MicrostockGroup

   Thanks fotografer... But I'm not all that special.  I just try to keep it all balanced and in perspective... easiest way to do that is look around and....     ...it's not hard to find someone that has problems worse than I do.
      In my case, I was fortunate to catch it in the very beginning... stage one and localized..   so it's not all that hard to be positive when you're looking at a 95-100% cure. 
      When I sit in that clinic for the chemo and look around... I count my blessings. My heart is torn in two when I look at many of the others sitting around me with far less hope than I.   Sad, sad thing.    ...   Thanks for the support none-the-less, my friend, it is appreciated very much!    Tom

simple abuse of business ethics

As the economy goes further down the toilet, more and more of this is happening, and not just with microstock sites. Employers are free to rip off their employees however they want, and a lot of employees are shaking in their shoes over losing their jobs and they are willing to go along with whatever is dealt to them. And the ones that don't put up with it, well, when they look around behind them, nobody is there.

If there is going to be any change in microstock, many, many people are going to have to be willing to go without supper for awhile. And I just don't think that will happen. Let me know if it does, I'm there.

It all boils down to the whole corporate America's mantra nowadays...the guys at the top travel in style, the guys doing the work can't even afford a car.

Sorry for the rant...this hit a personal note.

edit: Fotolia...I bailed a long time ago. Sounds like a made a wise decision for once. Tom...my thoughts are with you. Glad you caught it early. Hang in there.

Please anyone correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that anybody who has a web site can use Fotolia's API to sell Fotolia images on their web site.

Preferably it should be a site dedicated to stock images to make it worthwhile for the visitor but as far as I can see, it's totally legitimate.

Fotolia's API registers all sales and directs payouts and commissions to everybody involved.

I thought this is an interesting way of letting others do the marketing. Why not? It gives our images more exposure and we may even make an occasional sale from these sites.

Who's getting hurt?

I've also found many distributors from Fotolia that no one knew about but they all turned out to be for real. Whether it is worth for those people who run the API on their web site is a totally different story though and not my problem whatsoever.

I remember vaguely that Chad from Fotolia did make a statement about that in regards to one of their distributors. I'm pretty sure that any transaction outside of Fotolia are secured by their API which means that no high-res images are released directly to their distributors.

Of course it would be more than stupid if Fotolia handed their entire collection over to all their distributors HOPING that they report back all sales. I can not imagine that a company of that size would act so naive.

I'm trying to dig out Chad's statement mentioned above. I hope I can find it.

depending on where the customers is on Fotolia, they purchase in either $$ or Euro direct on the fotolia site and you get paid in the currency that your account is based on.  There have been a few threads about this before albeit a while ago now.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/different-fotolia-payout-in-different-countries/