( i.e. indemnifying istock at 10 here: http://www.istockphoto.com/asa_non_exclusive.php )

Rob Sylvan
Site Director
iStockphoto LP

RE:
“those (many) who have been buying images with the so-called “Royalty Free” licenses”

iStock content is offered under a Royalty Free license, not a “so-called” Royalty Free license.

RE:
“who believed (wrongly) that they were getting a regular Royalty Free guarantee.”

I’ve never heard the term “Royalty Free guarantee” and can’t find it anywhere in google in the sense you seem to be giving it. I would think that buyers believed they were getting what is specified in the iStock license terms which hasn’t included that term anywhere, in the past.

Perhaps you’d like to elaborate on your thoughts above?

Sean L.

Further comments from VIVOZOOM

There is some really good stuff here. I would like to highlight two points:

The over whelming question must be: WHY, if iStock are so confident, are they just guaranteeing the legal fees and not guaranteeing any settlement or penalty? Our own research has shown that there are significant numbers of confidential settlements to claimants for copyright breaches (not covered by the iStock guarantee).

It will be interesting to see how many claims are made now that iStock has “stepped up to the plate” – although I somehow think this will be confidential information.

Our project cost of $25,000 covers settlement and penalties, so is already far superior to the limited cover of iStock per image of $10,000. The reality is that any justifiable claim will be quickly settled, most likely for a few thousand dollars – our $25,000 cover is more than ample in my view.

Feel free to post any more questions to me !

Best wishes to all

Lawrence

From my understanding, the risk is almost entirely academic. There have been so few issues that iStock has the confidence to cover their entire 5 million file collection. However, for some buyers where the designer could lose their job or the company has a particularly low risk tolerance, the lack of warranty is too serious to overcome the price difference between microstock and traditional stock prices.

So it’s not so much overcoming a ‘problem’, but more a ‘perception’ and risk management issue.

-Lee

Regarding the difference in cover, iStock point out that their $10,000 is per file while your $25,000 is per project. Does this make a worthwhile difference for the buyer? If a buyer users three or more files in a project, that’s already more coverage, but isn’t it likely that a legal dispute will be about more than a single file? Unless, of course, they’re a set and the legal dispute pertains to all of them.

-Lee

We are delighted to see that iStock/Getty have endorsed our proposition of a guaranteed product – this is clearly what the customers want, and what will sell images.

I would note a few significant distinctions between the vivozoom and the(soon to be) iStock/Getty guarantee:
1) iStock /Getty do not cover any settlements or damages arising (we do) – so it’s very limited guarantee
2) their cover is only $10,000, whereas ours is $25,000
For image buyers who care about a guarantees, these are pretty significant differences.

I wonder how this will affect their existing clients, those (many) who have been buying images with the so-called “Royalty Free” licenses who believed (wrongly) that they were getting a regular Royalty Free guarantee. I think they might be shocked to discover they have no cover over all the images they have already downloaded.