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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: melastmohican on February 07, 2014, 10:19

Title: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: melastmohican on February 07, 2014, 10:19
500px new project Prime, a commercial licensing marketplace for 500px photography:
http://500px.com/blog/998/introducing-500px-prime (http://500px.com/blog/998/introducing-500px-prime)

"First: We are pricing all licenses in a way that brings dignity to the photographer, we are not joining the race to the bottom. Our licenses will start at $250.

Second: We are giving you, the photographer, 30% for every one of your images that we license. It doesn’t matter how it is bought, who buys it, or under what license, your 30% comes off the top.

Third: We are using the power of the 500px community to give buyers insight into how photos will be received and perceived before licensing them. Imagine searching images by potential vitality, hero status and visceral reaction. This is revolutionary and something only 500px can do."
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on February 07, 2014, 10:23
LOL, what a way to say, you gave us all your images, we are going to monetise them and now we get filthy rich, and take the bigger cut. It should be 70% to the photographer.

And good luck to them dealing with releases.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on February 07, 2014, 10:23
"Our vision is to fundamentally change the way photos are licensed." - I don't see anything that fundamentally changes anything.

The comments below by the photographers aren't particularly positive, lol.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Me on February 07, 2014, 10:39
Do photographers buy from photographers? Intersting to find out how many buyers they think visit 500px
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on February 07, 2014, 10:57
Some gems in the comments:

"no, not joining race to the bottom you just start there! What a load of crap. Photographers dignity, my arse!"

"Whoever made the decision on 30% should be "shot" and fired."

Unlike Getty, they don't have much negotiating power in strong-arming photographers to take this awful deal. Getty had the existing earnings as the carrot and their "don't let the screen door hit you on the way out" stick (they should start a charm school...but I digress). This is more like the situation where iStock wanted to start Vetta for illustrators and offered a terrible deal but allowed an opt out. The illustrators largely opted out so iStock sweetened the pot temporarily.

My guess is that 500px will get few takers with their current offer - they have no track record of sales to make their case with.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Goofy on February 07, 2014, 11:13
Some gems in the comments:

"Whoever made the decision on 30% should be "shot" and fired."

nope, most likely they will be promoted to senior vp...
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on February 07, 2014, 15:20
Looking at the comments, I find it a little funny that these photographers who were (presumably)  happy to go out and eat the costs of their production for their hobby or whatever are suddenly upset that the amount they would get paid from the licensing isn't enough to cover their outlay.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: ShadySue on February 07, 2014, 15:25
"Our vision is to fundamentally change the way photos are licensed." - I don't see anything that fundamentally changes anything.
Oh, tssssk: who else offers "searching images by potential vitality, hero status and visceral reaction"?
H*ll, I'm so uncool, I don't even know what any of that means.  ::)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on February 07, 2014, 16:13
Looking at the comments, I find it a little funny that these photographers who were (presumably)  happy to go out and eat the costs of their production for their hobby or whatever are suddenly upset that the amount they would get paid from the licensing isn't enough to cover their outlay.
They added them to a site that didnt monetise their assets to begin with, so they probably have a different drive behind creating images.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Goofy on February 07, 2014, 16:19
Speaking strictly from what I have seen (friends, co-workers) it appears that a lot Dentists, doctors and lawyers belong to this 'Elite' club. I highly doubt if the really give a hoot about the $$$. Also the jerk playboy from Microsoft that took away my paying gig for the dance culture belongs to this club as he proudly posts his lady dancers...
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: noodle on February 07, 2014, 17:14
LOL, what a way to say, you gave us all your images, we are going to monetise them and now we get filthy rich, and take the bigger cut. It should be 70% to the photographer.

And good luck to them dealing with releases.

Given enough time there will be someone that comes across their image being used in some way that will piss them off enough to make a big stink out of it - and with no MR 500 px is going to be in a deep hole.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Petr Toman on March 07, 2014, 11:26
so it is running now -  https://prime.500px.com  (https://prime.500px.com)

I just got invitation with the code.

Each photo $250. But I dont see any "Released" info with people pictures.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockastic on March 07, 2014, 12:43
Looking at the comments, I find it a little funny that these photographers who were (presumably)  happy to go out and eat the costs of their production for their hobby or whatever are suddenly upset that the amount they would get paid from the licensing isn't enough to cover their outlay.

As someone who's at least partially in that category, I'd say the actual amount doesn't affect me, psychologically, as the fact that it's such a small percentage of the sale.  So 500px, fuggedaboudit.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: tickstock on March 07, 2014, 12:53
What am I missing here, 500px is giving a higher royalty % than Shutterstock (and iStock for nonexclusives), it's what Offset is paying too and that has been lauded as a great opportunity.  The royalty % doesn't seem to be that bad comparatively does it?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: luissantos84 on March 07, 2014, 13:04
What am I missing here, 500px is giving a higher royalty % than Shutterstock (and iStock for nonexclusives), it's what Offset is paying too and that has been lauded as a great opportunity.  The royalty % doesn't seem to be that bad comparatively does it?

yeah but I don't think they are looking after the "regular" stock pictures, anyway never made much research there

I have a few files on the 500px site from 2012 or something (21 only), they allow 20 pics a week, anyway this prime is a different thing so might worth the look, at this moment only with invitation code

(https://500px.com/upgrade)

just found that I had a 2$ sale back on November 2013
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 07, 2014, 13:20
Is there watermark on Free account images?
Protected & private is only for $25 or $75 payed account?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: luissantos84 on March 07, 2014, 13:23
Is there watermark on Free account images?
Protected & private is only for $25 or $75 payed account?

mine is the free one and I have watermark on them (add them myself), buyer got it I believe without, I have both versions uploaded if I remember well
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockastic on March 07, 2014, 14:12
What am I missing here, 500px is giving a higher royalty % than Shutterstock (and iStock for nonexclusives), it's what Offset is paying too and that has been lauded as a great opportunity.  The royalty % doesn't seem to be that bad comparatively does it?

They've been positioning themselves as an art site, leading photographers to expect something different.  Guess not.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 07, 2014, 16:26
This is from the 500px Prime FAQ as of today:

500px Prime Frequently Asked Questions
Last Updated: Mar 03, 2014 08:32PM EST
What is the difference between Exclusive and non-Exclusive licenses?

Exclusive licensing means that only 500px Prime can license the image commercially and you have never licensed this content commercially before. ​Non-Exclusive licensing means you can sell your image to other commercial licensing vendors, or to other commercial buyers or you have licensed it commercially in the past.

​The licenses will start at $250 (USD) and the photographer will receive 70% of each license sold. You can still use your licensed photos for selling fine art prints, self-promotion and for your portfolio.

Which license is better for the Photographer?

Exclusive licensing provides a greater revenue opportunity for the Photographer and exclusive content will be featured more often by 500px. Exclusive content means only 500px can license this photo and you cannot license this photo to any other agency or make it commercially available to anyone else.

While both licenses offer $250 price per photo, an exclusive license can potentially be "bought-out", which is a one time sale of the photo, for several thousand dollars in most cases. Once a photo is bought-out, it can not be sold commercially ever again. The photographer will earn 70% of the buy-out price.

Non-exclusive Licensing is meant for photos that have been licensed in the past, or you want to make available for commercial licensing through other vendors or agencies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So - at least for the beta test according to this FAQ copied directly from their site - the photographer gets 70% of the sale.

And licenses start at $250.  Thus, a sale of $250 would net the photographer around $175 US Dollars.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 07, 2014, 16:28
And here's the link to the FAQ page on this new 500px Prime initiative:

http://support.500px.com/customer/portal/articles/1442832-frequently-asked-questions (http://support.500px.com/customer/portal/articles/1442832-frequently-asked-questions)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: cobalt on March 07, 2014, 16:42
Maybe I'll write to them and ask what I am doing wrong? Do they have a selection process or do they take everything you upload? Edited collection or more like Photoshelter?

It is always nice to be invited and I appreciate it. So I would definetly like to try them out and see what happens.

Obviously 70% of 250 dollars sounds great.

But can they sell? ;)

stocksy is doing a fantastic job and have set a very high bar for what is possible as a start up. And Westend61 is an established Macro House with excellent reputation in Germany.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 07, 2014, 17:56
Maybe I'll write to them and ask what I am doing wrong? Do they have a selection process or do they take everything you upload? Edited collection or more like Photoshelter?

It is always nice to be invited and I appreciate it. So I would definetly like to try them out and see what happens.

Obviously 70% of 250 dollars sounds great.

But can they sell? ;)

stocksy is doing a fantastic job and have set a very high bar for what is possible as a start up. And Westend61 is an established Macro House with excellent reputation in Germany.

They do not take everything you upload - they have editors going through the vast 500px photo library and inviting specific photos.  I've had about three dozen photos of mine invited this way.

They sure have a great website and a lot of new venture capital backing according to the Toronto press.  Do they have buyers?  Unknown.

But I'd rather give them a shot then see my stuff devalued at Getty.

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 07, 2014, 18:06
Problem is they dont have watermarks and huge previews
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 07, 2014, 18:08
I did notice they listened to me when I said 70% should go to the photographer, as they started out with 30%  :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: gbalex on March 07, 2014, 18:30
Maybe I'll write to them and ask what I am doing wrong? Do they have a selection process or do they take everything you upload? Edited collection or more like Photoshelter?

It is always nice to be invited and I appreciate it. So I would definetly like to try them out and see what happens.

Obviously 70% of 250 dollars sounds great.

But can they sell? ;)

stocksy is doing a fantastic job and have set a very high bar for what is possible as a start up. And Westend61 is an established Macro House with excellent reputation in Germany.

They do not take everything you upload - they have editors going through the vast 500px photo library and inviting specific photos.  I've had about three dozen photos of mine invited this way.

They sure have a great website and a lot of new venture capital backing according to the Toronto press.  Do they have buyers?  Unknown.

But I'd rather give them a shot then see my stuff devalued at Getty.

Hello Jeff, I am not understanding the process very well and wonder if you would be kind enough to answer a few question I have. I have an old account on 500px with some older photos that have editors choice awards and high popularity. I am no longer active and not set up to sell on the site.

Are you saying that they are going thru images on the site and they are inviting only those images that they choose to participate in the prime site?

Or are they including images in the the prime marketplace that have been added to your store when you enable the store function in your 500px account?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 07, 2014, 18:39
Maybe I'll write to them and ask what I am doing wrong? Do they have a selection process or do they take everything you upload? Edited collection or more like Photoshelter?

It is always nice to be invited and I appreciate it. So I would definetly like to try them out and see what happens.

Obviously 70% of 250 dollars sounds great.

But can they sell? ;)

stocksy is doing a fantastic job and have set a very high bar for what is possible as a start up. And Westend61 is an established Macro House with excellent reputation in Germany.

They do not take everything you upload - they have editors going through the vast 500px photo library and inviting specific photos.  I've had about three dozen photos of mine invited this way.

They sure have a great website and a lot of new venture capital backing according to the Toronto press.  Do they have buyers?  Unknown.

But I'd rather give them a shot then see my stuff devalued at Getty.

Hello Jeff, I am not understanding the process very well and wonder if you would be kind enough to answer a few question I have. I have an old account on 500px with some older photos that have editors choice awards and high popularity. I am no longer active and not set up to sell on the site.

Are you saying that they are going thru images on the site and they are inviting only those images that they choose to participate in the prime site?

Or are they including images in the the prime marketplace that have been added to your store when you enable the store function in your 500px account?

Remember - I'm just a beta photo contributor.  I don't have any other affiliation with 500px.

My understanding is that your images do have to be enabled in the 500px store (at least currently) before any of those photos would be invited.  And they have to meet the minimum size requirements of 2000x3000.

I also believe (note - I don't KNOW this for a fact) that the photos of mine that have been invited are those that had high popularity (views/comments/faves) and thus were chosen by the editors for possible inclusion in the beta test of this initiative.

The big unknown is whether they have any buyers lined up?  They can have a great product but without buyers, any photo sales site will have a very short lifespan.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: cobalt on March 07, 2014, 19:25
So I need to upload files to the normal store, hope they get likes or comments and then maybe they get invited into prime?

Sounds very complicated.

I'd rather just put my files up for sale. If they don't like them, I 'll take the series elsewhere.

I'll have a look at it, but it sounds like a photo club, but I probably just don't understand their system.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockastic on March 07, 2014, 19:57
So I need to upload files to the normal store, hope they get likes or comments and then maybe they get invited into prime?

