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Author Topic: 123RF Image Enlargement Services & Your Earnings  (Read 33436 times)

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« Reply #25 on: April 06, 2010, 18:07 »
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Look.. whatever sjlocke. It's great that we have the inquisitive sense to stand up and question this scheme but we must also look at 123rf's point of view as a company doing business, as I've tried to explain on my previous post

In addition, we stand to benefit anyway. Don't you think it's great that we have yet another way to earn income now? Would you rather stick with what they had previously and earn credits only by image sales? You accuse me of kissing their feet but you know what? Maybe I am. Go out there and find me any other microstock company that offers a similar service. Last I checked, I don't think I've found one. I think it's a good thing cos to tell you the truth I'm miles away from getting the sales figures I want but with this scheme I can at least have an additional opportunity to earn something extra. And anything to help my meager earnings is * welcome in my eyes. If 123rf were to take this away due to this thread we all lose


« Reply #26 on: April 06, 2010, 18:36 »
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Hello All,

I read some of the responses yesterday right before I went to bed and was tempted to draft out a reply but after re-reading my draft, I found it to highly personal in nature and would prove to be highly embarrassing if I were to post it.  After sleeping on it I believe I'm in the right frame of mind to write my response in a more logical light.

Let's consider the scenarios:

Scenario 1:
Customer purchases 5 credit version from us. They employ their own 3rd party agency for the enlargement, for which they'll be charged at around the same price.

Your earnings: Max $2.50
Our earnings: Max $2.50
How much did you earn from the enlargement process: $0.00

Scenario 2:
Customer A purchases 5 credit version from us. They employ their own 3rd party agency for the enlargement, for which they'll be charged at around the same price. Customer B purchases the SAME image, also goes and employs the same 3rd party agency for the enlargement...

Your earnings: 2 x Max $2.50
Our earnings: 2 x Max $2.50
How much did you earn from the enlargement process: $0.00

Question: Do you think Customer B will get the enlargement for FREE when the same agency has done the enlargement before?

Scenario 3
Agency purchases your image on behalf of a client, creates an entire ad campaign for the client, edits the image a little and puts in some copy.

Your earnings: Max $2.50
Our earnings: Max $2.50

Question: Can you ask for all 3 parties (Agency, Contributor - You and 123RF) to share the earnings to be split in 1/3 shares?

Scenario 4
I purchase some anti-virus, say AVG. I go over to my client's place, and clean up their PC and perform an installation of AVG. I later billed the client, with the cost of AVG purchase built into my invoice.

Question: Can Grisoft request for 1/2 of what I earn with their Anti-virus?

Scenario 5
A plumber purchases a stop-cog and goes to a client's place to replace a faulty stop-cog. He charges whatever he wishes to charge at a level that the customer can accept.

Question: Is the plumber then, obligated to share his earnings with the stop-cog manufacturer apart from the price of the stop-cog itself?

Coming back, I hope this puts things into a clearer picture for everyone. Please stop looking at 13.3% as being unfair because under a free economy, ANYONE can add on value to your product and charge 100% for that service and leave you out of the loop entirely. I believe with 13.3% we have been equitable as we have built in asset management, infrastructure, bandwidth and a market place for which these transactions can take place.

As for the questions that Thomas has posed:

1. How much is 123RF making, the answer is simple:
We make 25% - 13.3% = 11.7% from the transaction. Why we come up with 13.3% for you and be happy with a smaller cut? Because it's easier for us to calculate earnings and we do treat you as equal business partners.

2. Why should an image get charged again and again for the same blow up.
Because it's easier that way to view it as a request on the client's behalf. At the moment, these downloads are very sporadic, we receive at most 3 per day, and 1 per day on average. The likelihood of another enlargement occurring on the exact same image, at the same size is remote. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity we simplified things further in this manner.

3. We have (wrongly apparently) thought that we have done everyone a great favor by introducing this as no matter how we cut things, everyone seems to benefit, hence, opting out, was not built in. I would like to ask you this question now: If you'd like to opt out, kindly let me know and we will try to build an opt out mechanism for those who wish to opt out. I am sure that some of you here are programmers and don't like to have lots and lots of if...then....elses.

Now for the question "Why does 123RF seem to think this is a piece of GOOD NEWS?"
Wise men say, "13.3% of something is always better than 100% (or 50% or 33.3%) of N-O-T-H-I-N-G!" We'd honestly thought that our share of 11.7% is good, because we got nothing previously, and your share of 13.3% is a little better than ours. So everyone should 'technically' be happier!

Thank you, if you have any further questions, do let me know.

Alex
for 123RF.com


« Reply #28 on: April 06, 2010, 19:10 »
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...What justifies us in getting 33% of profits? Also we don't know the costs of the implementation of this service. ...

