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Posted 17 August 2009 in the photography category

As most of my stock photography contacts will already know, Getty acquired Jupiter Images around October 2008. This package included 90% of two web sites, Stockxpert.com, a pay-per-download and subscription stock site, and Sxc.hu, a totally free-to-download stock images web site.

History of Sxc.hu and Stockxpert.com

Sxc.hu was launched by Peter Hamza of HAAP Media in February 2001 as a free image web site. The idea was to create a web site where photographers could share their images with designers free of charge, and in exchange, many of them:

• Utilised the free imaging service themselves, many people who shared their images did so because they were also downloading other people’s images.

• Used the web site to learn how to shoot stock images, and used the learning experience to build up their stock image portfolio.

• Got to see their images in use on real advertising material, as many grateful downloaders would send copies of the advertising material they created using their images to them via email, and would also give them a prominent credit to further promote their name as a photographer/artist.

Since that time, Sxc.hu evolved to also accept rasterised illustrations, which further boosted it’s large database of images, and it’s reputation as a high quality free imaging service to rival similar paid services as created by it’s community of contributors.

Stockxpert.com was launched by HAAP Media in September 2005 as a paid ‘sister’ web site to Sxc.hu. The first members of Stockxpert.com came directly from Sxc.hu, and due to the high standard of images/artists at Sxc.hu, the Stockxpert.com web site had a huge number of expert contributors and stock images in a very short space of time. Stockxpert.com became one of the fastest growing microstock web sites in the world because of this. The ethos of Stockxpert.com at the time, reflected the ethos behind Sxc.hu, which was to give affordable images to downloaders, while giving something back to contributors of equal value:

Stockxpert.com statement (About Us page, October 2005):
Our commission rates are among the best because we believe that our artists must be treated fairly. That means you receive 50% after each download you generate!………Uploading has never been easier!

For the lifetime of Stockxpert.com, it’s sister web site Sxc.hu, sent a lot of referral links and hits to the paid site, thumbnails from Stockxpert.com were offered up as alternatives to the free Sxc.hu version on all search results. There were also banner images and thumbnails on the Sxc.hu web site, linking directly as advertisements to the Stockxpert.com web site.

At the time, some Sxc.hu members were not happy with this move, and were quite vocal about their feelings that the original ethos of free images was being diluted. However, many of us supported this move, as it was always clear that Sxc.hu needed funding from it’s sister site Stockxpert.com in order to stay operational, and members were assured at the time, that Stockxpert.com was going to be the first Microstock web site, to give contributors a fair commission for their work. This was determined at 50% for the Stockxpert.com contributor, and 50% for the web site on each sale.

With all of these factors combined, both web sites existed quite happily alongside each other until the Jupiter Images acquisition of 49.7% of both web sites (Sxc.hu and Stockxpert.com) in January 2006. At this point, HAAP Media (HAAP) still owned a controlling share, 50.3% of both web sites, and so, although a lot of damage was done by Jupiter Images mis-management, HAAP seemed to be able to pull things back from a point of no return with their contributors more than once because of this controlling share that ensured their voice was heard loud and clear around the ‘boardroom table’.

Jupiter Images Acquired by Getty

Unbeknownst to many of us, Jupiter Images were in serious financial trouble, and I am only guessing that, due to this pressure, they in turn pressured HAAP to sell them a larger % in order to improve their own companies performance and to perhaps save them from going under. However it happened, HAAP handed over their controlling share in November 2006, in a deal that left 90% of each web site in the hands of Jupiter Images, and only 10% with HAAP Media.

If this move was made in order to save Jupiter Images from going under, it failed. In fact, this deal only attracted the interest of a bigger company, Getty Images. Now that 90% of both web sites came as part of a Jupiter Images acquisition, Getty launched their own take-over bid. Jupiter Images at this point was in such bad shape financially, they had no choice but to accept Getty’s offer, and closed their doors in October 2008 with losses of approx $95 million even after the $96 million cash takeover. Once Getty finalised this deal, at a price substantially lower than when talks initially began, they immediately slashed staff numbers at Jupiter Images, resulting in many redundancies.

Since that point in October 2008, Getty have stayed very quiet about their intentions. Mostly things stayed the same on both web sites, but it was apparent that even the administrators themselves, had no idea what was currently going on, or what was going to happen in the future.

