Getty Images-Owned iStock Jumping Into Subscription-Based Licensing
The past few days seem to be filling up with more and more stock photography drama. From the announcement of Getty’s new embedding tool to 500px Prime’s change in payment, things keep getting more and more confusing. Well, to add to this confusion, we have yet another piece of news, this time from iStock… a company owned by none other than Getty.
The news is a new subscription model from iStockphoto, coming in April, that was sent out to contributors earlier this week via email. According to Photography Bay, “it’s likely to be similar to Shutterstock’s plans, which allow 25 image downloads per day for a flat rate of $249/mo.”
This would mean payouts to photographers would likely range between $.28 and $2.50 per download, depending on what level of contributor you are and where the images are downloaded from on iStock.
As is the norm, the comments and feedback have been on both sides of the spectrum. However, as with the 500px Prime plan, this new subscription-based plan could draw much more attention to those who contribute, possibly evening the playing field a bit.
(via Photography Bay)