The answer to the first question is very simple - because you created the copyrighted content that is the sole reason the buyer is forking over cash for a version of it.

Regardless of the costs of upsizing and "cleanup", they occur one time, not for every sale as was pointed out earlier.

This is a bad deal for the customer and a bad deal for the contributor. The bribe to get you to accept this rotten deal is the extra cash.

« Reply #29 on: April 06, 2010, 19:13 »
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Go out there and find me any other microstock company that offers a similar service.

Shutterstock and Dreamstime both offer upsized files (SS offers TIFFs).

In all cases these are upsized JPEGs which really isn't the way to go - and isn't anything a customer couldn't do in a few seconds themselves.

« Reply #30 on: April 06, 2010, 19:34 »
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Go out there and find me any other microstock company that offers a similar service.

 - and isn't anything a customer couldn't do in a few seconds themselves.

that's the point: anyone can do it.  But how much will you get from that customer?

123 is offering to do that upsize and give a commission to the photographer.  No one else is doing this.  So I think it is unfair to compare the rate (13.3%) 123 is offering to regular commission we get on sales anywhere else.

Claude

« Reply #31 on: April 06, 2010, 19:36 »
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Agree with jsnover.

Then:
If I have understood well, the TIFF file is made from a JPG. That's rubbish. Should be done by the contributor from the RAW file and be paid accordingly.

Then

I don't understand this 25- 13= 11%.

Then

This sentence "13.3% of something is always better than 100% (or 50% or 33.3%) of N-O-T-H-I-N-G!"

also works with "0.01% of something is always better than 100% (or 50% or 33.3%) of N-O-T-H-I-N-G!"

Maybe this is the future. But I won't be there.

KB

« Reply #32 on: April 06, 2010, 19:54 »
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I don't understand this 25- 13= 11%.
Just to make sure it's not the math you're confused with, the exact equation was 25% - 13.3% = 11.7%. I believe Alex means that 75% goes to the 3rd party doing the enlarging.

This is a big todo over nothing. Most contributors here, I suspect, will never see even one of these sales.

It's the same discussion we had a year or two ago over Fotolia's (?) 3rd party printing partner. Except in that case all we got was an 'L' sale commission, IIRC. Much more than 75% of those sales go to that 3rd party printer.

« Reply #33 on: April 06, 2010, 20:53 »
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1. How much is 123RF making, the answer is simple:
We make 25% - 13.3% = 11.7% from the transaction.

You're telling me that you're paying this third party $337 every time someone will buy a 300MB image?  Holy bananas.  Why didn't you call me?  I'd do it for $325.

Seriously, that is a really poor negotiation on your part.

« Reply #34 on: April 06, 2010, 21:05 »
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.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2010, 21:48 by FD-amateur »

« Reply #35 on: April 06, 2010, 21:13 »
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.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2010, 21:47 by FD-amateur »

« Reply #36 on: April 06, 2010, 21:45 »
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In all cases these are upsized JPEGs which really isn't the way to go - and isn't anything a customer couldn't do in a few seconds themselves.
As I understood it, the service will include much more than just automatic up-sizing, but custom retouching. It probably will be done on demand and on an image per image base for very demanding customers that need a gigantic size for a billboard or so, and don't have a guy in house to do it properly. Working hours in the graphic industry aren't cheap.
If 123RF managed to outsource this job itself and gives us part of the overhead they charge, it's more advantageous than when the buyer bought the image for 5$, then let it enlarge/post-process himself.

On a side-note, the 123RF contributors here must feel very happy that iStock exclusives are so worried about their interests.  :)

You're telling me that you're paying this third party $337 every time someone will buy a 300MB image?  Holy bananas.  Why didn't you call me?  I'd do it for $325.
I guess it's 123RF's policy not to call exclusives from the competition.  ;)

Thank you, and I'm real sorry if I offended anyone.
Why not add the possibility to upload our original 16-bit TIFFs from RAW? Going through an 8-bit lossy degradation adds some jitter in JPGs, especially visible on isolations.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2010, 21:48 by FD-amateur »

« Reply #37 on: April 06, 2010, 21:59 »
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It probably won't happen very often. It looks like cost of sale is 75% of price and agency splits revenue of 25% almost in half with contributors.

« Reply #38 on: April 06, 2010, 22:21 »
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Note to OP.  Next time, announce it like this:
"We're happy to announce a new service for buyers.  We are partnering with X, who will be providing upsizing and retouching services on a custom per image request basis.  The price for this service includes a bonus amount for the contributor supplying the original image."

Then it wouldn't seem so ridiculous.

« Reply #39 on: April 07, 2010, 00:30 »
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Cool, thanks Alex for annoucing it and for the further explanation.