Sounds very complicated.

Uploading all my best photos just to wait for an invitation that may never come...  to get into a program that may never sell anything...  can't get motivated I guess.  Maybe if there was a way to at least ask that a photo be considered.


Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: qwerty on March 07, 2014, 20:40
3 millions photographers ??  In beta ? I'm confused
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: tickstock on March 07, 2014, 20:51
.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: gbalex on March 07, 2014, 22:20
Thank you for the info Jeff
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 08, 2014, 00:48
Thank you for the info Jeff


You are very welcome.  Here's some more from one of the founders at 500px:

http://500px.com/blog/1043/500px-prime-making-the-world-of-photography-a-better-place/#comments (http://500px.com/blog/1043/500px-prime-making-the-world-of-photography-a-better-place/#comments)

What a pleasant surprise to read that a company still values the content providers - yes, the photographers that create all that salable content.  Getty goes in one direction and 500px goes the opposite way.

Will it be a success?  Who knows.  But I sure know which route I'm taking - even if its a gamble.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Hobostocker on March 08, 2014, 04:33
where we can find an invitation code ? i could give them a try.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: fotoVoyager on March 08, 2014, 06:48
So it's 70% with no image exclusivity? That's pretty good, I wish them well.

I suspect the problem will be that they'll be too selective and end up with too small a collection to be marketable, but they deserve support for trying.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 08, 2014, 07:27
They are missing good watermark now... If they do that, offer will be attractive.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Mantis on March 08, 2014, 09:40
They are missing good watermark now... If they do that, offer will be attractive.

I think Tickstock said it all: "Hard to believe that one second they want to charge 70% and then the next they decide they can still be profitable charging 30%."

The incredible shift in commissions to me anyway is a massive red flag, not to mention you basically are selling your image rights.  Forget it. Don't be fooled by this. The $175 commission might sound like a good carrot but in reality it's a rotten apple.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on March 08, 2014, 09:44
Well, at least this seems like something in a positive direction for contributors for once.

They're charging higher prices and contributors are getting 70%.

Now we'll need to see if they can attract buyers. If so, great.

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on March 08, 2014, 10:04
They are missing good watermark now... If they do that, offer will be attractive.

I think Tickstock said it all: "Hard to believe that one second they want to charge 70% and then the next they decide they can still be profitable charging 30%."

The incredible shift in commissions to me anyway is a massive red flag, not to mention you basically are selling your image rights.  Forget it. Don't be fooled by this. The $175 commission might sound like a good carrot but in reality it's a rotten apple.

Yeah, I just noticed that this looks like an "unlimited" license. So it's probably a extended license offered as standard. But I wonder what percentage of micro RF photos are being purchased as a standard license but are getting used under extended terms anyway?

Even if this isn't ideal it still seems to be somewhat of a step in the right direction. We normally get something like "we're raising prices to $10 for unlimited use and we're adjusting your royalty from %10 to 1%.

But I'd agree it's a red flag. Pretty drastic change. Like at 30% theres still plenty of room for them to make a massive profit. Or maybe they have no idea what the right split is and will adjust it when they figure out they're not making enough money. And if this takes off and contributors move all their content to 500px they can just as quickly shift it back to 30%.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 08, 2014, 10:14
They are missing good watermark now... If they do that, offer will be attractive.

I think Tickstock said it all: "Hard to believe that one second they want to charge 70% and then the next they decide they can still be profitable charging 30%."

The incredible shift in commissions to me anyway is a massive red flag, not to mention you basically are selling your image rights.  Forget it. Don't be fooled by this. The $175 commission might sound like a good carrot but in reality it's a rotten apple.

I disagree.  I've been selling microstock and macro stock for many years and there are only a few sales (out of thousands of sales) that have netted me $175 for one photo with one client after the agency took their share.

The founders at 500px have stated that they listened to photographers and changed the commission rate after realizing that they needed to do so.  Why is that a red flag?  They made an informed business decision.  They want to launch and attract photographers - that makes perfect sense. 

And if you are routinely making more than $175 per image per client - then you probably won't want to take advantage of this offer.  That makes sense.

But with the revenue per image per year at most agencies in the $1.00 to $5.00 range - then a $175 payout is pretty darn attractive to many of us.

I just see it differently.  You may be right.  I may be right.  Only time will tell.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: fotoVoyager on March 08, 2014, 10:22
Don't forget 500px core business is charging photographers an annual fee to host their images on the site, so they should easily be able to afford 70% royalties. Whether they invest properly in sales and marketing to make it a success as an agency is another matter.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 08, 2014, 11:11
Don't forget 500px core business is charging photographers an annual fee to host their images on the site, so they should easily be able to afford 70% royalties. Whether they invest properly in sales and marketing to make it a success as an agency is another matter.

Well said.

I'm hoping they are going to be a success so that the photography community will have another viable option that actually pays out decent rates.

But it all depends on the buyers.  I've seen a lot of agencies fail - and it wasn't because they didn't have good content.  They did.  What they didn't have was enough buyers.

Time will tell.  But 500px's launch is coming at a good time when so many of us are looking to move our stuff out of Getty.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 08, 2014, 14:07
Yeah, I just noticed that this looks like an "unlimited" license. So it's probably a extended license offered as standard. But I wonder what percentage of micro RF photos are being purchased as a standard license but are getting used under extended terms anyway?

I've found a lot, to much of mine and that's why I left some microstock sites and I'm going to all of them (pricing 1-5$ for DL). I'm not having fun with selling my work that cheap, loosing control over my business, no joy, not at all...
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Rage on March 08, 2014, 23:29
Well I got the invite code and joined in. Typical 500px layout, full of images and very neatly put. Couldn't find the contributor section of the prime site though. I guess it's only for the buyers and the contributions still happen at the 500px store?

Can someone help me out
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: cobalt on March 09, 2014, 03:23
Jeff,

thank you for all the info.

I hope they are reading here and will designate an admin who comes to talk to us.

I have read that their faqs, but as an image producer, I really don't understand how the process works.

I did read that for prime they want never before seen exclusive images. This makes a lot of sense of course. At 250 dollars you cannot offer the same old stuff that is being flogged at other macro houses already.

And the 175 dollars for an extended license seems fine to me.

If as a photographer you usually get more, then you are lucky. But the rest of us get extended licenses in the 10 - 80 dollar range. So this is a very sensible offer.

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 09, 2014, 04:15
... Couldn't find the contributor section of the prime site though. I guess it's only for the buyers and the contributions still happen at the 500px store?


Yes, now it's only for buyers.

And the 175 dollars for an extended license seems fine to me.


"You will get $2 from every digital download, and 75% of what is left over after NewEra includes their cost, shipping, and materials from the sale. On average, photographer can expect a payout of $60 per print."

Yesterday evening I uploaded 10 test images to see how it works. In few hours I got 2,048 Views. Today morning (it's only few hours!) I got email with this: "500px | Sale of your photo was completed (http://500px.com/photo/63209969)"
This is so fast!

But still don't understand how the prints are pricing, who was talking about $175? :D
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 09, 2014, 04:32
I am completely missing how this works. I have opened my store, but how do I get this invite code? Are there two stores? One regular and one for 70%.?

Do I just upload images and put them in my store and 500px will pick the special ones?

I dont get it.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 09, 2014, 05:53
I uploaded two test images, but there are some things that I don't get as well:

-  for my images, there's only a "Buy print" button, not a "Download" button, despite enabling both options!
is the download option only for "Prime" or "Editor's choice"?

- any way to add a watermark or reduce size of (very large) preview?
they disabled right-click, but that does not prevent screeshots of course

- no ftp?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 09, 2014, 08:14
@ stockphotoeurope,
"In reference to watermarks on Prime, we currently only show a small version of the photo as a preview on the system, so there are no watermarks on them. I will pass that feedback to our team to consider though."

@ Ron,
"If you already have an account, then you should be fine. We are currently selecting photos by going through the 500px database so if any of yours are selected, we will email you with further instructions."

-  for my images, there's only a "Buy print" button, not a "Download" button, despite enabling both options!
is the download option only for "Prime" or "Editor's choice"?

Get to: profil --> Seetings --> Store --> Settings

There you should see:

Default sale options

V Downloads
V Prints

Save changes

Did you do this and it doesn't work? Can you put link here?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 09, 2014, 08:53
I am completely missing how this works. I have opened my store, but how do I get this invite code? Are there two stores? One regular and one for 70%.?

Do I just upload images and put them in my store and 500px will pick the special ones?

I dont get it.


There are two different initiatives at 500 px.  The 500px print store sells prints and digital downloads.  The 500px Prime site is a beta test (for buyers only currently) that showcases images hand selected by their editors from people who are in the 500px store and have been invited to have some of their images offered for sale via 500px Prime.  The Prime test is the one that offers the sale of an image for $250 with the 70% royalty to the photographer.

More here:

http://500px.com/blog/1043/500px-prime-making-the-world-of-photography-a-better-place/#comments (http://500px.com/blog/1043/500px-prime-making-the-world-of-photography-a-better-place/#comments)



Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 09, 2014, 09:14
@ stockphotoeurope,
"In reference to watermarks on Prime, we currently only show a small version of the photo as a preview on the system, so there are no watermarks on them. I will pass that feedback to our team to consider though."

I wouldn't say small. It's still way larger than "small" or "blog" size on all other sites. However I am glad they are considering it.

Default sale options

V Downloads
V Prints

Save changes

Did you do this and it doesn't work? Can you put link here?

Yes. But now I see the download button too.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 10, 2014, 03:12
I wrote to support, and this is their official reply:

1. Don't worry about that. The Download button is not visible for users who own the photo. We had a few cases where users accidentally purchased their own photos so we disabled that.

2. You can upload your photo originally with a watermark. Then you can go to www.500px.com/store (http://www.500px.com/store) and upload an unwatermarked version. This way you can have a preview with a watermark while selling a photo without a watermark.

3. We currently do not support FTP uploads.

Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Hobostocker on March 10, 2014, 04:05
is there any hope these guys are going to make a profit ? i would love to see 500px succeeding but i've never heard about decent sales over there, where are the buyers ? as far as we've seen so far they've been good offering a place for photographers and pixel peepers but making serious bucks is quite another story, they're in the typical position where a startup found a VC and got some bucks in the pocket but they seem to be clueless about monetization, how they're any different from the many other established PoD sites ? not to mention PoDs aren't getting rich and some are losing money.

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Smithore on March 10, 2014, 14:10
Quote
2. You can upload your photo originally with a watermark. Then you can go to [url=http://www.500px.com/store]www.500px.com/store[/url] ([url]http://www.500px.com/store[/url]) and upload an unwatermarked version. This way you can have a preview with a watermark while selling a photo without a watermark.

Ok, but it's a pain to upload 2 times a photo, you should include some watermarks options, the previews are really too large.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 11, 2014, 11:06
Hey everyone! My name's Alex, I work at 500px. I'm here to answer any questions you've got. I'll start with a few of the common ones I saw in this thread.

How can we afford to switch from 70% to 30% so quickly?
It definitely takes a cut out of our profits, to give the photographers 70%! There's no denying that. But we think it's better to tighten our margins and attract world class photographers. We'll make up the difference in volume, because we have the best photographers in the world selling their work.

How can you contribute your photos?
Just keep uploading to 500px.com, and ensure your Store is enabled. Go to 500px.com/store to do that. Saleable photos must be at least 3000px on their longest edge. We're constantly scraping the site for saleable photos, and sending out invites. We have about 50k photos in our backlog right now, so as soon as we get through those, we'll send more invites. You can email [email protected] to get more info and step by step instructions too. It's an automated response, but has lots of info.

Watermarks?!
You can put watermarks on your 500px.com displayed photos. Simply upload a watermarked photo first. Then go to 500px.com/store to upload a non-watermarked copy, which will be used for sales. We display the non-watermarked photo as the preview in Prime, but our developers are working to add our own watermarks to those photos, which should be ready before the grand opening of Prime. The watermark will have the 500px logo, and the URL to purchase the photo on Prime.

