AR & Sistino firings?

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Sepia Boats 2 Posted by Sarah

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[Sarah]

Now, this is a typical thing to do to ones employees, including as part of the terms for a severence agreement. But to do that to one's customers (and make no bones about it--you guys are just as much their customers as the folks paying for prints from their catalog)? That's fear talking, no question. And utterly stupid. You know what you learn from pissed off customers? How to get better at your job. Where you're failing your customers. Or at the very least, that people are passionate enough about what you do to even care to be pissed because apathy is the real business killer.

Ugh.

Amie, I was going to reply, but you said it so well that all I need to add is, DITTO. And, RIGHT ON.

Janeen, thanks for sharing. That's unbelievable. And quite comical, too. 

[JohnRizzuto]

what happens if you signed up under the old agreement?  can I still trash talk them? 

[JohnRizzuto]

you want to know what the biggest joke about art.com is.....  today I was contacted by a documentary film maker to use my photos in an up and coming film she is making..... even got a gig doing some location scout work for them so I am stoked..... the point being they saw my photos from Myspace.... a free site...  and this is second film my photos will be in... last year some BBC tv production company wanted to use my South Beach photos because they were shooting a scene of a miami hotel...  again this was from being seen on Myspace.... not art.com.... they really are clowns over there

[MonikaS]

I would not say it's a trash talk - as the artists have been truly hurt so its not a pretend thing-
..hm...how about  "part of the constructive criticism"? 

[JohnRizzuto]

ok thats much better Monika... I just dont have the tolerance to be nice....lol  a idiot is an idiot in my book,...

[Sarah]

John, you paid your dues. I remember many, many forum posts from you trying to provide them with constructive feedback. And as the months went on, very little change happened. Anyone would run out of tolerance after trying that hard. In fact, I gave up but you still are trying to help the artists there. So if anyone's entitled to trash-talk, it would be you. 

[JohnRizzuto]

Yeah I am a glutton for punishment Sarah.  You know what my reward for sticking it out with them over the years is, basically my images have either been placed on pages 50-60 of the search results or dropped completely.  I am talking work that has sold.  Last year they sold over $50,000 worth of my images.  This year I will beat that number as well.  I still get lots of sales but they have to be messing with the search results because I know for a fact there are some artists who have no sales or very low ones come up very high.  This is from art.com I am talking about.  They really do not want us selling on art.com.  They want happy positive artists so they can get the membership fees by attracting others. 

[natashawescoat]

I agree, Bluerabbit. Success is from hard work and determination. If the artist isn't interesting, high quality, and so on, they really don't deserve the recognition and success other hard-working artists/writers gets. That's very fair.

That's just what I've been discussing for all these years. It's seemingly a catch 22 for art businesses who want to represent artists. They want to help artists but at the same time, we can't say to them they are going to be successful because they do A and B, if their work isn't up to par, or plain sucks. And so on and so forth.
Maybe we should refocus our discussion here.

Is Art.com only choosing to help artists who are worth helping (hard working and already successful), or are they being unfair?

[Sarah]

Unfair, political, punitive, callous, non-communicative, incompetent, patronizing...

I could go on, but I won't. I don't want to take up ALL the words that apply; I'll share.   

[Andy Mercer]

Don't hold back Sarah ! Tell us what you really think ?

 

[JohnRizzuto]

The art.com forums seem to be heating up again.... lots and lots of angry artists... 

[MonikaS]

It's about time..., they can't place almost everyone on pages 50-60 of the search results or dropp completely.
I wonder what kind of announcement they going to whip up this time. They always manage to pull a dead chicken out of the hat instead of the live rabbit 

[bjdavey]

Readers of this thread might find my latest blog post, Is the Art.com IPO for Real of interest.

[Sarah]

Don't hold back Sarah ! Tell us what you really think ?

 

OMG - I've broken art.com's new rule#8, the one forbidding any disparaging remarks of art.com anywhere, anyplace at all. As Janeen said, the company will be very angry. Very angry indeed!

Uh oh.

[JimNest]

on a different note, apparently Art.com has added something new to their Artist's Agreement:

 8. Non-Disparagement

You shall not make any negative or disparaging statements (orally or in writing or in any medium, including the internet) about us, the Website or the Program.

I find this very disturbing.  Not because it violates a basic right that I have come to expect (Free Speech), but because whoever came up with this idea actually thinks it will work.  People, particularly artists, will always complain.  Do they really think that this will stop it?  Positively bizarre.  I cannot think of any photography or artist contract I have ever seen that has this statement in it.  Funny and sad

[Sarah]

Readers of this thread might find my latest blog post, Is the Art.com IPO for Real of interest.