Getty Makes First Changes

On 15th June 2009 a message was posted in the Stockxpert.com forum, and emailed to all Stockxpert.com contributors by Patricia ( paddy_ji aka Paddy ), a Jupiter Images employee, who appears to be one of the very few that Getty has kept in employment:

We understand that you have been waiting for news regarding any changes to your Stockxpert account given the recent acquisition by GettyImages, and we would like to thank you for your patience. Our goal is to keep you all informed about changes and opportunities with plenty of notice in order to minimize the interruption of services for you and our customers.

In the upcoming weeks, there will be changes at Stockxpert.com for contributors who have ‘Opted In’ for licensing to our Photos.com and JIUnlimited subscription program. This licensing program will be cancelled, and uploads of Stockxpert images to Photos.com and JIUnlimited.com will be discontinued. You will continue to receive your Photos.com and JIUnlimited subscription earnings until this change has been fully implemented. We expect this process to be complete in about 90 days.

As we phase out Stockxpert images on Photos.com and JIUnlimited, the plan is to introduce images to Photos.com and JIUnlimited from the iStockphoto collection.

As you may already know, iStockphoto is the industry leader in microstock. If you are not yet a contributor to iStockphoto, we would encourage you to apply, and start building your iStockphoto collection. It is a great opportunity for you to increase your earnings and visibility, while engaging in one of the world’s largest and most dynamic creative communities. iStockphoto provides a wealth of information and ideas for you to grow from.

To learn more about contributing to iStockphoto, go to: http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-ph …

Once again, we want to thank you for your continued support, and we will provide you with updates as they become available.

Best Regards,
The Stockxpert Team

Istockphoto.com/Istock.com is Getty’s leading microstock web site.

This was the same photos.com ‘deal’ mis-managed by Jupiter Images (Including ‘Paddy/paddy_ji’ and co.) to the point that they lost the galleries of valuable contributors due to an image licence on photos.com that gave a .30 cent return to contributors for unlimited usage, and re-sale, a clause which does not even exist on Istock.com, as extended licences for such usage have become an accepted part of the microstock industry. Stockxpert.com members had to launch a massive protest on this point, before Jupiter Images, including ‘Paddy’, back-pedalled furiously, having clearly not even looked at their own image licence terms before making participation in the photos.com program obligatory for Stockxpert.com members. An obligation which they also reversed due to this blatant un-professionalism.

Now we are informed by this same person representing Jupiter Images/Getty, Paddy, that already proved themselves as displaying no understanding of the legalities or management of micro-stock sales, that the photos.com ‘deal’ is canceled, and that we should start building on our Istock.com image portfolios, as Stockxpert.com members.

On approx 24th July 2009, the file server for Sxc.hu was changed, and Getty took over the hosting of the web site. Since then, there have been numerous complaints, both on the internet generally, and in the web site forums, that the speed of the web site has suffered greatly as a result. These complaints have gone unanswered for the most part, it seems clear the new hosting package is not equipped to deal with the volume of traffic that visits Sxc.hu, and there has been a massive increase in the web sites reported ‘failure to load’ and server time out’s.

On the 28th July 2009, all volunteers who donated their time free of charge to administer the Sxc.hu web site, received the following email:

Starting today, iStockphoto is taking over the administration of Stock.xchng, the world’s leading free stock photo site. All of SXC’s operations will now be handled by the iStock staff in Calgary.

As a member of the stock.xchng team, we want to take this opportunity to reach out to you personally and provide you with an avenue to have your questions answered. Please email us at s**@ist***photo.com so we can discuss changes to the site with you one on one.

Best regards,

The iStockphoto team

None of the Sxc.hu administrators were warned in advance about this change to the web site, and all former administrators, were not just locked out of the administration section of Sxc.hu, they were in fact locked out of their own accounts, including their gallery pages. The former Sxc.hu administration volunteers, had to reset their passwords (without being informed by Istock administration this was how to re-activate their gallery login), in order to login to their user accounts once more. During this time, downloaders also could not view or download images from these administrators accounts.

Currently the Sxc.hu forum is being moderated by Istock staff, including rsylvan , and two anonymous accounts, sxc_mod and sxc_dev . None of these new Sxc.hu accounts from Istock administrators have free images in their galleries. Again, to compare this to previous Sxc.hu administrators, it was a requirement to become an administrator of Sxc.hu that the user had many high quality stock images in their gallery. Often times, those who volunteered to administrate the web site, also had the largest sized, largest amount and best quality images available for download.