Let me know if there's anything else I can answer for you guys! Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 11, 2014, 11:22
Hi Alex and thanks for coming to us :)

If I may ask you... I've found info that if client buys print he gets big size of file as well. Is it true? Why he gets digital file with print?
I hope I'm wrong and misunderstood it :)

And one more about download price - do you consider to let artists set their own pricing? If yes, that would be just perfect! For now I opted out digital download option as I feel $2 is low price. As you can see, stock agencies pay more for that size (resolution of 1920x1080px) :)

Oh, and:
"Use the Payments page to keep track of your sales, and request a payout by cheque or to your Paypal account. The minimum payout is $100.00." (in market tour)

"A minimum amount of $60 is required to request the payment by cheque and $50 by Paypal." (fee schedule)

I'm confused :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 11, 2014, 11:41
Let me know if there's anything else I can answer for you guys! Thanks!

Thanks for coming here to reply to our questions.

There is a general consensus here among contributors that an easy upload process is paramount, especially for new sites. We can overlook the lack of FTP (temporarily) since you have a mass uploader, but the lack of an automated watermark requires too much work: you will never get the full ports from "world class photographers" this way, which is a pity since your 70% offer is generous.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 11, 2014, 12:05
Just to be clear, the personal use Market (prints and lower res digital downloads, with personal usage licensees) and Prime (commercial licenses) are separate entities, but happy to help with this too!

Hi Alex and thanks for coming to us :)

If I may ask you... I've found info that if client buys print he gets big size of file as well. Is it true? Why he gets digital file with print?
I hope I'm wrong and misunderstood it :)

And one more about download price - do you consider to let artists set their own pricing? If yes, that would be just perfect! For now I opted out digital download option as I feel $2 is low price. As you can see, stock agencies pay more for that size (resolution of 1920x1080px) :)

We used to, but no longer include a digital file with print sales. The price is $2.99 and we find that's a very reasonable price for a Desktop Wallpaper resolution image. We'll definitely consider letting photogs set their own prices, but no plans to change that right now!

Oh, and:
"Use the Payments page to keep track of your sales, and request a payout by cheque or to your Paypal account. The minimum payout is $100.00." (in market tour)

"A minimum amount of $60 is required to request the payment by cheque and $50 by Paypal." (fee schedule)

I'm confused :)

The minimum payout is now $50. We changed it a few months back, but I guess missed that part! We'll update it soon.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 11, 2014, 12:06
There is a general consensus here among contributors that an easy upload process is paramount, especially for new sites. We can overlook the lack of FTP (temporarily) since you have a mass uploader, but the lack of an automated watermark requires too much work: you will never get the full ports from "world class photographers" this way, which is a pity since your 70% offer is generous.

I totally agree! Making it easy to add your photos to 500px and enable them in Prime is key. Lots of new stuff coming down the pipe that'll help there. As I mentioned, we will be adding automatic watermarking to 500px Prime.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 11, 2014, 12:10
There is a general consensus here among contributors that an easy upload process is paramount, especially for new sites. We can overlook the lack of FTP (temporarily) since you have a mass uploader, but the lack of an automated watermark requires too much work: you will never get the full ports from "world class photographers" this way, which is a pity since your 70% offer is generous.

I totally agree! Making it easy to add your photos to 500px and enable them in Prime is key. Lots of new stuff coming down the pipe that'll help there. As I mentioned, we will be adding automatic watermarking to 500px Prime.

Thanks, this is great news. (I noticed just now that you already mentioned that your developers are working on this)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 11, 2014, 13:58
Leaf, can you batch up 500Alex?  :) Cheers.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Smithore on March 11, 2014, 17:24
Quote
We're constantly scraping the site for saleable photos, and sending out invites. We have about 50k photos in our backlog right now, so as soon as we get through those, we'll send more invites.

Im sure i'm missing something there...
Invites for what????
Like many others, I've uploaded some pictures and they are on sale, no need invitation for selling photos on 500px, can you explain please?

EDIT: ok, i've read, it's for another site named prime. OK it's by invitation and the way to catch it is to upload photos on 500px...another complicated story.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 11, 2014, 17:43
EDIT: ok, i've read, it's for another site named prime. OK it's by invitation and the way to catch it is to upload photos on 500px, got it?

Which brings one more question about watermarks, since 500alexs said "we will be adding automatic watermarking to 500px Prime"

I hope watermarks are on the way for the basic market too, not just for prime?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Smithore on March 11, 2014, 18:00
Yes, i wish too, I don't think i will keep my files there too long time, it's maybe fun to share, to vote and receive comment on photos (well done, great job, awesome, keep on the good work...   ;D) on a site, but we are not uploading for playing such a childish game for years, especially if we have to pay an annual fee.  So Watermark option is needed.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: EmberMike on March 11, 2014, 23:56
Don't forget 500px core business is charging photographers an annual fee to host their images on the site, so they should easily be able to afford 70% royalties...

Every company can pay 70%. It's just that few choose to do so.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: tickstock on March 11, 2014, 23:59
.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: leaf on March 12, 2014, 05:07
Just to be clear, the personal use Market (prints and lower res digital downloads, with personal usage licensees) and Prime (commercial licenses) are separate entities, but happy to help with this too!

Hi Alex and thanks for coming to us :)

If I may ask you... I've found info that if client buys print he gets big size of file as well. Is it true? Why he gets digital file with print?
I hope I'm wrong and misunderstood it :)

And one more about download price - do you consider to let artists set their own pricing? If yes, that would be just perfect! For now I opted out digital download option as I feel $2 is low price. As you can see, stock agencies pay more for that size (resolution of 1920x1080px) :)

We used to, but no longer include a digital file with print sales. The price is $2.99 and we find that's a very reasonable price for a Desktop Wallpaper resolution image. We'll definitely consider letting photogs set their own prices, but no plans to change that right now!

Oh, and:
"Use the Payments page to keep track of your sales, and request a payout by cheque or to your Paypal account. The minimum payout is $100.00." (in market tour)

"A minimum amount of $60 is required to request the payment by cheque and $50 by Paypal." (fee schedule)

I'm confused :)

The minimum payout is now $50. We changed it a few months back, but I guess missed that part! We'll update it soon.


Welcome here Alex.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 12, 2014, 05:17
Thanks for adding the Batch Leaf, good to see the verification process working.


The person voting my post down probably misunderstood me.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: dirkr on March 12, 2014, 05:32
Has anyone experience with their existing (not the new Prime) store? Do they sell?
I signed up due to this thread and like the community, but are there sales as well?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: leaf on March 12, 2014, 07:14
Thanks for adding the Batch Leaf, good to see the verification process working.


The person voting my post down probably misunderstood me.


Probably... I still have no idea what you mean about the "Batch" or what "Batch up" means...
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 12, 2014, 07:47
Thanks for adding the Batch Leaf, good to see the verification process working.


The person voting my post down probably misunderstood me.


Probably... I still have no idea what you mean about the "Batch" or what "Batch up" means...

He means "badge" instead of "batch" probably

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 12, 2014, 08:41
Quote
We're constantly scraping the site for saleable photos, and sending out invites. We have about 50k photos in our backlog right now, so as soon as we get through those, we'll send more invites.

Im sure i'm missing something there...
Invites for what????
Like many others, I've uploaded some pictures and they are on sale, no need invitation for selling photos on 500px, can you explain please?

EDIT: ok, i've read, it's for another site named prime. OK it's by invitation and the way to catch it is to upload photos on 500px...another complicated story.

Sorry, by "invites" I meant "requests" to add include your photo in Prime. We are handpicking and sending requests for the photos we'd like to include in the Prime marketplace. To make sure your photo is eligible to be requested, make sure it's enabled for sale in 500px.com/store. Hope that helps!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 12, 2014, 08:43
EDIT: ok, i've read, it's for another site named prime. OK it's by invitation and the way to catch it is to upload photos on 500px, got it?

Which brings one more question about watermarks, since 500alexs said "we will be adding automatic watermarking to 500px Prime"

I hope watermarks are on the way for the basic market too, not just for prime?

You can already watermark in the regular Store. When you upload your photo to 500px, upload a watermarked copy first. Then go to 500px.com/store to upload a second non-watermarked copy. This non-watermarked copy will only be used for sales (in both the consumer store and Prime). The watermarked image is what we use for display on 500px.com and in the regular Store. Right now we're using the non-watermarked copy for display in Prime, but will be adding our own watermarks to them shortly. We'll definitely consider add these automatic watermarks to images in the regular store too, but for now you're welcome to add your own. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 12, 2014, 08:55
Thanks for adding the Batch Leaf, good to see the verification process working.


The person voting my post down probably misunderstood me.


Probably... I still have no idea what you mean about the "Batch" or what "Batch up" means...

You give agency representative a verified batch, right? Or what is the word for that? The logo under the user name. I thought that was called a batch.

Ow shoot, I mean badge !!  :) Ugh, sorry.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: leaf on March 12, 2014, 08:56
Thanks for adding the Batch Leaf, good to see the verification process working.


The person voting my post down probably misunderstood me.


Probably... I still have no idea what you mean about the "Batch" or what "Batch up" means...

You give agency representative a verified batch, right? Or what is the word for that? The logo under the user name. I thought that was called a batch.

Ow shoot, I mean badge !!  :) Ugh, sorry.

ahh yes.  ok - that makes more sense :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 12, 2014, 08:56
Thanks for adding the Batch Leaf, good to see the verification process working.


The person voting my post down probably misunderstood me.


Probably... I still have no idea what you mean about the "Batch" or what "Batch up" means...

He means "badge" instead of "batch" probably
I do ! Completely messed that up.  ;) Thanks.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stocked on March 12, 2014, 09:10
Hey everyone! My name's Alex, I work at 500px. I'm here to answer any questions you've got. I'll start with a few of the common ones I saw in this thread.

How can we afford to switch from 70% to 30% so quickly?
It definitely takes a cut out of our profits, to give the photographers 70%! There's no denying that. But we think it's better to tighten our margins and attract world class photographers. We'll make up the difference in volume, because we have the best photographers in the world selling their work.

How can you contribute your photos?
Just keep uploading to 500px.com, and ensure your Store is enabled. Go to 500px.com/store to do that. Saleable photos must be at least 3000px on their longest edge. We're constantly scraping the site for saleable photos, and sending out invites. We have about 50k photos in our backlog right now, so as soon as we get through those, we'll send more invites. You can email [email protected] to get more info and step by step instructions too. It's an automated response, but has lots of info.

Watermarks?!
You can put watermarks on your 500px.com displayed photos. Simply upload a watermarked photo first. Then go to 500px.com/store to upload a non-watermarked copy, which will be used for sales. We display the non-watermarked photo as the preview in Prime, but our developers are working to add our own watermarks to those photos, which should be ready before the grand opening of Prime. The watermark will have the 500px logo, and the URL to purchase the photo on Prime.

Let me know if there's anything else I can answer for you guys! Thanks!
Hi Alexs great to have you here! Welcome! :)
I think 500px should us guarantee the 70% for a minimum of three years in the contract. Personally I think it would have been better to start with 50% and leave it at that forever, now it looks as soon you have some success you will switch it back. The whole thing 30/70 and then 70/30 doesn't build trust in a long-term relationship.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 12, 2014, 09:35
Hi Alexs great to have you here! Welcome! :)
I think 500px should us guarantee the 70% for a minimum of three years in the contract. Personally I think it would have been better to start with 50% and leave it at that forever, now it looks as soon you have some success you will switch it back. The whole thing 30/70 and then 70/30 doesn't build trust in a long-term relationship.

We have no intention of lowering the 70% royalty fee. The contributor agreement is not a contract with time restrictions, but an ongoing agreement that we will honour throughout the relationship. We're going to do all we can to build and maintain your trust in every aspect of Prime, including fair compensation. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stocked on March 12, 2014, 09:51
Hi Alexs great to have you here! Welcome! :)
I think 500px should us guarantee the 70% for a minimum of three years in the contract. Personally I think it would have been better to start with 50% and leave it at that forever, now it looks as soon you have some success you will switch it back. The whole thing 30/70 and then 70/30 doesn't build trust in a long-term relationship.

We have no intention of lowering the 70% royalty fee. The contributor agreement is not a contract with time restrictions, but an ongoing agreement that we will honour throughout the relationship. We're going to do all we can to build and maintain your trust in every aspect of Prime, including fair compensation. Thanks!
Thank you!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 12, 2014, 09:56
... We are handpicking and sending requests for the photos we'd like to include in the Prime marketplace. To make sure your photo is eligible to be requested, make sure it's enabled for sale in 500px.com/store. ...

