Microstock Group - A meeting place for microstock photographers

It does look bad, particularity as they claim to pay "among the highest commissions offered in the industry".  Perhaps they need to replace "highest" with "lowest".  I hope they make some changes quickly to get out of this mess.

How much you get paid at Fotolia depends enormously on where you live too.

At the risk of raising the blood pressure of our US friends yet further let's look at what a Fotolia 'credit' is worth in the currency that you earn it at today's exchange rate;

US Contributor:     1 credit = 1 $US = $1.00

UK Contributor:     1 credit = £0.75 = $1.20

Euro Contributor:  1 credit = €1.00 = $1.39

If the info from our Euro colleagues is accurate, that a credit earned is indeed worth 1 Euro, then they are being paid 39% more for their sales than their US counterparts and 16% more than those from the UK.

Why is this? I can understand that there are often good business reasons to price goods or services differently in different countries (the costs of doing business, what the market can bear, etc) however that shouldn't extend to where the supplier lives. The contributor should also benefit from higher prices surely?

We're not talking amount marginal differences here either __ the differential between US and Euro contributors is HUGE.

gostwyck,

It is unfair, butthat's how they have been working for years.  On FT's side, you can also imagine that they less money when an image from a EUR contributor is purchased by an USA buyer.  For them, in the total balance, it is probably the same as if earnings were paid according to the buyer's country.  Maybe a bit better because, we suppose they sell more in Europe than in the USA, so in this case thier "effective" cut would be more than we calculate (100 % minus our share).

Anyway, the difference is in fact on the contributor's side, with European-site-member ones getting effectively more than USA-site-members.

This has been discussed before (the currency equivalence was the issue then) and I remember someone even suggesting that UK members should receive more because life costs are higher there - what is obsviously a ridiculous argument.

I agree that the fair thing would be our % being paid according to the buyer's cost, but this is not how FT designed their international sites and it is not what we signed up for.  Unfortunately, we agreed to receive a % of credits, not $.

No we didn't. Did you understand that they could raise prices to customers by 33% and you wouldn't benefit at all? It has never explicitly stated that the % commission was based only on credits and it doesn't say that now. I very much doubt that any court would accept such an interpretation of it and I really don't understand why you are so keen to do so against your own interests.

Anyway, if this is how they want to play it then I will be 'unsigning' myself from their agreement very shortly. I'm just hoping that common sense and justice will eventually prevail and that Fotolia will be honest and fair to their contributors, wherever they live and in whatever currency they are paid.

Don't underestimate your own worth as a contributor to them. At very best they help themselves to 2/3 of the sale price of most of our images, probably significantly more. In my case, as with many others that have spoken out on this issue, that tots up to tens of thousands of $'s per year. Fotolia are on the verge of losing a staggering amount of money if several of us choose exclusivity with Istock in preference to being d*cked around by them.

Unfortunately, that depends on their customers following you to iStock to buy your goods, rather than just buying something similar from someone else at Fotolia.

Fotolia is relying on the customers' inertia.

At Istock HQ they must be wiping tears of mirth from their eyes, running around giving each other high-fives and ordering the bubbly.

If your ambition is too build the biggest microstock agency, as surely Foltolia's is, then gifting lots of your best-selling contributors to your much bigger and richer competitor ... is probably not the best plan.

Yes, I was still strongly sceptical about iS exclusivity until yesterday. But if I dump Fotolia then I really have to wave a regretful goodbye to DT and SS too, and I have nothing against either of them.

I hope you will tell them why you are withdrawing. It is probably the only message they will understand.

If we all left FT, the buyers would probably spread out around the other sites and our earnings would go up.  I don't see it as a reason to have to go exclusive with istock.  Getty have annoyed me more than FT, closing SXP and lowering subs to the insulting $0.25 doesn't make me feel like they are interested in us.  Why leave FT to go to there?

Has anyone noticed what has been missing from this thread (and the others) being highly critical of Fotolia?

Matt Hayward. Normally comes here attempting to do the management's job for them. Maybe he can't bring himself to do it this time.

Matt also has been among the missing on the Fotolia threads?

Has anyone checked the other site forums to see if there is any chatter about all this there to???