Really good article, Barney. Particularly well-written and clear.

Here's a link for anyone who doesn't already have Barney's site bookmarked.

http://www.barneydavey.blogs.com/printmarket/

[Andy Mercer]

Yes I agree with pretty well everything you've written there Barney..

I've always been of the opinion that art.com is a company in organisational melt down. The almost total lack of meaningful communication from the company, to me indicates a company with no real answers to the criticisms, no clear vision for the future. I fully expect them to shut down their MB any day now. It's difficult to imagine what possible gain they can achieve from their current situation. I suppose its just possible that the ship is being run by corporate accountants who are simply looking to improve the margins every year....and don't give a fig about the artists. But if so.. this is a seriously short sighted approach. I actually hope the organisation is imploding as I see more likelihood that someone with money invested there will pull the plug on the present management.

Many artists are reporting reduced visitor numbers and sales.. and with art.com's stock inexplicably frozen this situation isn't likely to improve. Even by the most basic analysis surely it would sense for them to allow artists with say 50 works at art.com to change them ? For every artist publicly complaining I believe there will be another ten are voting with their feet and pointing their website links to other better paying sites. I honestly believe this must be having an impact on total visitor numbers and sales. Now we have another round of structural changes.. with Sistino going.. and although this will probably improve things in the long run.. in the short term it will create more confusion amongst artists and site visitors.

There really seems to be little clear vision for the future of the company and how it should develop.. and no steady hand at the tiller. At a time when other sites are upping their game and artists are seeing some serious attempts at good working models, art.com seems stuck in a rigid "stalinist" monopolist mentality. The next round of structural changes are art.com's chance to introduce flexible margins for artists. Is there even a hint that they might be considering such a move.. nope.. art.com visitor numbers with artists setting their own margins is IMO a recipe for real success. Lets face it.. art.com has the visitor numbers if it also allowed artists to generate "serious" income all those links would quickly be pointed back at art.com.

I would be very interested to see how art.com's visitor numbers and sales are going this year.. I suspect  they will be down... or if not down not increasing in line with previous years growth trends.  It's likely there is a predatory company out there taking notice.

[bluerabbit]

Barney, you made some good points in your blog. I was not aware of the company's history. As you pointed out, much success or failure in this market is tied to housing sales and mortgage rates. Thank you for explaining that posters are a mass-market product, more related to the furniture business than to investment fine art. (This is very important to keep in mind when planning personal publicity for portfolios on any POD site.) I am sorry to hear that art.com's payments are being delayed to traditional suppliers. This, unfortunately, is not at all unusual for large companies. When I send invoices, the very largest corporations (all shall remain nameless) are always the slowest to pay, so this does not necessarily mean anything. Certainly, some very bad, very expensive, decisions were made last year, and the company now is in the process of getting itself back on track. This will probably take some time. The only thing we can do, as far as those sites go, is to wait and see what happens. Meanwhile, there are artworks to make, pictures to take, and other outlets to explore.

[JohnRizzuto]

Interesting blog and speculation but the proof is in the pudding so to speak....  what are art.com sales and expense numbers this year versus last year???  I doubt anyone knows but this is what is the real judge of any company or individual artist (from a selling standpoint). Everything else is rumor, speculation, and opinion.  Sure they are pissing off the artists royally (Me included!).  But you know what......  what percentage of sales are generated from us as compared to overall company?  My guess, based on latest changes are that are sales are small portion of the pie.  I don't care how bad a company is run (and art.com has been around for 10+ years) there is usually someone at the top who understands numbers and, if our numbers (as a whole) were really a large percentage of the overall company, they would not be doing this. 

And yes, this is just another opinion - and we all know what they say about opinions....   just like arses, everybody has one...

[Sarah]

Yep, I can see that probably artists sales are not the largest part of overall income.

But on the other hand, does it cost more to maintain the artists than the profit we generate? Especially ones like John, who pay membership fees and have high sales. Of course I'm just guessing, but given the small commission, and tiny framing percentage, and the 6 mg file size limit, it still seems like the artist side of things would be profitable.

Also, how much sense does it make to ignore artists' public comments and requests for official response, driving some to the point of angry departures, when a timely forum response would solve it? It doesn't take a numbers person to see the downside of that, unless the goal is to drive away artists.

Makes about as much sense as decreeing that no disparaging remarks shall be made by anyone, ever ever ever... 