If a customer wants to pay for custom work on one my images and I get a cut of it, it sounds good to me :)

Nice to see an agency adding extra forms of revenue that aren't a race to the bottom :)

« Reply #40 on: April 07, 2010, 03:17 »
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Note to OP.  Next time, announce it like this:
"We're happy to announce a new service for buyers.  We are partnering with X, who will be providing upsizing and retouching services on a custom per image request basis.  The price for this service includes a bonus amount for the contributor supplying the original image."

Then it wouldn't seem so ridiculous.

Agreed,
Next time don't start with "good news, we've cut your commission by three on our new service". You also should have specified there's custom(for each customer, if I understood) retouching rather than a one time upsizing.
Now let's see how many customers will go this route.

« Reply #41 on: April 07, 2010, 03:40 »
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Note to OP.  Next time, announce it like this:
"We're happy to announce a new service for buyers.  We are partnering with X, who will be providing upsizing and retouching services on a custom per image request basis.  The price for this service includes a bonus amount for the contributor supplying the original image."

Then it wouldn't seem so ridiculous.
Yeah, this way you could expect a bunch of woo-yays!

RT


« Reply #42 on: April 07, 2010, 04:47 »
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@Alex

Who is the 'external party' that you're using to resize and touch up the photos?

Saying the buyer gets the extra benefit of having the photo touched up is all well and good, but I've yet to see any 'touch up' service that's any good, most are India based and the results I've seen are absolute cr*p, so to try and gain some confidence from your contributors please post a link to this companies site so we can see the quality of their work.

When you employ a company to retouch my work I want to make sure the end result is not something that could damage my reputation with buyers, I would also like to see a statement alongside the purchase button telling potential buyers that the 100mb + files will be a resized version of the original file and may be retouched by an external source for which the contributor has no quality control.

And as I mentioned earlier if you do allow this company to distribute images you have a legal obligation to inform contributors who they are.

I'm sure I'm not the only person sitting on the fence considering whether it's worth uploading new images to 123RF because of the lack of sales increase, I'm sure you don't want to give folk a reason to pull their existing images from the site for the lack of transparency in how our images are being sold.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2010, 05:03 by RT »

« Reply #43 on: April 07, 2010, 06:25 »
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Thank you Alex for this further clarification ...

I am somewhat calmer, especially because always be a good relationship between contributors and 123support...
You talk with us, some others don't...

We are slowly fed with  these phrases "Congratulations, good news, great, excellent etc..."
That frighten us in some way ...

We need clear and objective approach...

« Reply #44 on: April 07, 2010, 07:13 »
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We are slowly fed with  these phrases "Congratulations, good news, great, excellent etc..."
That frighten us in some way ...


yep, my first reaction is, oh sh*t what now??? which certainly makes me think about what I'm doing...

(for me I was pleasantly surprised with this one :) esp. by the time I got to the extra info)

« Reply #45 on: April 07, 2010, 07:34 »
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1. How much is 123RF making, the answer is simple:
We make 25% - 13.3% = 11.7% from the transaction.

You're telling me that you're paying this third party $337 every time someone will buy a 300MB image?  Holy bananas.  Why didn't you call me?  I'd do it for $325.

Seriously, that is a really poor negotiation on your part.

Ill do it for 320$...

« Reply #46 on: April 07, 2010, 07:41 »
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Race to the bottom!


« Reply #48 on: April 07, 2010, 11:30 »
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Hello All,

...
Now for the question "Why does 123RF seem to think this is a piece of GOOD NEWS?"
Wise men say, "13.3% of something is always better than 100% (or 50% or 33.3%) of N-O-T-H-I-N-G!" We'd honestly thought that our share of 11.7% is good, because we got nothing previously, and your share of 13.3% is a little better than ours. So everyone should 'technically' be happier!

Thank you, if you have any further questions, do let me know.

Alex
for 123RF.com

Buhahahahaha! You are so funny! 60% of something is 60% of something! Your undercutting is going together with GI policy and is even worse than that.
20% is what anyone can get on GI and there is even more percentage on Corbis. Why you microstock slavemasters think that people don't know how to sell their images? Until when you will consider that 13.3% is better than nothing? You are so silly and funny!

$450 per image sold? It comes to $270 my cut at Alamy...  And I do my upsizing as I like in as many MB as needed! So, why I would even consider to upload on your agency and similar?

lisafx

« Reply #49 on: April 07, 2010, 12:04 »
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Alex, after reading your thoughtful explanations and clarifications I have a much better understanding of what's being offered. 

It definitely sounds like a positive for everyone concerned. :)

I like the suggestion from FD-amateur about uploading an original TIFF on request for an extra slice of the pie.  Certainly this would yield a higher quality final product.

Also, I agree completely with Phil about being paranoid every time I hear from one of the sites what a great new deal they are offering us.  Most of us contributors are a bit shell shocked at this point so we tend to see the glass as half empty until a persuasive case is made to the contrary.


 

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