Is it ok if I enabled prints only in my store?
No digital DL for 2,99 (2) $...
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 12, 2014, 10:04
... We are handpicking and sending requests for the photos we'd like to include in the Prime marketplace. To make sure your photo is eligible to be requested, make sure it's enabled for sale in 500px.com/store. ...

Is it ok if I enabled prints only in my store?
No digital DL for 2,99 (2) $...

Yes! As long as the photo is enabled for some type of sale on 500px, it'll be eligible to be requested for Prime.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: EmberMike on March 12, 2014, 10:06
Every company can pay 70%. It's just that few choose to do so.
But you would make less money if they paid you more.

...

Jon Oringer - Founder, CEO & Chairman

Yes, as far as our contributors go, we've had 30% of them and we've seen competitors come in and try to play with that number. What happens is if they payout more to contributors, they leave less room for marketing spend and that causes less sales in the long run and less payout to their contributors. So with this we really found the sweet spot over the past 10 years with the subscription plan, with the 30% payout, and competitors have come and gone and tried different things but we haven't seen much change...

Competitors have come and gone for a variety of reasons. Some have come and gone while trying to pay less than 30%, so the percentage often is not the problem.

I also don't understand Jon's comment that 30% is the "sweet spot". As far as I know, Shutterstock never experimented with other percentages.

This is possibly one of the only businesses in the world where you'll hear companies say that they need to keep 70% of every sale on a digital product that costs them very little to acquire and sell. And yet other businesses dealing in physical goods that need to be warehoused and shipped do well on smaller percentages. Or even on other digital goods. How can Apple survive by only keeping 30% of each iTunes sale? They probably have more marketing spend than Shutterstock or any other stock agency. They put physical gift cards in stores around the world, they run tv ads, magazine ads, etc.

The only problem with contributor percentages is that we've been conditioned to believe that no one can pay us more than 30% and have enough left over to promote the business and pay employees.

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: munrotoo on March 12, 2014, 10:27
What am I missing here, 500px is giving a higher royalty % than Shutterstock (and iStock for nonexclusives), it's what Offset is paying too and that has been lauded as a great opportunity.  The royalty % doesn't seem to be that bad comparatively does it?

This has also always perplexed me. Shutterstock pays next to nothing per image yet they are always great on these forums and every other agency is complained about. It seems odd.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: mlwinphoto on March 12, 2014, 11:26
What am I missing here, 500px is giving a higher royalty % than Shutterstock (and iStock for nonexclusives), it's what Offset is paying too and that has been lauded as a great opportunity.  The royalty % doesn't seem to be that bad comparatively does it?

This has also always perplexed me. Shutterstock pays next to nothing per image yet they are always great on these forums and every other agency is complained about. It seems odd.

I think it lies in the fact that SS has a proven track record. You know you can and will make sales/money there whereas many of these others are unproven and therefore people are skeptical.  Or not.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 12, 2014, 11:37
Every company can pay 70%. It's just that few choose to do so.
But you would make less money if they paid you more.

...

Jon Oringer - Founder, CEO & Chairman

Yes, as far as our contributors go, we've had 30% of them and we've seen competitors come in and try to play with that number. What happens is if they payout more to contributors, they leave less room for marketing spend and that causes less sales in the long run and less payout to their contributors. So with this we really found the sweet spot over the past 10 years with the subscription plan, with the 30% payout, and competitors have come and gone and tried different things but we haven't seen much change...

Competitors have come and gone for a variety of reasons. Some have come and gone while trying to pay less than 30%, so the percentage often is not the problem.

I also don't understand Jon's comment that 30% is the "sweet spot". As far as I know, Shutterstock never experimented with other percentages.

This is possibly one of the only businesses in the world where you'll hear companies say that they need to keep 70% of every sale on a digital product that costs them very little to acquire and sell. And yet other businesses dealing in physical goods that need to be warehoused and shipped do well on smaller percentages. Or even on other digital goods. How can Apple survive by only keeping 30% of each iTunes sale? They probably have more marketing spend than Shutterstock or any other stock agency. They put physical gift cards in stores around the world, they run tv ads, magazine ads, etc.

The only problem with contributor percentages is that we've been conditioned to believe that no one can pay us more than 30% and have enough left over to promote the business and pay employees.

I concur with your assessment.

30% is a very "sweet spot" for agencies - at least stock photo agencies.  My guess - because it allows them to throw off large profits.  Amazon and Apple - two pretty darn well run companies - pay out the content providers (the authors, the music artists, etc.) 70% and seem to still be able to survive handsomely.

Car dealers make 5 to 20% - and they have to have a large lot and stock hundreds of cars.  And then they spend tons on ads.  Grocery stores make 5 to 50% and they have to have tons of employees and large stores stocked with goods that are shelved, priced and marketed aggressively.

Clothing stores make 20 to 70% - but again they have to often have large retail outlets staffed with personnel.  And they have to advertise and have sales all the time.

A stock agency?  Sure they host the photo and collect and disburse the money - but the truth is that they can "keep" 70% because that's what Getty and others have conditioned us - the photographers - to believe.

One of the reasons I'm so pumped about 500px and their PRIME offering is because they have a big name (and presence) on the web for top notch photography - and perhaps they can prove that Getty and all the other 70% agencies are simply taking advantage of the photographers who provide them EVERYTHING they sell.

The photo buyers?  They don't care whether the photographers get a nickel or a dime or 70% of the sale.  They just want good images that suit their purposes.  And if 500px PRIME can do that with fresh, new imagery - then I believe they'll buy from them just like they have from the other guys.

I'm personally tired of being taken advantage of by the 70% "sweet spot" agencies.  That's why 500px and their PRIME offering is getting exclusivity on all my new stuff.  I'm voting with my images because I've had enough grief from agencies who care VERY little about the photographers.  And make no mistake - we are their suppliers - they aren't doing us a "favor" by hosting our images.



Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: EmberMike on March 12, 2014, 11:48
...I'm personally tired of being taken advantage of by the 70% "sweet spot" agencies.  That's why 500px and their PRIME offering is getting exclusivity on all my new stuff.  I'm voting with my images because I've had enough grief from agencies who care VERY little about the photographers.  And make no mistake - we are their suppliers - they aren't doing us a "favor" by hosting our images.

Right on. Personally, I'm done with listening to any new companies that pay less than 50%. I don't care what their pricing looks like, they could be selling images for $1 or $1,000 a piece but if they expect me to believe that they need more than half of each sale to survive, I'm not buying it.

Shutterstock seems to get a pass, but only because they're at the top and they make up about half of everyone's microstock income. But even that could change. I saw my Shutterstock earnings go from 55% of my total in 2012 to 49% in 2013. I attribute some of that change to signing on with companies that pay more. Who knows, in a few years maybe Shutterstock will have a harder time maintaining that 30% standard if some of these other companies do get a good foothold in the market and start to chip away at the misconception that 30% is the best we can ever hope for.

Any new companies reading this thread, for me, it's 50% or don't bother. 70% is you really want to get my attention and full portfolio.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Sean Locke Photography on March 12, 2014, 11:57
Hi Alexs great to have you here! Welcome! :)
I think 500px should us guarantee the 70% for a minimum of three years in the contract. Personally I think it would have been better to start with 50% and leave it at that forever, now it looks as soon you have some success you will switch it back. The whole thing 30/70 and then 70/30 doesn't build trust in a long-term relationship.

We have no intention of lowering the 70% royalty fee. The contributor agreement is not a contract with time restrictions, but an ongoing agreement that we will honour throughout the relationship. We're going to do all we can to build and maintain your trust in every aspect of Prime, including fair compensation. Thanks!

Well, there was probably no intention of raising the 30% either... ;)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stocked on March 12, 2014, 12:33
A stock agency?  Sure they host the photo and collect and disburse the money - but the truth is that they can "keep" 70% because that's what Getty and others have conditioned us - the photographers - to believe.
Love that one!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: BD on March 12, 2014, 14:35
Is there a line anywhere in the 500px license that states images with models cannot be used in pornographic or defamatory ways? I looked, but I wasn’t seeing it. This is pretty standard on most model releases.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 12, 2014, 14:37
Is there a line anywhere in the 500px license that states images with models cannot be used in pornographic or defamatory ways? I looked, but I wasn’t seeing it. This is pretty standard on most model releases.


Yep, the agreement is found here: http://static.500px.net/docs/commercial_licensing_agreement.pdf. (http://static.500px.net/docs/commercial_licensing_agreement.pdf.) Check under section 3. Restrictions on Image Use. It states that they may not "Use any Image in a pornographic, defamatory, libellous or otherwise illegal manner, whether directly or in context or juxtaposition with other subject matter and materials." Thanks for asking!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: BD on March 12, 2014, 14:40
Thank you!  :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 12, 2014, 14:43
Ok, I am convinced, I am all in. Uploading all my images to 500PX. Lets see what 1500 images can do for me. Come on little marbles, do you work !!! Eh eh eh  :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 12, 2014, 14:48
Any new companies reading this thread, for me, it's 50% or don't bother. 70% is you really want to get my attention and full portfolio.

And I'm in!
Lately I've lost my hopes that anybody else can think this way (seeing what's going on here around)... Glad to read some of you, guys :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stocked on March 12, 2014, 14:53
Any new companies reading this thread, for me, it's 50% or don't bother. 70% is you really want to get my attention and full portfolio.

And I'm in!
Lately I've lost my hopes that anybody else can think this way (seeing what's going on here around)... Glad to read some of you, guys :)
Congrats!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: EmberMike on March 12, 2014, 16:36
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Arlene. :)

I want to get a hashtag going. #50percentordontbother

;)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 12, 2014, 16:44

I want to get a hashtag going. #50percentordontbother

;)

 :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: EmberMike on March 12, 2014, 17:38

I love it! Thanks, Ron!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: gbalex on March 12, 2014, 17:52
Every company can pay 70%. It's just that few choose to do so.
But you would make less money if they paid you more.

...

Jon Oringer - Founder, CEO & Chairman

Yes, as far as our contributors go, we've had 30% of them and we've seen competitors come in and try to play with that number. What happens is if they payout more to contributors, they leave less room for marketing spend and that causes less sales in the long run and less payout to their contributors. So with this we really found the sweet spot over the past 10 years with the subscription plan, with the 30% payout, and competitors have come and gone and tried different things but we haven't seen much change...

Competitors have come and gone for a variety of reasons. Some have come and gone while trying to pay less than 30%, so the percentage often is not the problem.

I also don't understand Jon's comment that 30% is the "sweet spot". As far as I know, Shutterstock never experimented with other percentages.

This is possibly one of the only businesses in the world where you'll hear companies say that they need to keep 70% of every sale on a digital product that costs them very little to acquire and sell.

And yet other businesses dealing in physical goods that need to be warehoused and shipped do well on smaller percentages. Or even on other digital goods. How can Apple survive by only keeping 30% of each iTunes sale? They probably have more marketing spend than Shutterstock or any other stock agency. They put physical gift cards in stores around the world, they run tv ads, magazine ads, etc.

The only problem with contributor percentages is that we've been conditioned to believe that no one can pay us more than 30% and have enough left over to promote the business and pay employees.

I agree.  We forget that Jon was speaking to a group of analyst at the time and his job is to sell his company to those analyst. His intent was to convince them that shutterstock is now the market leader and will remain the market leader. Shutterstocks stock prices depend on key shutterstock insiders making a good sell and of course they are going to down play the downside.

What Jon fails to mention is that if his competitors do not spend millions going public, 11 plus million for tenant improvements, 3 million on annual office rent etc. The competitors will have plenty to spend on sales and marketing as well as raises for their contributors. And I am certain that this was not lost on the analyst.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: YadaYadaYada on March 12, 2014, 18:03
500px thread is now another bash SS thread.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: spike on March 12, 2014, 21:11
How can you contribute your photos?
Just keep uploading to 500px.com, and ensure your Store is enabled. Go to 500px.com/store to do that. Saleable photos must be at least 3000px on their longest edge. We're constantly scraping the site for saleable photos, and sending out invites. We have about 50k photos in our backlog right now, so as soon as we get through those, we'll send more invites. You can email [email protected] to get more info and step by step instructions too. It's an automated response, but has lots of info.
I don't get it. For example, this photo: https://prime.500px.com/photos/7953347

It's nor 3000px, but 1024px on its longest side. And it's for sale.

