010, 05:56 »
There might still be a gap in the market for an alamy style microstock site, it baffles me why alamy haven't done it themselves.
It could be argues that some prices for some uses on Alamy are getting dangerously close to micro prices. And that micro prices are rising. They could cross over 'real soon now'. I guess the counter argument is that the sort of pics we're talking about here aren't likely to have bulk sales, so don't really fit the traditioanal micro model of 'sell cheap, many times'.
14796
« on: November 05, 2010, 05:26 »
ok, i just find it interesting to know there are some kind of images are selling instead of technically okay images.
Those are images that won't get into most microstock agencies, not much newsworthy too.
Micro is all about fantasy/perfection; that is a big market, but there are others.
14797
« on: November 05, 2010, 03:47 »
Man, this is such crap, total corporate favoritism/welfare and absolutely infuriates me. They give giant discounts to big companies who spend loads on credits and CAN afford to pay more with their big budgets, whereas the poor sods who have measly little budgets are expected to pay the maximum. Why are small businesses ALWAYS the ones getting f*cked over anymore?
'twere ever thus. "It's the same the whole world over,
It's the poor that get the blame,
It's the rich that get the pleasure,
Ain't it all a bloody shame."Loads of versions of this song, several over a hundred years old.
14798
« on: November 05, 2010, 03:37 »
It seems as long as a photo serves its purpose for buyers, it is a deal.
Yes. Of course. Your point is ... ?
14799
« on: November 04, 2010, 17:12 »
I got a reply from support to "check the forum" for answers.
Just brilliant. If anyone posts in the forums with concerns or complaints they are directed to "submit a support ticket", then if you do contact CR they direct you to "check the forums"!!??
Yup. I was told (after taking out the support ticket like I was told to) that they knew I was following the forum and that the matter had been resolved. Well, I wouldn't count it as 'resolved' until we get our 10%s, at the very least, and preferably with the issues of transparency dealt with satisfactorily.
14800
« on: November 04, 2010, 16:53 »
I am so far ahead of you, I can't even see ya in my rear view:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=54009&page=1
Interesting that the wording there is: " ... either individually or in combination with others, reproduce the Content, or an element of the Content, in excess of 500,000 times without obtaining an Extended License, in which event you shall be required to pay an additional royalty fee equal to US $0.01 for each reproduction which is in excess of 500,000 reproductions."That makes very clear that it is 500,000 reproductions of the image.
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