On the same date, 28th July 2009, Istock.com and Sxc.hu contributors were notified that all outward links on Sxc.hu would now point towards Istock.com.

The Stockxpert.com thumbnails, originally intended to promote a web site offering 50% to all photographers/artists, have now been replaced by Istock.com thumbnail’s, a web site offering a variable 20% to photographers, well below the industry standard.

Istock.com statement (About Us page, August 2009):
You’ll earn at least 20% of every credit that’s used to download your artwork……Once you’ve been with us a while, you can apply to be an Exclusive iStock artist and earn even more — up to 40% of each download.

Istock.com Exclusivity: If you have 250 downloads, a minimum 50% approval rating, and have no royalty-free stock images, vector illustrations, video footage, audio clips or Flash files available at other agencies, you can join our Exclusive team.

Most Istock.com contributors found this access to fresh traffic towards Istock.com to be a positive move, as seen in the following statement by a prominent exclusive Istock.com member, Sean Locke (Sjlocke):

Yeah, you’re right. If they want to promo our stuff with their free images, that works for me.

The same member went on to ask:

How can someone steal free images?

Showing his, and no doubt he is not alone, ignorance concerning the download of free images, and the usage restrictions in place for all free image downloads from Sxc.hu. There will be many more Istock.com contributors that show this kind of disregard for the hard work of Sxc.hu contributors, a point which has not gone unnoticed, and which contributors have already mentioned on the Sxc.hu forum, having read the reaction to these changes, via the Istock.com web site.

In stark contrast to the contributor response on Istock.com, the reaction to this news on Sxc.hu, as given by the sxc_mod account was grim. At this point Peter Hamza of HAAP Media made his first short few words on the Getty take over:

We DID NOT sell SXC to Getty or Istock. We sold 90% of our company a few years ago to Jupiterimages to work with them on making Stockxpert more successful.

Jyn Meyer ( jynmeyer ), a former Sxc.hu volunteer administrator and long-time member said what most people were feeling, including how Sxc.hu contributors were feeling about statements made by Istock.com contributors concerning these developments:

A LOT of us use sxc as a retreat from corporate conglomerates who work on Monopoly concepts……Go read the thread on this merger at iStock and see the pompous attitude that a lot of contributers have there.

“SXC is useless, why people go there is beyond me- it’s just a waste of space and is going to make us look bad” or “YAY! We can just steal traffic from there and bring it HERE!”

Getty Style Forum Moderation and Treatment of Sxc.hu Contributors

In one forum thread on Sxc.hu, members are having a general chat about these Getty related changes. One valued and longtime Sxc.hu member, Andrebog , posted a link to another free image sharing web site. This post was immediately moderated/deleted by the anonymous sxc_mod account. This kind of moderation has never been used in the history of the sxc.hu web site, a fact which Istock administrators have disregarded.

Andrebog stated:

It was me… I was referring to another site that looks more interested in our work, which at the moment isn’t difficult.
I got an en email from SXC admin which said, and I quote, ‘The forum usage guidelines prohibit advertising in the forums, which is why those posts we removed. Please follow the guidelines.’ ‘Thanks’ I replied. ‘As I said when it suits you you work fast but you let new work wait weeks and weeks without accepting or rejection, demonstration very clearly you just don’t care if members of this community stay or go.’

More emails to me from SXC admin
Dear andrebog,

You are incorrect. As we have said multiple times in multiple threads that we are waiting until performance and stability issues have been resolved before resuming approvals. We expect to resume approvals in the next 24 hours.

My reply

How am I incorrect? You took over the site weeks ago and you have waited till, and again I quote, “the next 24 hours” before adding new photos, your life’s blood for this site. Your priorities are clear, us contributors come way down your list of priorities, and you have made that very clear. I would be very happy to stay a member of SXC as it’s the other members and users that are of interest to me not you and your agenda, time will tell.
Andre Bogaert

Defending this forum ‘censorship’, never before used on Sxc.hu, rsylvan responded with:

If the only reason you are keeping your account open here at SXC is to spread discontent and waste people’s time then your accounts will be closed as a result of your actions. It is your choice either way.