Could you explain the criteria once again?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Pilens on March 12, 2014, 21:27

I want to get a hashtag going. #50percentordontbother

;)

 :)

Love it! Retweeted!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 13, 2014, 08:23
How can you contribute your photos?
Just keep uploading to 500px.com, and ensure your Store is enabled. Go to 500px.com/store to do that. Saleable photos must be at least 3000px on their longest edge. We're constantly scraping the site for saleable photos, and sending out invites. We have about 50k photos in our backlog right now, so as soon as we get through those, we'll send more invites. You can email [email protected] to get more info and step by step instructions too. It's an automated response, but has lots of info.
I don't get it. For example, this photo: https://prime.500px.com/photos/7953347

It's nor 3000px, but 1024px on its longest side. And it's for sale.

Could you explain the criteria once again?

That's a bug, it'll be fixed! Thanks for the report. #betaproblems :-)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: jeffclow on March 13, 2014, 13:27
Looks like PRIME is off and running - and at least one photographer has already sold several images.

More on the 500px blog here:

http://500px.com/blog (http://500px.com/blog)

Hope it is a sign of good things to come for many photographers down the line.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on March 13, 2014, 14:46
I had a look at 500px and PRIME last night - I'd never looked at either before.

Saw a lot of beautiful images but came away with the idea that 500px is the Whole Foods of image purchasing - it has a lot of really nice stuff, but  isn't where you'd pick to do your day to day shopping because of all the useful, if somewhat pedestrian, things it doesn't have.

It's fine not to have jumping goldfish, handshakes, multi-ethnic business teams in impossibly white office environments, but I wonder just how much of a market there is for drop-dead gorgeous landscapes and a few soulful looking people in dark-ish settings?

I'll watch with interest - more ethical agencies competing for good images to shake up the existing mess can't be bad :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: farbled on March 13, 2014, 15:35

I want to get a hashtag going. #50percentordontbother

;)

 :)


Love it! Retweeted!
Me too (@Photominer)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: aparis on March 14, 2014, 05:44
Three years of experience in 500px
1.Very poor sales. (Far less than Stockfresh, Cutcaster ...)
3.Private set will be made public (I do not know the case)

500px is still a long way to go ....
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 14, 2014, 05:45
I have prepared and watermarked my first 84 images to go up this weekend.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Hobostocker on March 14, 2014, 07:38
Every company can pay 70%. It's just that few choose to do so.

they can pay 70% because they don't spend much in advertising and therefore they make very few sales.

500px's strategy is the same old "crowdsourcing" seen already in the other PODs, it's not a market place and they spend very little in promotion and in acquiring buyers, it's up to YOU to bring buyers on your page just like with Zazzle, Cafepress, RedBubble, etc

in short, a nice platform but don't expect steady sales.

if you've all this time to bring buyers around, well, you better point them to your own site and keep 100% of the sales rather than feeding another middleman.


Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: luissantos84 on March 14, 2014, 14:28
Hi Alex!

Just noticed some Editorial pictures up on Prime, is that allowed or another bug?

https://prime.500px.com/photos/53762144
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: luissantos84 on March 14, 2014, 14:37
just noticed as well that the same file is selling for 3$ at 500px, 250$ at Prime
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 14, 2014, 14:38
just noticed as well that the same file is selling for 3$ at 500px, 250$ at Prime

$3 is a lower res file, with a personal usage license. We've had that marketplace for years. Prime is a full resolution photo with commercial usage license.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 14, 2014, 14:39
Hi Alex!

Just noticed some Editorial pictures up on Prime, is that allowed or another bug?

https://prime.500px.com/photos/53762144

We'll review it and remove if it is editorial. Editorial photos shouldn't be available on the site yet.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 14, 2014, 14:44
Hmmm, so I need to pay to be able to upload all my images. 20 uploads per week or pay $25. Shouldnt that be covered in the commission you take?

And is it correct that I cant upload images, for example skylines, with logos? Do I need to follow the stock agency release regulations?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 14, 2014, 14:47
Hmmm, so I need to pay to be able to upload all my images. 20 uploads per week or pay $25. Shouldnt that be covered in the commission you take?

And is it correct that I cant upload images, for example skylines, with logos? Do I need to follow the stock agency release regulations?


If you'd like to upload a bunch of photos, email [email protected] with your username and we'll happily give you a week or two of unlimited uploads.

Right, logos and brands must be removed. And here's a guide for model and location releases: http://static.500px.net/docs/ReleaseRequirementFAQ.pdf (http://static.500px.net/docs/ReleaseRequirementFAQ.pdf)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 14, 2014, 15:05
Thats great.

I have all releases and all stock images are logo free. Good to know what to upload.

Thanks,
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: luissantos84 on March 14, 2014, 15:06
Hi Alex!

Just noticed some Editorial pictures up on Prime, is that allowed or another bug?

https://prime.500px.com/photos/53762144

We'll review it and remove if it is editorial. Editorial photos shouldn't be available on the site yet.

same at the 500px website? how often do you guys check that? it's loaded with Editorial
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: EmberMike on March 14, 2014, 15:09

Does 500px have any plans to expand into other image types, like illustration?

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 14, 2014, 15:11
Hi Alex!

Just noticed some Editorial pictures up on Prime, is that allowed or another bug?

https://prime.500px.com/photos/53762144

We'll review it and remove if it is editorial. Editorial photos shouldn't be available on the site yet.

same at the 500px website? how often do you guys check that? it's loaded with Editorial

All photos can be posted on 500px, as long as the poster owns it.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 14, 2014, 15:11

Does 500px have any plans to expand into other image types, like illustration?

We already accept fine art on 500px.com. No plans to include that in Prime at this time. Maybe in the future.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: BD on March 14, 2014, 15:34
Does 500px plan on having an option in the future for contributors to automatically have a 500px watermark on their images (something like what Fine Art America does where contributors can choose to use the watermark or not)? I’m not talking about prime, but on the regular site. I tried uploading an image with my watermark first and then without and it didn’t work (both images were on the site and they weren’t connected). I ended up deleting my account because it seemed too complicated, and it seemed like it would be a pain to keep watermarking images to upload there. If I uploaded to 500px it would be some of my bestsellers and I don’t want to leave those open to theft. Thank you for coming on here and answering our questions.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 14, 2014, 15:36
Does 500px plan on having an option in the future for contributors to automatically have a 500px watermark on their images (something like what Fine Art America does where contributors can choose to use the watermark or not)? I’m not talking about prime, but on the regular site. I tried uploading an image with my watermark first and then without and it didn’t work (both images were on the site and they weren’t connected). I ended up deleting my account because it seemed too complicated, and it seemed like it would be a pain to keep watermarking images to upload there. If I uploaded to 500px it would be some of my bestsellers and I don’t want to leave those open to theft. Thank you for coming on here and answering our questions.

No plans for that, but maybe. You need to upload the watermarked one normally first, then the non-watermarked one at 500px.com/store right next to the original upload. Email [email protected] if you need help with it.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: mlwinphoto on March 14, 2014, 16:07
Dumb question perhaps but I can't find the submission guidelines for images uploaded to the market for print sales.  Do you want jpegs or Tiffs, color space, etc..?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: luissantos84 on March 14, 2014, 16:45
Does 500px plan on having an option in the future for contributors to automatically have a 500px watermark on their images (something like what Fine Art America does where contributors can choose to use the watermark or not)? I’m not talking about prime, but on the regular site. I tried uploading an image with my watermark first and then without and it didn’t work (both images were on the site and they weren’t connected). I ended up deleting my account because it seemed too complicated, and it seemed like it would be a pain to keep watermarking images to upload there. If I uploaded to 500px it would be some of my bestsellers and I don’t want to leave those open to theft. Thank you for coming on here and answering our questions.

No plans for that, but maybe. You need to upload the watermarked one normally first, then the non-watermarked one at 500px.com/store right next to the original upload. Email [email protected] if you need help with it.

I believe it is essential, we can process big batches with watermark but it would be a lot easier if you guys manage that like all stock agencies do
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Sedge on March 14, 2014, 18:31
Alex, a couple of quick questions:

1) I see that 500px is interested in exclusive imagery for their Prime collection.  I'm interested in uploading images that would be exclusive to 500px for possible inclusion in Prime.  Is there anyway I can label those specific images "Exclusive," as part of the upload process?  Might save some time during the "Invitation" review period.

2) For the exclusive images I'll be uploading to be considered for Prime, would it be preferable to NOT enable personal downloads (just for those images) in my store? 

Thanks...
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 15, 2014, 03:00
There is a bug or small annoyance when uploading full res files to the store. When uploading an image, after its completed, the page refreshes, cancelling all other uploads in progress. So you can only upload one image at a time, wait for the upload to finish and then upload the next image.

Stock photographers upload hundreds of images a week, spread over many agencies, it needs to be as quick and painless as possible. For royalties worth pennies, we cant spent too much time on uploading. Its not worth it.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 15, 2014, 03:16
There is a bug or small annoyance when uploading full res files to the store. When uploading an image, after its completed, the page refreshes, cancelling all other uploads in progress.

There's a workaround: open many pages in different tabs. But of course that's not the way to go.

As you and Luis and many other said, an automated watermark is absolutely needed if they want our full ports. If they don't, fine: I am not going to spend 1000% more time to add perhaps 0.5% to my total earnings. I uploaded 100 pictures as a test and I spent 4 hours, that's enough for me until they upgrade their system.

I'm tired of repeating the same things (easy upload, IPTC, FTP, no categories,...) to every new site. Since they all come here to post, why can't they read as well?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 15, 2014, 03:20
Yeah, I just figured that out with the multiple pages. The auto watermark would speed things up.

I think 500px isnt yet geared towards stock photographers in terms of upload process.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on March 15, 2014, 04:17
... I am not going to spend 1000% more time to add perhaps 0.5% to my total earnings. I uploaded 100 pictures as a test and I spent 4 hours, that's enough for me until they upgrade their system.

Wow! You are veeeryyy patient  :o  (or desperate?)
I had enough after 10 files uploaded... So, waiting for upgrade, meanwhile I do my work with others.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: olliemt on March 15, 2014, 05:52
Hi,

I've started to use 500px to display my fine art images, as from August I'm taking 2 years out of work to go traveling, from then on my top 15% of images will not be submitted to microstock (not that I have been submitting my best new images currently either) and will be displayed only on 500px, my own website, or offered on my own stock site, 500px has done what I had hoped when I joined, it directs traffic to my personal site (currently down).  It will be interesting to see which way Prime goes, I must have overlooked an email from them or was not very attracted by the 30%, either way they asked for some of my images, which I have submitted, 1 exclusive; they are all fine art, some of which have been tweaked and therefore the agencies overlook them, funny, as I have had some of these published!!!  When I could last be bothered to read into agency policy (in general) it usually stated something along the lines of, clients like images unprocessed so they can tweak blah blah blah, yeah great if your shooting white background whatever, but travel and landscape, architecture and so on can be left unappealing, thus leading a buyer to overlook the image.  500px Could offer a bit of a niche, I hope it does, and sticks to it! It wont work for every stock photographer as it will mean to much screen time on one image, for someone like me whose 70% freelance photography, 30% stock, it would be great. I will not be uploading my entire portfolio, only the stand out Images, I sincerely hope that Prime stays hand picked, tidy, fine art style images that buyers can go to and get a ready worked, stylish images.  There is some wicked stuff on 500px that agencies just don't have, we manage to market this type of work individually however time consuming so there is always a market to tap into.

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: stockphotoeurope on March 15, 2014, 06:23
Wow! You are veeeryyy patient  :o  (or desperate?)
I had enough after 10 files uploaded... So, waiting for upgrade, meanwhile I do my work with others.

Or both  :)

Actually, I have a set of 100 pictures - carefully selected as representative of my whole port - that I use as a test on all new sites and after six months with no or few or good sales I know what to do.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Spectral-Design.net on March 15, 2014, 09:02
I think what we see here is a clash between the community type platform and the needs of commercial and professional photo suppliers.

@ 500px: I really appreciate your effort and welcome every new market channel which differs from the established microstock model, but some parts of your strategy doesn`t make sense if you try to attract professional suppliers (IF this is your intention). I asume you primarily want to channel the best material which flows through your site into a high value commercial library, but cannot tell atm if you are happy to just pick from your existing community or if you want to attract professionals to supply especially to your new platform.

