как то так
What is going on?
As you may know Istockphoto invented new form of royalties for subscription plan. Now they are in percents and not fixed (like it was before). They will depend on subscription plan price and number of files bought during this plan. The minimum royalty for subscription for non exclusive contributors will be 0.02$ in order of 0.28$ now.
Why is it bad for contributors and for the whole stock industry?
Contributors will never now what type of subscription plan was bought and how many files were bought. Istock can easily say that customers buy one year plan for the price 160$ and buy all 750 images. In this case we will receive 0,02$ in order of 0,28$ that we get now. Also percentage royalties for subscription allow Istock to make price of subscription lower and dumping whole microstock industry in nearest future.
Subscription plans always worked one way:
1 subscription image costs for costumer x$ and contributer got royalties with rather close amount to the price x. And stock agency got their money because customers do not use their subscription plan fully.
And now Istock decided to earn twice, maybe, it seems so. First time to get money from unused licenses. Second to give contributers only 15% from the price of the sale.
Why this situation is profitable only for Istockphoto.com?
They will receive more commision from subscription. Just imagine in order of 0.28$ they will pay only 0.02$. At this moment contributors do not have any tools to check their sales, so do u trust that Istock will play the game honestly.
What we can do?
Some contributors already contacted Istockphoto.com and explained their concerns about new royalties. It looks like Istockphoto didn’t take it seriously sending the same “what is good for microstock is good for contributors, you will get your subscription royalty anyway” letter in response. This is not a conversation. So we have to go for decisive actions. The only asset we have is our content and it is our main tool of influence. We can decide where to sell it and on what price. So we can delete our top-seller or all content from Istockphoto. This is the content that people buy on other microstocks for greater price.
However we still hope that Istockphoto authorities will join the conversation with contributors for mutual benefit.
Please write a letter to Istockphoto Support and state that you don’t want your content be sold with such subscription royalties..
If there is no positive feedback on our letters and we do not have an opt-out option for subscription plans, we urge all contributors to deactivate their content on Istockphoto.com
For visual reference there is a counter for deactivated content. So, please, take a minute to submit how many pictures you have deactivated from your portfolio on DepositPhotos.com
What else we can do?
Register at FreelancersUnion.org
Write letter directly to:
Sharon (Member Engagement Manager), 718-532-1515 x669.
sbruce@freelancersunion.org
Freelancers Union. 408 Jay Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
Letter text example:
Good Day!
My name is ________ ,
and I represent the community of freelance stock designers.
We, as well as many other stock designers of USA and rest of the world, faced the outrageous case of devaluating our labors on the market of stock illustration.
All of us received letter from Getty Images which informed us on changing their policy and decreasing royalty payments (
https://contributors.gettyimages.com...rticle_id=4845)
That means if client purchase advantageous subscription plan, then we receive $ 0,02 net, this is completley not proportional to the time and labor applied to creating any illustration design.
Could you give us advice what to do and how to act in this case?
We would like to attract attention to this issue and gather signs at change.org, to engage public organizations which could help us to make buzz around it and effect it to achieve setting of fair minimum payment for 1 illustration in this industry.
Best regards,