News of stock agencies over the year

Today, I would like to dedicate this post to reviewing the news from stock photo agencies released over the last couple of months of the outgoing year and the one that has just begun. However, I will try to be a bit original in presenting the information since this is the first post of 2011. So, here we go:

1) Did you know that the affiliated top stock agencies Shutterstock and Bigstockphoto launched a joint program with the clever name Bridge to Bigstock?

The program aims to promote Bigstock by utilizing major contributors from Shutterstock. Only the largest Shutterstock authors will participate in the program, receiving invitations via email. If they agree to take part in the campaign, all of the author’s images on Shutterstock will be automatically transferred to Bigstockphoto.

If the author has a portfolio on Bigstock, then a filter will be applied, and only the works that were not previously there will be added to the portfolio. In the future, when submitting images to Shutterstock, they will automatically be added to the portfolio on Bigstock as well. Everything else remains the same.

Earnings from the stock agencies will be separate, just as they were before. This promotional program will certainly ease the workload for large authors who previously did not pay much attention to the smaller counterpart of Shutterstock. Moreover, this will significantly increase Bigstock’s image database and give it a boost for further promotion.

Ah, it’s a pity I haven’t yet reached the status of a major Shutterstock author.

By the way, the size of the Shutterstock database has already reached 14 million images. It only took 2 months to grow from 13 to 14 million!

2) Did you know that in January 2011 a new royalty system for authors was implemented, which iStockphoto announced last fall?

Now the royalty percentage at iStock is tied to the amount of “Redeemed Credit” that buyers spent on purchasing the author’s images over the past year. This percentage will be recalculated annually, on January 1. Authors are now guaranteed a certain minimum payout, which can be increased upon recalculating the royalty percentage each January. However, the percentage will only increase if the “Redeemed Credit” for the past year exceeds the amount from the previous year.

Starting from January 2011, the guaranteed minimum for non-exclusive works is set at 15%, for exclusive works at 25%, and for Vetta/Agency at 22%. The maximum that an author can earn for non-exclusive works can reach 20%, for exclusive works 45%, and for Vetta/Agency at 30. In general, this is not very favorable for authors. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about it.

By the way, you can see your royalty percentage in the “Stats” tab. The “Current” column displays the applicable royalty percentage for sales this year.

Additionally, in the “Trending” column, you can view your Redeemed Credits — the amount of credits earned from sales of your images this year. This sum of Redeemed Credits will then be used to calculate the royalty percentage for the following year. Redeemed Credits will increase with every sale of your images.

In the “Royalty Rate” column, you can see the projected percentage of royalties for next year, based on the total Redeemed Credits earned this year.

The value in the “Next Target” column indicates the level of Redeemed Credits you need to reach to move up to the next tier and increase your royalty percentage in the following year.
You can see the full set of rates for author royalties at iStockphoto on the page http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=289922&page=1.

3) Did you know that iStockphoto has changed its pricing for buyers?

What has changed? Firstly, the prices for large credit packages have increased; secondly, a new credit package of 20,000 credits has been added. Thirdly, there have been significant price increases for video and Flash content.

The prices for audio content remain unchanged. Photography prices have not changed significantly either; the cost of Medium format photos has increased from 6 credits to 7 credits.

Prices for detailed vector illustrations have also changed: non-exclusive ones will cost 12 credits instead of 10, and exclusive ones 15 instead of 14 credits. Additionally, for Exclusive+, prices have increased from Medium format (20 credits) to XXX Large (50 credits). In general, this won’t have much impact on my earnings from iStock.

4) Did you know that recently, representatives of Dreamstime reported that there have been frauds involving their partner sites?

What are these partner sites? These are websites that have agreements with Dreamstime to sell images from the stock agency’s database on their pages. So, Dreamstime conducted an audit and discovered that one of these sites was charging buyers who wanted to purchase photos and illustrations from the database much higher prices than those stipulated in the contract. Consequently, this hidden difference went into the pockets of the partner site owners.

Furthermore, it was also found that some images were cached and sold without Dreamstime’s knowledge. Access to Dreamstime’s database for this site has now been revoked, and legal proceedings are underway. They are reportedly even threatening to compensate authors whose works were used in these fraudulent sales after the investigations are concluded.

Hmm, I suspect that there might be some of our people involved in this scam… I also have doubts that if a portion of the images were cached (according to the stock agency’s administration), then why wouldn’t the entire database of Dreamstime end up cached for use later without any royalties to authors? This means our works could very well be sold in the future without any royalties…

5) Did you know that the current upload limit on Dreamstime is 30 images per day or 210 per week?

However, their limit has been changing almost weekly lately, so one can choose to ignore this fact.

6) Did you know that the beloved by all Fotolia announced changes in author royalties in its favor?

The changes took effect on January 24. By the way, the letter about the change in the percentage of royalties was not even sent to all Fotolia authors. For instance, I did not receive that letter and learned about the changes, so to speak, after the fact.

Now, for non-exclusive authors of Fotolia with the White level, royalties are 20%, for Bronze 23%, and for Silver 25%. The royalty level from the stock agency’s subscription remained unchanged.

By the way, if you remember, exactly a year ago Fotolia already lowered the royalty levels for authors and raised credit prices by 5%-7%. The fact is that a year ago authors received a reduction in royalties, and now it’s the same.

So, Fotolia continues its policy of cutting royalties without any justification, simply because they want to earn more for themselves. Well, frankly, this approach is not particularly surprising if you look at who is at the head of this company. Our compatriots work in our own way.

And I would understand it if they lowered the image prices for buyers in order to increase sales at the stock agency. But instead, they are squeezing more from buyers while paying authors less. By the way, here is a table with the new royalty rates at Fotolia:

By the way, if you analyze the trend of revising royalty rates at Fotolia, you can find that the stock agency extracts its profit growth mainly at the expense of cutting earnings for beginners or authors with small portfolios who have not yet made many sales.

Look at the changes in the royalty rates for authors in 2009-2011, and it is easy to see that the categories of authors in the White, Bronze, and Silver levels suffer the most.

The moral of the story is this: become a prominent author, and you will earn respect and honor everywhere; otherwise, you will receive crumbs from the master’s table.

7) Did you know that the payment system Moneybookers announced its renaming to the Skrill holding, which, in addition to the Skrill system, will also include the Neteller system?

Although Moneybookers is not a stock agency, it is of great importance to us as a way to receive earned money from stock agencies. The rebranding to Skrill is expected to take place by the end of 2011.

According to the top executives of Moneybookers, the new Skrill brand will expand the range of services for buyers and sellers. Moreover, representatives of the payment system believe that the new brand Skrill reflects the success achieved by this international payment system.

Honestly, no matter what they call their payment system, even if it’s MoneySkrill, as long as money can be withdrawn from stock agencies normally.

8) Did you know that this is the end of today’s post?!