Many of us here are business People and do not just upload to sites to "show off" or just because they are proud of their work. We usually know what we are doing, supply a certain volume and quality and can adjust to most market needs. Aspects like having to pay to be able to upload more than 20 images per week does not make sense for someone who is a professional supplier. Nor does it help not to be able to know if any of our efforts will result in acceptance of photos in the prime market or later on in sales - which is the real goal for most of us. Usually, the more professional People here on the board need to calculate carefully their time and weigh it up with the real or potential sales they can make.

Right now, for me its fun to upload some more artsy stuff and see images getting "popular", but we all have to see how Prime will develope in the current market and how it will manage to get around in a Agency world coming from a community platform.

Good luck in any case, it would be great to see a different paradigm represented by you in the Agency landscape  8)

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: kalevitamm on March 15, 2014, 10:50
It will be nice to see, what stockers have been uploaded there. Will you share your 500px.com/address? (if this kind of sharing is allowed here).
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 17, 2014, 08:21
Dumb question perhaps but I can't find the submission guidelines for images uploaded to the market for print sales.  Do you want jpegs or Tiffs, color space, etc..?


Here's some guidelines for you: http://support.500px.com/customer/portal/articles/434750 (http://support.500px.com/customer/portal/articles/434750)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 17, 2014, 08:23
Alex, a couple of quick questions:

1) I see that 500px is interested in exclusive imagery for their Prime collection.  I'm interested in uploading images that would be exclusive to 500px for possible inclusion in Prime.  Is there anyway I can label those specific images "Exclusive," as part of the upload process?  Might save some time during the "Invitation" review period.

2) For the exclusive images I'll be uploading to be considered for Prime, would it be preferable to NOT enable personal downloads (just for those images) in my store? 

Thanks...

To contribute photos you must upload them and enable them for sale in the 500px personal Store. Then we will request any photos we're interested in, and at that point you can select exclusive or non-exclusive. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 17, 2014, 08:25
Awesome feedback from all of you on the upload/submission process! We have lots of stuff coming and all your suggestions will be shared with the product team. Remember, Prime is still Beta :-)

Cheers!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 17, 2014, 09:03
Alex I will be paying the 25 dollar for a subscription. I want to have my portfolio activated and I want to upload in my own time. Thanks for the offer though, is appreciated.

Already had lots of activity on my 20 images. One made into the Popular pool, lots of new likes and favorites on my account.

Now we wait for $$$ :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on March 17, 2014, 09:04
Alex I will be paying the 25 dollar for a subscription. I want to have my portfolio activated and I want to upload in my own time. Thanks for the offer though, is appreciated.

Already had lots of activity on my 20 images. One made into the Popular pool, lots of new likes and favorites on my account.

Now we wait for $$$ :)

If you want to use the Portfolio feature (portfolios.500px.com) you need the $75 Awesome membership. Check 500px.com/upgrade to see what each membership offers. Thanks Ron!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ron on March 17, 2014, 10:30
Sorry, I mixed that up. So I dont need an account then if its only to unlock the uploads.

Ugh, ok, back to the drawing board.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: OM on March 22, 2014, 07:29
Spotted some images there with a price tag of $250 that can be had on Fotolia for subs price or $50 EL.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: DF_Studios on March 24, 2014, 10:32
I revisited my dormant 500px account.  I have a few images there.  Something that sends up a red flag for me is the various attributions.  Reminds me too much of Flicker or Deviant art.  Places that I avoid.

I don't want to put my work anywhere that encourages confusion about copyrights.  I want to put my work where it is crystal clear that my work is mine.  If you want it, you can buy a print or a license.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: mlwinphoto on March 24, 2014, 13:13
Some excellent photography on this site.....if photogs buy from photogs it may be worth a try.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on May 07, 2014, 02:22
As I said in the other thread, review time seems to take forever, I don't know what your experiences about this issue are but it just doesn't sound good to me
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on May 07, 2014, 08:23
As I said in the other thread, review time seems to take forever, I don't know what your experiences about this issue are but it just doesn't sound good to me

Processing time is currently 2-3 weeks. We're working to get that down to 1 week, but have been overwhelmed with the number of submissions from our community. Don't worry though, once a photo is submitted, it's immediately available on 500px Prime, as well as for licensing via the License buttons on the photo's page on 500px. If we receive a request to license that photo before it has been processed, it will be fast tracked so we can close the sale that day. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on May 07, 2014, 10:21
As I said in the other thread, review time seems to take forever, I don't know what your experiences about this issue are but it just doesn't sound good to me

Processing time is currently 2-3 weeks. We're working to get that down to 1 week, but have been overwhelmed with the number of submissions from our community. Don't worry though, once a photo is submitted, it's immediately available on 500px Prime, as well as for licensing via the License buttons on the photo's page on 500px. If we receive a request to license that photo before it has been processed, it will be fast tracked so we can close the sale that day. Thanks!

Thank you for clarifing this out  :)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: tickstock on May 11, 2014, 23:48
.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Rage on May 21, 2014, 20:49
So have people started getting sales in 500px prime?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on May 25, 2014, 05:44
So have people started getting sales in 500px prime?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

+1

And wat about a bestsellers stats page like all other stock sites?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Mantis on May 26, 2014, 08:35
I was wondering the same thing.  Has 500px gotten any traction yet? I know it takes time, but.......inquiry minds want to know.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on May 26, 2014, 08:37
I was wondering the same thing.  Has 500px gotten any traction yet? I know it takes time, but.......inquiry minds want to know.

We've been doing great! Doubling sales each month since we launched 3 months ago. Thanks for asking!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Rage on May 27, 2014, 07:35
That's amazing, it feels good to know that organizations that actually keep the photographers in mind are doing well.

A couple of small requests though, a best sellers page would be great as would be a page of the top searched items. Loved how you sent out a newsletter about how you needed urban street images, more of these in the future would really help us.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on May 27, 2014, 08:11
That's amazing, it feels good to know that organizations that actually keep the photographers in mind are doing well.

A couple of small requests though, a best sellers page would be great as would be a page of the top searched items. Loved how you sent out a newsletter about how you needed urban street images, more of these in the future would really help us.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Awesome suggestions! We have a few new things coming, some as soon as this week. Including photographer Profiles on Prime, which would be the first step towards doing "Top Sellers" or something like that in the future. Follow @500pxPrimePD on Twitter, and we send out requests for images regularly! Cheers.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: ultimagina on May 29, 2014, 13:24
    500px has great photos, but it is still a closed comunity with photographers congratulating photographers and asking for congratulations in return. The big question is how succesfully can they market this treasure outside the photographer's club to real customers?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on May 29, 2014, 14:36
500px? Oh right.. I've forgot about it, thanks!
It got quiet quickly.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Elenathewise on June 05, 2014, 17:03
I've uploaded a few files from my fine art portfolio (http://500px.com/elenaelisseeva (http://500px.com/elenaelisseeva)) - it's fun to watch the "pulse" and so on, however, international shipping costs for prints are plain prohibitive. It seems that quite a lot of 500px users are not from US - so 500px really need to find a way to ship cheaper internationally. Noone will every buy a print if the shipping can double the price.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on June 06, 2014, 09:19
I've uploaded a few files from my fine art portfolio ([url]http://500px.com/elenaelisseeva[/url] ([url]http://500px.com/elenaelisseeva[/url])) - it's fun to watch the "pulse" and so on, however, international shipping costs for prints are plain prohibitive. It seems that quite a lot of 500px users are not from US - so 500px really need to find a way to ship cheaper internationally. Noone will every buy a print if the shipping can double the price.


I totally understand that. It's even expensive for me to buy my own prints and ship it to Canada, as our printer is based in Austin, TX. We are looking for a European and a Canadian printer to partner with, to help reduce shipping times and costs. Stay tuned.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Elenathewise on June 06, 2014, 09:46
Thanks for the update Alex! Good to hear you're looking for better shipping options.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Rage on June 06, 2014, 23:11
I just came across this ask me anything interview of 500px's founder. Although there's not a lot about Prime but it does have a pretty good story of how the company started out and what they are planning to do

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/277oad/hi_i_am_evgeny_tchebotarev_cofounder_of_500px_an/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/277oad/hi_i_am_evgeny_tchebotarev_cofounder_of_500px_an/)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 08stock08 on July 16, 2014, 20:19
500px needs to give us something like other agencies are offering, ie, free platform to sell the images. I just uploaded some of my images and was hit by 20 images per week counter. The upgrade page is asking for money. Having no stats of success or failure of 500px, I do not know whether there is break even point. There are two things 500px can do.

1. Make completely free for photographers to upload the images.
2. Review the images for Prime section and filter them to market.

Unless I see people eating expensive lunch, I am not motivated to try it.  At present, only people from 500px staff may be having some fun.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Maximilian on July 17, 2014, 09:49
This makes no sense:
"Lassen Sie inspirieren. Lass entdeckt."

(german language; http://500px.com/ (http://500px.com/))

Lassen Sie sich inspirieren. Entdecken Sie.. something like this
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Maximilian on July 17, 2014, 09:51
500px needs to give us something like other agencies are offering, ie, free platform to sell the images. I just uploaded some of my images and was hit by 20 images per week counter. The upgrade page is asking for money. Having no stats of success or failure of 500px, I do not know whether there is break even point. There are two things 500px can do.

1. Make completely free for photographers to upload the images.
2. Review the images for Prime section and filter them to market.

Unless I see people eating expensive lunch, I am not motivated to try it.  At present, only people from 500px staff may be having some fun.

Ähm do i read this right? Contributor has to pay to upload images? What .?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Deyan Georgiev Photography on July 17, 2014, 11:48
[
500px needs to give us something like other agencies are offering, ie, free platform to sell the images. I just uploaded some of my images and was hit by 20 images per week counter. The upgrade page is asking for money. Having no stats of success or failure of 500px, I do not know whether there is break even point. There are two things 500px can do.

1. Make completely free for photographers to upload the images.
2. Review the images for Prime section and filter them to market.

Unless I see people eating expensive lunch, I am not motivated to try it.  At present, only people from 500px staff may be having some fun.

Ähm do i read this right? Contributor has to pay to upload images? What .?
+1

What!?!?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 17, 2014, 13:17
500px needs to give us something like other agencies are offering, ie, free platform to sell the images. I just uploaded some of my images and was hit by 20 images per week counter. The upgrade page is asking for money. Having no stats of success or failure of 500px, I do not know whether there is break even point. There are two things 500px can do.

1. Make completely free for photographers to upload the images.
2. Review the images for Prime section and filter them to market.

Unless I see people eating expensive lunch, I am not motivated to try it.  At present, only people from 500px staff may be having some fun.

Very good points! If it'll help you submit your images to Prime, I'd be happy to give you unlimited uploads on your account. Can you email [email protected] and mention this forum, and I'll do that for you. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: kalevitamm on July 17, 2014, 13:28
500px needs to give us something like other agencies are offering, ie, free platform to sell the images. I just uploaded some of my images and was hit by 20 images per week counter. The upgrade page is asking for money. Having no stats of success or failure of 500px, I do not know whether there is break even point. There are two things 500px can do.

1. Make completely free for photographers to upload the images.
2. Review the images for Prime section and filter them to market.

Unless I see people eating expensive lunch, I am not motivated to try it.  At present, only people from 500px staff may be having some fun.

Very good points! If it'll help you submit your images to Prime, I'd be happy to give you unlimited uploads on your account. Can you email [email protected] and mention this forum, and I'll do that for you. Thanks!

Hi Alex,

your site looks great, you have done an excellent work, and I am ready to pay(support your work) that my images get over to Prime, unfortunately I can’t get where or in which step I should do it, should I just upgrade to “plus” or “awesome” and that it?

Thanks,

Kalevi
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 17, 2014, 13:29
Hi Alex,

your site looks great, you have done an excellent work, and I am ready to pay(support your work) that my images get over to Prime, unfortunately I can’t get where or in which step I should do it, should I just upgrade to “plus” or “awesome” and that it?

Thanks,

Kalevi

Yeah, if you're ready to upgrade you can just go to 500px.com/upgrade to do so. If you're just upgrading to get unlimited uploads, Plus is all you need. Email me at [email protected] and I'll give you a promo code too!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Deyan Georgiev Photography on July 18, 2014, 07:13
Hi Alex,

I have 10 000 images to upload, but the thing that stops me is the lack of a watermark.
What I need is just to upload and automatically to be watermarked, resized, metadata extracted and so on...this is the part of website on my opinion.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 18, 2014, 07:26
Hi Alex,

I have 10 000 images to upload, but the thing that stops me is the lack of a watermark.
What I need is just to upload and automatically to be watermarked, resized, metadata extracted and so on...this is the part of website on my opinion.