After this particular statement, members became more vocal about their dislike of new Istock administration and their way of speaking to contributors. This included an admonishment from Peter Hamza (User account ‘admin’), founder and owner of 10% of Sxc.hu:

Admin stated:

rsylvan:
It is obvious that you know very little about the history of SXC. You should pay more respect to those who have helped to make this place successful. You are going to have a really hard time here if this is the way you intend to communicate.

The Future of Sxc.hu and Stockxpert.com under Getty Control

It remains to be seen how Istock administrators intend to pull this treatment of members back from the brink, they have already lost valuable galleries as a direct result of this heavy-handedness. I have a feeling that, they are diminishing the value of Sxc.hu to the point that they will not be able to even call it an asset in the future, it will be worth so little to themselves or anyone else if they continue down the road they are going, they won’t even be able to sell it on, it will simply decline quickly and become worthless.

Getty Images are also currently involved in a copyright infringement law-suit . A jury will decide whether Getty infringed their working photographers copyright over their own images, by “sharing” their images from a rights-managed model, across to a subscription model with a much lower pricing structure. In fact, some former Sxc.hu contributors are party to this law suit (T.J. Florian). Getty has a long history of disregarding/ignoring their contributors feelings, to the point that litigation appears to be the only way for some members to get satisfaction from this faceless corporation. If Getty are found to be in breach of copyright, why should any future potential contributor trust them with their images?

20th July:

11th August:

17th August:

18th August:

19th August:

28th August:

Sxc.hu code is developed by Istock programmers to ‘lock’ threads in the forum. We see the first ever locked thread. This functionality was never developed by HAAP Media because it went against the community feeling of the web site.

29th August:

5th March, 2010:

It’s a sad day for free images, for sharing, and for on-line communities to receive treatment such as this. I fear Sxc.hu will not recover. As for Stockxpert.com, it’s not looking good is it?

No matter what Getty do at this point to appease contributors, they are still Getty Images, and the Sxc.hu web site is still being used to promote Getty products on the back of a spirit of generosity and sharing. Getty products that do not even give a fair commission to their photographers/artists. Getty products that benefit Getty’s ability to tie photographers/artists into exclusive agreements that both demean the micro-stock industry with these low rates of return to the copyright holder, and directly effect Sxc.hu as these exclusive agreements have resulted in many loyal Sxc.hu members over the years having to remove their galleries in order to qualify.

So what motivation is there for Sxc.hu contributors to accept this take over? The only thing keeping the web site running at the moment is the amazing sense of community, and should Getty destroy that, which they seem to be doing by their actions so far, the web site will be no more. Already some of the most long standing and respected contributors, and administrators, of Sxc.hu have been totally alienated by this catalogue of errors, among them the founder and co-owner of both web sites, Peter Hamza.

Getty really couldn’t do a worse job if the aim of the game is to keep the web site as a thriving, friendly and free resource built on the spirit of sharing. Only time will tell what Sxc.hu is now destined to become. One thing is for sure, it won’t be the same.

HAAP pulls out of both web sites – selling the final 10% to Getty

On December 17th 2009, Peter Hamza, founder of sxc.hu and stockxpert.com posted a message to both forums.

Dear Everyone,

I have an announcement to make.

As of this week, I am no longer with Stockxpert and SXC. After nearly 9 years we (the founders of HAAP) decided to quit the company and sell our remaining share to Getty Images.

Thank you very much for your dedication and support over the years. It was amazing to watch these sites grow from a simple hobby to a 3 million+ community that changed the life of many people including ours, but it’s time to say good bye now.

Maybe we’ll meet again in another project! :)

If you are interested in what we’re up to, please sign up here: http://www.dreamcsoport.hu/stockphoto/

You can also read the accompanying press release there.

I wish everyone a fantastic holiday and great sales for the future!

Best regards,
Peter

Stockxpert.com is closed down by Getty

On 2nd of February 2010, the only microstock web site to offer 50% royalties to all, Stockxpert.com, announces it is being closed down.

Important Note:
As of February 11, searching and downloading at StockXpert will cease. All SXP members can transfer their remaining credits to iStockphoto. SXP credits will be honored 1 for 1 at iStock.

Click this link to iStockphoto and follow the instructions to transfer your credits.

Read more about the future of StockXpert here.

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