[JohnRizzuto]

I hear ya Sarah.... If it was my business, the issue would not be so much with expenses that it takes to maintain the artist section as it would be with manpower...  I would rather have that manpower working on a more profitable side of the business to a) ensure I keep those revenuse and b) to potentially grow them.....  It is like Dwight said "The money beets go on top"  (you have to be a The Office fan to get that one)  - And as other have said, in the POD Poster business the customers are not to "choosy".  They could care less what they are putting on the walls.  If it matches the wall color and sofa then up it goes.  A little different than the art buyer.  I mean we all do different kinds of works and styles and the people who are popular today on art.com could find themselves totally shut out next year if a new trend happens....  and vice versa...  you know abstract works could be in this year and then on some popular TV show they keep showing "pop culture" art and then bam thats the new fad.... 

I am not that worried about art.com......  I will try to cash in as much as can, while I can.  If it ends tomorrow so be it.  Thats why there is IK (which is more artist friendly place and better print qaulity) and other avenues to sell work.  I use IK basically as the backend of my website for print fulfillment.  I use art.com to generate some sales and exposure.  I use myspace for exposure and free advertising.  The funny thing is that with all the online tools and web presence, I can have my photos hanging in a local restaurant (minimal effort) and over time the sales are as good as art.com or greater.  The difference is that the effort I had to do was get the initial contact with the establishment and frame x-amount of works.  After that, I just get calls from the owner from time to time to collect my money.  I would also venture to say from an exposure standpoint, artists would can get more exposure from free peer sites like Myspace, Facebook, etc. than they can from the art sites that we pay for.  And, it is free.  If I wasnt selling anything art.com or it was minimal at best, I would not waste the time and effort on uploading and preparing work to that site.  Just not worth it.  When on a site like myspace, I can post new works, send out a mass bulletin and blog, and get any where from 500-1,000 views withing hours.  Doesn't always generate sales but it gets me exposure and I get a lot of valuable feedback from people. 

[revad-via-proxy]

Well I think they must be reading this thread as the AR email 'Important Update for Member Artists' to all members today tries to spell things out I think and allows me to say:

Sistino is Dead.

Mind you we can only wait and see if they get a handle on all this in the time-scales they have set themselves. I won't hold my breath as they are still unresponsive when requesting help. I emailed the help address four days ago asking them to explain why correctly deleted images still appear in my traffic report weeks after they were deleted and to date no reply.

Amazingly after sending a second email as a reminder on Tuesday I actually received a reply today with a reasonable explanation. So maybe, just maybe, attitudes are changing, time will tell I guess.

For anyone who has been wondering about these phantom views this is the explanation:

'Thank you for your e-mail. Although the image and product are no longer searchable nor purchasable, a direct link to the image will still result in a page view. These "phantom" views taper off as older search engine links are refreshed. Unfortunately, this process can take several weeks, depending on the search engine. I apologize for the confusion. Thank you for being a part of Artist Rising.'

Of course I could argue as to how simple it would be to mark that page as a deleted image and then filter it from the report, but I don't think I'll bother to spend my time that way.

[Sarah]

For anyone who has been wondering about these phantom views this is the explanation:

'...Although the image and product are no longer searchable nor purchasable, a direct link to the image will still result in a page view. These "phantom" views taper off as older search engine links are refreshed....'

And if only it was also accurate, at least in my case. The images I deleted, lo these many months ago, are still quite searchable and purchasable. Although they aren't in my portfolio or viewable by me, I just put one in my shopping cart as a visitor.

[Kirby]

Sarah,

Do you think someone should purchase one of those to see if you get paid your royalty?  If not, maybe a lawsuit for theft and copyright infringement?

If they are in fact reading this thread, the thought of the L word may have them clean up there act some.

Kirby

[Sarah]

Good thinking, Kirby. In fact, there have been multiple reports and bitter complaints on their forum of inaccurate sales reports, underpayments, slow payments, etc. Although my sales seem about right.

So for the life of me, I can't understand why they don't clean up their act. It makes no sense to me. But continuing to complain feels like beating a dead horse; they just ignore the complaints and comments and requests for information. They don't seem too nervous about lawsuits.

I did request help to to finish removing my partially deleted images. They responded with one useless answer, and didn't respond any more after that. It's clear that they couldn't care less. Finally, I gave up, and said whatever. Not the best decision, probably, but you can't fight every battle to the death.

Maybe one of these days some high-energy type A with plenty of time will organize us all into a class action lawsuit.

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