According to sources
Getty Images has reduced the royalty share of sales for all commercial RF collections supplied by agencies and distributors to
15% of the gross sale price.
Thus, it appears that if a photographer has been supplying RF mages to an agency that distributes its collection through Gettyimages.com, and if that photographer’s agreement with the parent agency provides for a 20% royalty of what the parent agency receives, the photographer will be receiving
3% of the gross licensing fee for any sale made by Getty.
And, of course, the gross sale prices are dropping through the floor. In addition, many RM images are licensed through “Premium Access” deals at the same per image prices as are being charged for RF. (See this link.)
Sources also indicate that Getty has instructed all its editors to steer all accepted material toward RF. Currently, Getty has 13,829,720 RF images in its Creative collection and that represents 68% of its total collection. The number and the percentage that are RF is growing daily. Getty says this is due to “client demand,” but the fact that they retain a larger share of the license fee for RF than is the case for RM is certainly a factor.
It appears that in future it will be near impossible for a contributor's images to enter the RM stream. Acceptance into the “Prestige Collection” will be “highly unlikely.”