MicrostockGroup

Yeah, something like that maybe. I was thinking the amateur photography/illustrator, even those with big ports, will soon be unable to keep up with the new breed of contributors who are highly creative, original and can demand a higher price (Vetta or whatever). Thus the average Joe's work will become less valuable (in comparison) and slowly but surely they will disappear from Microstock. So really it's just going full circle as the pros take back their industry. At least until the next big thing that happens, which is......

Every time this comes up I have expressed interest in joining, but five years of discussion, and three years of serious discussion, and it goes nowhere...

Dont like unions, period.  however, a union with just a conglomarate of photographers is nothing. A bona fide union needs a whole string of legal people, solicitors, lawyers, attorneys, accountants, etc, etc. and no friends of friends will do this "free of charge"  professional people cost money and who is going to pay for that?

Istock went from 85,000 contributors around this time last year to 110,000 contributors now. Protest all you want but the agencies don't have a supply problem. People will keep coming until the standards get so high that the average contributor feels it's not worth their time.

The top 100 or so superstars making decisions in unison about stopping uploads or pulling ports would be the only thing that an agency would worry about. Those contributors aren't likely to do it because that money would not be easily replaced doing something else and different financial situations from contributor to contributor would complicate things further.

I'm all for keeping royalties high but outside of that top 10% that makes 90% of the money, I don't see any real bargaining power.

We don't need Union...
We need our new exclusive microstock site, with shares of company in hands of contributor... So we don't even need a story about parts of our commissions, we just need company which will give dividend on the end of year to many share holders... So profit will be everything after marketing, various costs of business etc ...
So I have a plan!

Soon will be topic about this...

^^ You're essentially factoring out most illustrators with those numbers. Few illustrators have portfolios greater than 2,000 images. Most have fewer than 1,000, and yet many make a living with such small portfolios.

This is the Answer! (see above which IS the answer...)



Shares are based on images sold, investment, or work on the site to keep it running. Just like any other co op business. Of course people are going to ask for big commissions and then, how do you pay the investors and workers? So it would still need to have a reasonable 50% and then divide the profits at the end of the year, based on the above, for SHARES and then give all contributors a bonus based on their sales. 100% return, after expenses and operating costs.

A union with no power, is a waste of time and that's what any group effort would be, a big nothing. But a self owned Co Op site would make sense and if people wanted to hurt the big agencies bottom line, while making more, they would pull their images and only sell on their own Microstock Co-Op site. (will people try to double dip and compete with themselves,? Of course and that's why a Union won't work, people are GREEDY!) Maybe the answer for the co op is require exclusive for all RF images and similar (from same shoot) and enforce it. What use is a site if all the same images are for sale everywhere else, as cheap subscriptions? (another problem with microstock and crowdsourcing, nothing has any unique value)

Go ahead people for the MS Union, tell me one thing, that would change? What bargaining power do you have with the agencies. Name one thing that a group of organized artists can actually do, that's different from right now without a "Union". Not a bunch of hypothetical things that could be done if people worked together for a common cause, because they won't. What force and power does a MS Union have over the agencies? None!

And people stop blaming the agencies for being in business and trying to make a profit for themselves and their investors, that's what business do, or they cease to exist. They can give all the profits to artists and in short time, you will have no agency, no income, because they can't stay in business, if they don't make money. There are multiple people who need to be paid, this isn't all about US! They don't exist to care about us and feed us or make us money. They are all about the agency and profit and as much as they can make from the slave labor workforce.

As someone else pointed out, I quit, no problem, there are ten more lined up. Maybe not as much as before, but lets say, we are all easily replaced by a few other people who will happily take the pennies and spare change that they can make selling microstock.  People start and quit, but there's a line at the door of people who want to get in, and some are very good and move up fast.



Over 1000 photos on IS (since the numbers are there and representative of the biggest agency, even if not the easiest to upload to) Now the hard number is 2002 people with over 1000 images on IS. The percentage of contributors?  5% They are probably making some money, which is good news.

People with UNDER 100 images on IS, hard number 24,216 and in percentages... 65% have under 100 images online.

Want sales/DLs? In rough numbers, 50% of the people on IS have under 100 DLs and may have never reached payout. 18,500 people tried MicroStock, at the highest level, (remember they had to pass a test to get accepted, not even like the small sites that are less selective) and have never had a cent deposited into their bank account. Want them to join the union? And I know the rest of us wouldn't want them in the co op either.  

I agree on the Photoshelter part. In fact, I am building my port there. May not be as great as a co-op, but it's very easy and inexpensive considering that they manage hosting, templates, search engine, sales. And 90%+ commission is very acceptable. Basic plan is not so expensive.
If many of us upload full port there with micro prices, buyers may start to consider it as another microstock site, but from our point of view it's quite better.
I am also convinced that without stupid rejections, and having to organise our own home page within allowed space limits, we can be more selective than agencies, resulting in a better search experience for buyers.

Building a co-op or starting a stock site is less likely to happen in my opinion: it requires time, money and we could possibly be banned from existing agencies - and I am not able to renounce to their sales for now unfortunately.

Hi All,

 A few of us did it in Macro we built Blend Images as a co-op and we built Cultura images as a co-op. It can be done but it is very hard. To find the right 20 people or so ( the more owners the tougher it gets ) is not easy and those people have to put a lot of their revenue into running the company, they have to choose a CEO to represent the company and completely trust that person and the board that is voted in to run the daily decisions that must be made.
 There are so many levels of trust that it truly takes a real team and building a team that focuses on the companies success as apposed to their own is hard to find. How many photographers do you know that are going to share half their revenue to run the company possibly more depending on the infrastructure until it starts producing significant revenue? How much do you plan to advertise and then be able to add contributors to the co-op as 20 photographers do not a strong collection make.
 It can be done but it takes great commitment and trust, that is hard to find in a large group. Dissension is always at the door and it must be run and operated by true professionals in business management. Voting those people in and keeping the faith as you shovel money into the fire to build the company is not for everyone. But it can be done.

Best,
Jonathan

^^^I don't think the facts Jonathan exposed mean that it can't be done.  As he has managed to do it with macro, I don't really see why something similar wouldn't work for micro.

I do think it's extremely difficult but far from impossible.  Let's see how warmpicture goes.