That's quite the undertaking! Each image does need to be submitted individually to Prime, to ensure you submit the right releases, etc. We do automatically add a watermark to all images displayed on 500px Prime though. Maybe start with a few of your best and see how it goes!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: nuno on July 18, 2014, 08:59
Won't necessarily help with 10k all at once, but you can upload a low-res watermarked version to 500px, then in your Store / Settings page, upload a high-res unwatermarked version to submit to Prime.  Personally, I use the LightRoom plug-in for bulk 500px uploads (keywords, titles, etc. are all imported too which is awesome) then just update the licensable file and model releases in Store / Settings afterwards.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Deyan Georgiev Photography on July 18, 2014, 09:12
I will start to upload step by step all I have.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Deyan Georgiev Photography on July 18, 2014, 09:55
Now I'm thinking about the white isolated images that I have and some other classic old stock images will not fit to the 500px vision. So, will upload just a part of my portfolio.
May be here is the place to ask, are images like this suitable for 500px? This image sells good on the microstock sites:
(http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/279349/171575435/stock-photo-red-velvet-curtain-with-tassel-close-up-black-isolated-curtain-171575435.jpg)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 18, 2014, 09:57
Hey everyone! I've just spoke with our director of content for Prime about how we can help you submit large batches. Here's the deal. We're working on a better bulk uploader to make submitting thousands of photos easier, but it's not ready yet (ETA a couple months, is my guess). If you have a batch of licensable photos you'd like to submit to Prime, but don't want to deal with upload and submitting them individually, email [email protected] (ATT Alex). If you can send us all your photos (whether it's on Dropbox, or mail us a hard drive, or whatever works for you), we'll go through them and ingest the ones we want in Prime for you. We'll be doing this on a case by case basis, based on the number and quality of photos, but email me and we'll see what we can do to help you. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 18, 2014, 10:01
Now I'm thinking about the white isolated images that I have and some other classic old stock images will not fit to the 500px vision. So, will upload just a part of my portfolio.
May be here is the place to ask, are images like this suitable for 500px? This image sells good on the microstock sites:
([url]http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/279349/171575435/stock-photo-red-velvet-curtain-with-tassel-close-up-black-isolated-curtain-171575435.jpg[/url])


You're right that it doesn't quite fit our vision. Check out http://500px.com/editors (http://500px.com/editors) for examples of the type of stuff we're looking for.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Deyan Georgiev Photography on July 18, 2014, 10:09
Thank You Alex for the live support  :)
I will contact: [email protected] about the big batch upload.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Deyan Georgiev Photography on July 19, 2014, 07:25
I've just upgraded my account and send email to [email protected] about the big batch upload. Hope will not take a long time to start the upload.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on July 24, 2014, 00:51
I just got email and looking for info:

"Buyers will be able to purchase a variety of license options and photographers will always earn 70% of the royalties for any photos licensed from 500px Prime, one of the highest royalties paid out in the industry."

Where is list of the prices? Lately I sold one for 2,99$ if I remember correct (blocked that option immediately). If 500px sells licence for $3 and shares info about highest % in industry... well...
I mean, % is not everything.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Rage on July 24, 2014, 01:07
Got that mail too ... sharing it here for everyone else

e are excited to share that our commercial licensing marketplace, 500px Prime, has been very successful, doubling in sales month over month. In line with our mission to empower photographers and curate a collection of inspiring, original and beautiful photographs, we are making some changes to the 500px Store.
In order to harness 500px Prime's success and maximize commercial opportunities for our community we are focusing on royalty-free and rights managed photography licenses. On August 23, 2014, we will be saying farewell to 500px Art and personal downloads, effectively combining all of our commercial initiatives into 500px Prime. Buyers will be able to purchase a variety of license options and photographers will always earn 70% of the royalties for any photos licensed from 500px Prime, one of the highest royalties paid out in the industry.
In preparation for these changes, we invite you to submit your photos to 500px Prime. This ensures that you continue to benefit from 500px's revenue opportunities. To help with this transition, photos currently available on your store will be visible to our Prime buyers. This will allow us to work directly with you and the buyer to complete the sale, even if the licensing forms have not been completed yet.
We are here to help you with this transition. If you have any questions or concerns, please email [email protected]
We look forward to collaborating with you to cultivate 500px Prime as the leading premium photography marketplace!
Thank you for your support, we are honoured to have you as part of our community!
Barbara Ott
Product Manager - 500px Prime


I think the only real change is that all the other avenues for selling licenses on 500px now get combined under prime. Sounds like a good move. Also I'm really happy that they are sticking to the 70% royalty agreement for all the sales.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 24, 2014, 07:29
I just got email and looking for info:

"Buyers will be able to purchase a variety of license options and photographers will always earn 70% of the royalties for any photos licensed from 500px Prime, one of the highest royalties paid out in the industry."

Where is list of the prices? Lately I sold one for 2,99$ if I remember correct (blocked that option immediately). If 500px sells licence for $3 and shares info about highest % in industry... well...
I mean, % is not everything.

The $2.99 personal downloads is exactly what that email was about :-) We're getting rid of those and focusing on commercial licenses now instead. They sell for $250. We're also working towards introducing a web/social one-time use license for $50.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on July 24, 2014, 14:43
Well... an hour ago I was setting up my images licencing on 500px prime and I wondered how hard it is to sell anything here...
Few minutes ago my friend just told me he sold one for $175! He doesn't sell much anywhere so this is double surprising! Nice to know it works so good  :D

Ps. Alex, are you the one who popped up in chat form on 500px site and scared me?  ;D
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 24, 2014, 14:45
Well... an hour ago I was setting up my images licencing on 500px prime and I wondered how hard it is to sell anything here...
Few minutes ago my friend just told he sold one for $175! He doesn't sell much anywhere so this is double surprising! Nice to know it works so good  :D

Ps. Alex, are you the one who popped up in chat form on 500px site and scared me?  ;D

That's great to hear! We're having a lot of success with Prime, and we hope you'll all be a part of it. Cheers, thanks for sharing.

Edit: Yes, that was me on chat ;-)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: everest on July 24, 2014, 14:56
"In order to harness 500px Prime's success and maximize commercial opportunities for our community we are focusing on royalty-free and rights managed photography licenses"

Hello:

Any more information if there is a plan for marketing Rights Managed images in the inmediate future?? That would be very interesting for an Istock exclusive like me. 500px has a beautiful collection. I am a recent member and it's great to see a lot of variety and amazing images impossible to see on any of the micros.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 25, 2014, 08:10
"In order to harness 500px Prime's success and maximize commercial opportunities for our community we are focusing on royalty-free and rights managed photography licenses"

Hello:

Any more information if there is a plan for marketing Rights Managed images in the inmediate future?? That would be very interesting for an Istock exclusive like me. 500px has a beautiful collection. I am a recent member and it's great to see a lot of variety and amazing images impossible to see on any of the micros.

Right now all photos on Prime are RF. We have a RM type license coming soon for web/social media quality images (one time use, lower resolution) and are open to exploring other RM licenses down the road too.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: prostock on July 25, 2014, 08:19
Is there and opportunities for payment through Skrill or Payoneer ?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on July 25, 2014, 08:55
Is there and opportunities for payment through Skrill or Payoneer ?

No, I haven't even heard of those actually! Haha, right now it's Paypal or cheque only.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on August 27, 2014, 21:46
"In order to harness 500px Prime's success and maximize commercial opportunities for our community we are focusing on royalty-free and rights managed photography licenses"

Hello:

Any more information if there is a plan for marketing Rights Managed images in the inmediate future?? That would be very interesting for an Istock exclusive like me. 500px has a beautiful collection. I am a recent member and it's great to see a lot of variety and amazing images impossible to see on any of the micros.

Right now all photos on Prime are RF. We have a RM type license coming soon for web/social media quality images (one time use, lower resolution) and are open to exploring other RM licenses down the road too.


What is the status of the RM type license?     
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on August 28, 2014, 03:27

What is the status of the RM type license?   

It's launched and available. All photos submitted to Prime are available for both license options automatically. Look for the $50 Web/Social option on any photo. For example: https://prime.500px.com/photos/46424674
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on August 28, 2014, 05:59

What is the status of the RM type license?   

It's launched and available. All photos submitted to Prime are available for both license options automatically. Look for the $50 Web/Social option on any photo. For example: https://prime.500px.com/photos/46424674


Somehow I doubt that is what most photographers consider a real option for an RM license.    Let me get this straight.  The 2 licenses 500px is offering are an incredibly expansive RF exclusive license with no expiration or the web/social license which is RM literally but not in any common sense manner to a stock photographer.    I don't understand this at all.  In the world I sell stock photos you can sell an image as RF or RM exclusive or RM non-exclusive.   I am trying to fathom how this is going to get photographers to submit more work to your site.   Or how it is going to help the photo buyer that say wants to use a photo for a quarter page or spot use in a limited run book or a calendar.  The web social license doesn't cover that, nor are they ever going to license that photo through one of your RF licenses for $250 when they can go elsewhere for a $100-$200 non-exclusive RM license.  I am trying to understand the logic here. 

Also, what is going on with 500pxart?  There is a statement saying that as of Aug. 23rd it is going away and that prints will be bought through prime via some method that allows the buyer to download a high rezz file to take to a printer.   

Photo buyers AND photo sellers need a variety of options.   As someone who sells photos I ask myself how and why if I was a buyer would I license a photo through 500prime?  The licenses you offer only apply in a limited number of situations for which I, if I were a photo buyer need to purchase photo uses.  I am trying to make sense of why 500px is handling things in this manner. 
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on August 28, 2014, 08:52

What is the status of the RM type license?   

It's launched and available. All photos submitted to Prime are available for both license options automatically. Look for the $50 Web/Social option on any photo. For example: https://prime.500px.com/photos/46424674


Somehow I doubt that is what most photographers consider a real option for an RM license.    Let me get this straight.  The 2 licenses 500px is offering are an incredibly expansive RF exclusive license with no expiration or the web/social license which is RM literally but not in any common sense manner to a stock photographer.    I don't understand this at all.  In the world I sell stock photos you can sell an image as RF or RM exclusive or RM non-exclusive.   I am trying to fathom how this is going to get photographers to submit more work to your site.   Or how it is going to help the photo buyer that say wants to use a photo for a quarter page or spot use in a limited run book or a calendar.  The web social license doesn't cover that, nor are they ever going to license that photo through one of your RF licenses for $250 when they can go elsewhere for a $100-$200 non-exclusive RM license.  I am trying to understand the logic here. 

Also, what is going on with 500pxart?  There is a statement saying that as of Aug. 23rd it is going away and that prints will be bought through prime via some method that allows the buyer to download a high rezz file to take to a printer.   

Photo buyers AND photo sellers need a variety of options.   As someone who sells photos I ask myself how and why if I was a buyer would I license a photo through 500prime?  The licenses you offer only apply in a limited number of situations for which I, if I were a photo buyer need to purchase photo uses.  I am trying to make sense of why 500px is handling things in this manner.

That's correct. We offer 2 licenses, and the $50 option is technically a RM license, but is a bit different from the usual RM terms some photographers are used to. Prime isn't going to be a perfect fit for everyone. Some stock photographers who have an established RM business already may not find Prime works for them right now, but maybe it will in the future.

500px Art is going away, and we've begun phasing it out already. As of right now, it's still available at 500pxArt.com, but we're beginning to remove references to it from 500px.com. We don't have a definite End Of Life date yet, but will announce when we do.

We're working closely with our buyers and photographers to learn about what options they want, and to offer them. The feedback from you guys is amazing, so keep it coming! Thank you!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on August 28, 2014, 10:19
Somehow I doubt that is what most photographers consider a real option for an RM license.    Let me get this straight.  The 2 licenses 500px is offering are an incredibly expansive RF exclusive license with no expiration or the web/social license which is RM literally but not in any common sense manner to a stock photographer.    I don't understand this at all.  In the world I sell stock photos you can sell an image as RF or RM exclusive or RM non-exclusive.   I am trying to fathom how this is going to get photographers to submit more work to your site.   Or how it is going to help the photo buyer that say wants to use a photo for a quarter page or spot use in a limited run book or a calendar.  The web social license doesn't cover that, nor are they ever going to license that photo through one of your RF licenses for $250 when they can go elsewhere for a $100-$200 non-exclusive RM license.  I am trying to understand the logic here. 

