Hi everybody, and Happy New Year!

First I would like to apologize for a long time without any regular updates. Luckily, the reason for this is that we're busy working on getting the sales up at YAY! We're still small compared to the big sites, but we're getting there!  

The last couple of months we've been working on our affiliate program (read more here: http://yaymicro.com/affiliate), SEO,  R&D on our search,  and developing an API. We’re also in the process of adding  a new partner to our third-party program. (Read more about third party and how to apply: http://yaymicro.com/view.action?page=third-party-sales-program).

Soon our API is ready for use – and that's what I'd like to get some feedback on. We've seen a need for more transparency in our industry, and my impression is that people feel they lack control of their property: their images.  Traditionally, in the image industry there's been common practice to share images between agencies, often involving many agencies (resulting small royalties to the photographers – many earning less than a microstock-photographer on some images, but they try to keep this a secret   ). With international sites, this sharing gets even more complicated, and it's easy to feel a lack of control for a photographer, and for the image agencies as well.  

We've decided to list all our partners for the API, and give you an option to Opt-out from the ones you don't want to use. You'll also get details on the commission for YAY, along with the percentage of commission provided to you. Our goal is that you'll make at least as much on an API-sale as you would if the image was sold at YAY, but the amount will vary depending on the different agreements.  

I'm wondering if there is any information or other aspects of an API that are important issues for photographers that we haven't considered?

Thanks,

Linda

CEO, YAYmicro

This info on the API's would be great to have, I am glad you are planning on providing it for contributers.  Allowing us to opt in and out of the various partners is also a super initiative.

My thoughts on the distribution and partners are very in line what what you posted.  I am worried that when my images are distributed from A > B > C and each middle man is taking a 50% or 80% cut the photographer is left with very little.

Example,
Image sells for $20 on site C
Site C takes 60% of the sale and pays site B $8.00
Site B takes 60% and passes it back to the original site A @ $3.20
site A takes their 60% and the photographer gets $1.28 = 6.4% of the sale

It would be great to know what the breakdown actually looks like and be able to opt out of the deals that don't look so attractive.

I also noticed one distributer redistributing the images that YAY sends to them, without any mention of the original photographer or YAY.  Is this practice normal / OK, and how many levels of distribution are allowed?

This info on the API's would be great to have, I am glad you are planning on providing it for contributers.  Allowing us to opt in and out of the various partners is also a super initiative.

My thoughts on the distribution and partners are very in line what what you posted.  I am worried that when my images are distributed from A > B > C and each middle man is taking a 50% or 80% cut the photographer is left with very little.

Example,
Image sells for $20 on site C
Site C takes 60% of the sale and pays site B $8.00
Site B takes 60% and passes it back to the original site A @ $3.20
site A takes their 60% and the photographer gets $1.28 = 6.4% of the sale

It would be great to know what the breakdown actually looks like and be able to opt out of the deals that don't look so attractive.

I also noticed one distributer redistributing the images that YAY sends to them, without any mention of the original photographer or YAY.  Is this practice normal / OK, and how many levels of distribution are allowed?

Hi leaf!

If you have a name we'll check that it's not in violation of any agreement. I know we do have an agreement allowing further re-distribution, but this is a practice we'll try to avoid in the future. It' pays less, and it's difficult to audit.

Linda