Quote from: Ron on September 23, 2013, 05:15

What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales.  Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED

When microstock started the cost of payouts where pretty high, and it also takes time to manage. I do think we should look for a better option, as the payment industry finally supports micropayment. I'll take it up in our next meeting.

Thanks,

Linda

Mass payments via paypal have very low fees. Also, if you pay one contributor they pay the fee, not you. Unless you are talking about internal costs (dont know how much it cost), it costs you close to nothing to pay someone their money. Its not your money.

Thanks for commenting though, its appreciated to step into the lions den.

I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.

Linda,

can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.

Thanks,
Dirk

Music and movies are entertainment, stock images are not.
Buyers/clients/users/consumers of music/movies are completely different from microstock buyers.
The first are looking for entertainment and the last is looking for an image to support a product/page/site/ad/whatever.
What this initiative says is that the price for online images is going down and more closer to zero than before.

Then, are other aspects, like the fact that resolutions are moving up for online content. Small size is a moving target and is increasing with screen resolution. Or the other fact that images can be downloaded always once displayed in the browser and nothing can prevent it.

In my opinion, pirates will still pirate because their activity generates a profit for them and attract visitors by uploading more content to their ad filled sites. People that download from pirate sites will continue to do so until their activity is big enough and in danger due to using pirate images. And buyers will continue to buy wherever they are used to until they feel the need to change to another site either because of cheaper price or because they want specific content not available on their previous place to buy.

And a final thought, what if the content servers fail? Imagine the consequences for all sites linking to the images. Any webmaster will have to consider this possibility.

Why are agencies so enthusiast to announce cheaper products as if they were not going to affect negatively the perceived value of microstock as a whole?

Hi,

Although we don't agree I think you have many good points! First, I think the product that images are a part of is entertainment, i.e. blogs and websites. The marketing channel for music is, roughly, artist - production company - seller - consumer. For images it's a bit different, with photographer - seller - user - consumer.

As for sizes, you're right that it keeps going up. Our main focus is that customers will not get a file, and they do not get a license that allows for any other use than showing the image on online content.

To combat piracy a combination of activities seems like the best solution. One is to target illegal use, another is to make legal use attractive enough. For our new site the streaming product is part of an overall mix that we hope will increase the conversion. A good image search is key, and it's easier to find the image you're looking for at the new site than on Google images and other sources people use to find "free" images. We've also added online image editing and filter, helping people adjust the images - and with streaming we also host the image. This combination offer a much better product than any piracy source will. We'll also continue to update it with features that makes image usage easier and more efficient for image users.

We're hosting the images with Amazon, and we have another hosting partner as well - so that the servers failing at YAY is not more likely than for any other hosting service you would use to store your images.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the right direction for a microstock company. Hopefully we can prove that streaming helped convert non-paying into paying customers, and that it didn't just lower the price for online use-images.



Linda

Quote from: dirkr on September 23, 2013, 06:38

Quote from: Linda - YayMicro on September 23, 2013, 05:35

I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.

Linda,

can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.

Thanks,
Dirk

Hi Dirk,

With streaming the user will get a link from YAY, not the file. With this link we can see how many impressions an image has, and we can also track the link in order to see where it is used. We'll give photographers information about impressions and what kind of sites that use our images. We also have the option to break a link if the user violates our terms etc.

Linda

That doesnt explain control of the copyright holder imo. To me it seems there is no control at all for the copyright holder, if there is any control, its by Yay.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the right direction for a microstock company. Hopefully we can prove that streaming helped convert non-paying into paying customers, and that it didn't just lower the price for online use-images.



Linda

You are hoping its going to work? And if not, you are leading the race to the bottom with content you dont own.

Quote from: Ron on September 23, 2013, 07:30

Quote from: Linda - YayMicro on September 23, 2013, 07:04

Quote from: dirkr on September 23, 2013, 06:38

Quote from: Linda - YayMicro on September 23, 2013, 05:35

I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.

Linda,

can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.

Thanks,
Dirk

Hi Dirk,

With streaming the user will get a link from YAY, not the file. With this link we can see how many impressions an image has, and we can also track the link in order to see where it is used. We'll give photographers information about impressions and what kind of sites that use our images. We also have the option to break a link if the user violates our terms etc.

Linda

That doesnt explain control of the copyright holder imo. To me it seems there is no control at all for the copyright holder, if there is any control, its by Yay.

And being such a nice company, we'll share this information with our users. The information we get from regular downloads is close to zero, so I think this is a very good improvement.

L:)

Nice companies dont keep our money when they want to close an account.

You are the CEO, make the decissions

I am butting out of this discussion now, I dont want to take it further off topic.

Cheers

Quote from: roede-orm on September 23, 2013, 07:23

Quote from: Ron on September 23, 2013, 07:35

What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales.  Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED

Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.

Yes, we're discussing a better solution to this. As for it being illegal - a photographer don't have to close their account, and we could also argue that the money up to �30 is to cover uploading and hosting expenses, reviewing etc. But, after a give amount of time, ex. 1 year, it should be possible to close the account and get all your earnings. We've only discussed it briefly during lunch hour today, but we'll look more into it later on in a formal meeting.

Thanks

Linda

You could also argue you take your commissions to cover that !

@Linda

Good point about the expenses.

@Linda

Good point about the expenses.

Thanks!

Quote from: KimsCreativeHub on September 23, 2013, 07:42

@Linda

Good point about the expenses.

Why? You give up 50%  and also want to cover their expenses for keeping your files?

I am gobsmacked.

Good point and some agencies it's more.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but isn't web use the biggest part of our business.

Yay is aggressively undercutting the market prices with this new streaming service. Yay can spin it anyway they want, but if this is a success, Yay is much more likely to convert paying customers into less paying customers. And to take marketshare from sites where customers pay more.