Also, what is going on with 500pxart?  There is a statement saying that as of Aug. 23rd it is going away and that prints will be bought through prime via some method that allows the buyer to download a high rezz file to take to a printer.   

Photo buyers AND photo sellers need a variety of options.   As someone who sells photos I ask myself how and why if I was a buyer would I license a photo through 500prime?  The licenses you offer only apply in a limited number of situations for which I, if I were a photo buyer need to purchase photo uses.  I am trying to make sense of why 500px is handling things in this manner.
[/quote]

That's correct. We offer 2 licenses, and the $50 option is technically a RM license, but is a bit different from the usual RM terms some photographers are used to. Prime isn't going to be a perfect fit for everyone. Some stock photographers who have an established RM business already may not find Prime works for them right now, but maybe it will in the future.

500px Art is going away, and we've begun phasing it out already. As of right now, it's still available at 500pxArt.com, but we're beginning to remove references to it from 500px.com. We don't have a definite End Of Life date yet, but will announce when we do.

We're working closely with our buyers and photographers to learn about what options they want, and to offer them. The feedback from you guys is amazing, so keep it coming! Thank you!
[/quote]

You need to worry more about making a good fit for buyers.   It is not a matter of photographers having an established RM business or not.  What is important is providing a significant segment of photo buyers with the licenses they need.  You fail to do that with you current offerings.   You are appealing to a very small part of the photo buying market.  Most buyers looking for RF have no interest in your $250 inclusive license.  I know, because I have asked dozens and dozens of experienced stock buyers over the months since it was introduced.    I have yet to find one that likes your RF license.  I am sure you will tell me that the offering is doing well.   If it is then why can't I find a single stock photo buyer that thinks it represents a good value across the board?  The most praise I heard was that in very limited circumstances would they find that a good deal.  The majority of the time they want either a lower price, less inclusive RF offering or a RM license of lower cost for that specific one time use.   
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on August 28, 2014, 10:23

You need to worry more about making a good fit for buyers.   It is not a matter of photographers having an established RM business or not.  What is important is providing a significant segment of photo buyers with the licenses they need.  You fail to do that with you current offerings.   You are appealing to a very small part of the photo buying market.  Most buyers looking for RF have no interest in your $250 inclusive license.  I know, because I have asked dozens and dozens of experienced stock buyers over the months since it was introduced.    I have yet to find one that likes your RF license.  I am sure you will tell me that the offering is doing well.   If it is then why can't I find a single stock photo buyer that thinks it represents a good value across the board?  The most praise I heard was that in very limited circumstances would they find that a good deal.  The majority of the time they want either a lower price, less inclusive RF offering or a RM license of lower cost for that specific one time use.   

Totally agree. Remember, Prime is very new, we only launched in March. We're learning what buyers want and working to introduce more options. I'm just customer support, and I don't make these business decisions, but I'll share your feedback with the team that does. Cheers!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: robhainer on August 29, 2014, 08:35
Good news is I got an RF sale there and only have thirty or so test images up. Bad news is that the sale is still listed as pending a week later. Any idea how long it takes to get the payout after making the sale?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on August 29, 2014, 08:52
Good news is I got an RF sale there and only have thirty or so test images up. Bad news is that the sale is still listed as pending a week later. Any idea how long it takes to get the payout after making the sale?

Sales remain pending for 45 days, to allow time for payments to be settled and processed.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on August 29, 2014, 20:58
Alex, if a photographer does upload to prime and offer the image via the RF license model can he pull the image out of prime at a later date.  Some entities have a certain amount of time that an image must be left up to avoid people popping images on and off for short periods.  I ask this because I want to know if after 6 months or a year if an image has had no action on 500prime but say a personal client wants to use if for a traditional RM license can I remove it from 500prime?

I don't forsee this happening much if at all.  Just want to know what my options are. 
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on August 29, 2014, 21:16
Alex, if a photographer does upload to prime and offer the image via the RF license model can he pull the image out of prime at a later date.  Some entities have a certain amount of time that an image must be left up to avoid people popping images on and off for short periods.  I ask this because I want to know if after 6 months or a year if an image has had no action on 500prime but say a personal client wants to use if for a traditional RM license can I remove it from 500prime?

I don't forsee this happening much if at all.  Just want to know what my options are.

Totally, you can remove it at anytime. Just beware that since our sales team may be working on sales in the background, we retain the right to sell your image within 45 days after you've removed it. This will be fairly rare, but it's just incase we're working on a deal with a buyer at the time that you remove the photos. Cheers!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on September 04, 2014, 22:58
Alex, is there a way to upload a series of images and select one for public profile/viewing while enabling ALL the images to be available for review for prime? 

THANKS!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on September 05, 2014, 07:07
Alex, is there a way to upload a series of images and select one for public profile/viewing while enabling ALL the images to be available for review for prime? 

THANKS!

No, at this time in order to submit a photo to Prime, it has to be in your public Profile. So every photo you submit will need to be publicly visible. I've heard there's plans to change that, but I don't know details or timelines.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: etudiante_rapide on September 05, 2014, 10:31
Alex, if a photographer does upload to prime and offer the image via the RF license model can he pull the image out of prime at a later date.  Some entities have a certain amount of time that an image must be left up to avoid people popping images on and off for short periods.  I ask this because I want to know if after 6 months or a year if an image has had no action on 500prime but say a personal client wants to use if for a traditional RM license can I remove it from 500prime?

I don't forsee this happening much if at all.  Just want to know what my options are.

Totally, you can remove it at anytime. Just beware that since our sales team may be working on sales in the background, we retain the right to sell your image within 45 days after you've removed it. This will be fairly rare, but it's just incase we're working on a deal with a buyer at the time that you remove the photos. Cheers!

in reference to your response, Alex, i don't think anyone would mind receiving an email requesting the image back on because of a sale (ie. in particular $259 framed image) . in my case, i would not move the images to RM or anything, except in cases of leaving it there and having no sales for a certain period. 
if u can tell me, pls...  is there any way we know how many visitors came to see the image?
not the Like or Love or Follow, whatever.. but more so the clients who come in to browse for framed images.    this is where i am not a big fan of social-media, because i think it is difficult to see where your market is.   

personally, i wish your agency distant yourself with social-media all in one stop-shop ,flickr, facebook, and be serious about making money rather than traffic; if that is  your business-objective .
this , ...and an auto watermark ...might increase your contributorship.

lastly, the time-turnaround for approvals. i don't see anywhere mentioning that, as it appears like no one knows whether the submitted works in Store is even curated.

thx in advance, many questions, only because i like 500px ... except for the above  ;)
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on September 07, 2014, 17:33
I am interested in knowing more about the turnaround time for photos submitted for Prime.  One of your membership levels is Awesome and claims to have fast track for prime images as opposed to your plus membership does not. 

Really if you want to be taken seriously you might want to ditch membership classifications like Awesome, etc.  Must be a better more professional way to categorize your different memberships and the features you get with each level. 
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on September 08, 2014, 09:50
I am interested in knowing more about the turnaround time for photos submitted for Prime.  One of your membership levels is Awesome and claims to have fast track for prime images as opposed to your plus membership does not. 

Really if you want to be taken seriously you might want to ditch membership classifications like Awesome, etc.  Must be a better more professional way to categorize your different memberships and the features you get with each level.

Submissions take about 3-4 weeks to be processed. But it's not as important as it may sound, because as soon as a photo is submitted, it's listed in Prime and can be requested for license. If a buyer requests it before it has been processed, we'll process it immediately in order to close the sale. So don't worry about upgrading for that purpose, or about the processing time at all really. Just get your photos submitted, that's the most important step.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on September 08, 2014, 11:00

I have photos selected for my store and prime and they don't show up when I look in prime nor do they even show up in my store.  It says I have 9 photos in my store but when I click the page comes up in prime with my name but no photos.  One of the photos has been selected and submitted for prime for close to 2 weeks.  So why does it not show up in my store? 

Just curious as to what is going on.  Are ongoing issues occurring with prime?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on September 08, 2014, 11:01

I have photos selected for my store and prime and they don't show up when I look in prime nor do they even show up in my store.  It says I have 9 photos in my store but when I click the page comes up in prime with my name but no photos.  One of the photos has been selected and submitted for prime for close to 2 weeks.  So why does it not show up in my store? 

Just curious as to what is going on.  Are ongoing issues occurring with prime?

PM me your username or email. I'll investigate and get back to you via email.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on September 14, 2014, 02:05
Has anyone found a way to disable exclusivity once the picture is available for licensing? I was reconsidering some shots but I just don't understand how to do it, seems impossible  :o
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Jogga0 on September 14, 2014, 02:21
I had this problem, email [email protected] and they will make them non-exclusive for you
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on September 14, 2014, 02:29
They should include an option for this, it's impossible to not be able to manage our own images, if I knew before I would have had second thoughts about it   >:(
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: nuno on September 14, 2014, 08:13
From Exclusive -> Non-Exclusive, this makes sense. We just prevented the checkbox for going the other way around since it didn't make sense based on our definition of Exclusivity and needed to have some communication with the contributor beforehand. I'll see if we can put some logic in the form to allow you to do this. Great suggestion.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on September 14, 2014, 16:15
From Exclusive -> Non-Exclusive, this makes sense. We just prevented the checkbox for going the other way around since it didn't make sense based on our definition of Exclusivity and needed to have some communication with the contributor beforehand. I'll see if we can put some logic in the form to allow you to do this. Great suggestion.

The idea that an image is just available through 500px is absolutely fine, but there should be a way of doing it that doesn't look like Prime is kidnapping the picture for good, at this time the only way to opt out of exclusivity is disabling licensing.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Ariene on September 15, 2014, 07:29
Anybody else having problems with uploading images lately?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on September 15, 2014, 08:02
Anybody else having problems with uploading images lately?

email [email protected]. We'll help with some troubleshooting and collect some data from you to find a solution.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on October 05, 2014, 05:47
any news on the exclusive/non exclusive management?
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on October 06, 2014, 10:19
any news on the exclusive/non exclusive management?

What do you  mean? Sorry, maybe I forget what the original issue was.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on October 06, 2014, 11:28
I have had no response from 500px, going on 2 weeks now.  Nor from Alex.  Very hard to gain traction with 500prime. 
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on October 06, 2014, 11:34
I have had no response from 500px, going on 2 weeks now.  Nor from Alex.  Very hard to gain traction with 500prime.

Make sure you're emailing [email protected] and your email will be answered. i'll keep an eye open for your email today and get back to you ASAP.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: Neo_ on October 07, 2014, 03:44
I have had no response from 500px, going on 2 weeks now.  Nor from Alex.  Very hard to gain traction with 500prime.

It was about the missing option to go back to non exclusive, there is no way to do that.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on October 07, 2014, 07:38
I have had no response from 500px, going on 2 weeks now.  Nor from Alex.  Very hard to gain traction with 500prime.

It was about the missing option to go back to non exclusive, there is no way to do that.

Just email [email protected] and we can do that for you. If it's specific photos, tell us which ones (include links to them). If it's all of them, just tell us that. Thanks!
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: LylePaddle on October 08, 2014, 14:24
Alex, I really don't understand why this is so difficult.  Why I can't get my issue addressed.  I loathe putting messages about not getting help from customer service here but nothing else seems to work.  And even this is not working. 

It has been well over 2 weeks now headed to 3 weeks.  I did email and I have been using the proper email address all along.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on October 08, 2014, 14:25
Alex, I really don't understand why this is so difficult.  Why I can't get my issue addressed.  I loathe putting messages about not getting help from customer service here but nothing else seems to work.  And even this is not working. 

It has been well over 2 weeks now headed to 3 weeks.  I did email and I have been using the proper email address all along.

Please PM me your email, so I can search for your messages. Sorry for the troubles Lyle.
Title: Re: 500px Prime - commercial licensing marketplace
Post by: 500alexs on October 08, 2014, 15:11

Please PM me your email, so I can search for your messages. Sorry for the troubles Lyle.

Nevermind, I see your emails. We responded and asked you to send us links to the photos you had questions about 9 days ago, and haven't heard back from you since (except for another post a few days ago, asking why we haven't answered you). Can you send that info to [email protected] so our content team can answer your questions? Thanks!