Yep, I've opted out.

If any of these deals were any good we would be clamouring to get in, not the other way round.

I think one of the main reasons they offer an opt out is that it is only $2 for Google to use the image royalty free for a year. Somehow they have defined royalty free as "whoever uses it on Google falls under the GOOGLE USER UMBRELLA definition", meaning that I am part of Google and therefore I can use the image royalty free under the Google license, even though I am actually a regular Joe looking for something for my project. Otherwise, why would anyone opt out at the chance to get a series of $2 royalties it it were truly "pay by each who chooses to use a particular image". I know I wouldn't opt out at the chance to make a decent, recurring royalty.  So just stitching together some fuzzy facts it's my guess that this is $2, and end of royalty potential for 12 months. I smell something very eerily similar to the Istock/Getty Google deal.  Serban keeps saying, "it falls under normal royalty guidelines" and because he keeps dodging the actual question of whether we will get $2 for each use by Google's customers and replaces it with, and I quote: "it is one that falls within the limits of the licenses".

So lets break this down. My comments are in red.

"This is not unlimited usage" Google gets to use it for 12 months, so it's not unlimited because it ends after a year.

"it is one that falls within the limits of the licenses mentioned above" This is where he is essentially saying this license is for Google and we sold it for $2 and it is a regular RF sale.  What he won't tell you is more about how the image is ALLOWED to be used because it won't be used by Google, it will be used by its customers who they classify as being "within the Google RF umbrella". This means we won't see another penny from the Google deal for 12 months. 


The W-EL has a 10,000 copies limit lifetime so you can easily compute the top limit the Royalty Free license can see in maximum 12 months. Certainly not unlimited." So this is how he defines the use as not unlimited, refusing to answer our definition of unlimited which is per customer use, not that Google gets it for 12 months and then the unlimited happens then. We want to know is that within Googles 12 month LIMIT, do we get paid for each and every use of that image by disparate Google customers within that 12 months? The answer is probably no because those customers fall under the RF license definition Dreamtime made with Google.....pig-lipstick.

"And yes, cost per download/usage as some of you mentioned are on our to-do list. " This to me answers our question. It is $2 and that's it.

Why do we have to OPT out of all partnership alliances and not have an option to just OPT out of the Google deal? That's a crummy deal.

It wouldn't be right to compare Google to a designer or ad agency in this case. It's more like the TV network or media group. Imagine if we sold images just once to Viacom or Dow Jones & Co and any time someone bought ad space from them, they let the purchaser use one of our images in their ad at no charge (beyond the advertising cost) to the buyer and no royalty to us?

We'd (rightly, IMO) be furious.

What is madness is the notion that dreamstime thinks it's a great deal to allow someone to bundle an image with an ad to entice the ad buyer to purchase and not compensate the image producer beyond this once a year token payment. Our images are the "free" plastic toy in the cereal box at this point.

A while ago I worked in a software group at a large company that sold both hardware and software. The hardware sales reps loved to "give" the customer some free software to go with their hardware as a way to close the deal. However the software groups got no credit for the sales and thus looked like one huge cost center that brought in minimal revenue.

If Google (or anyone else) wants to play that sort of game with ad sales then they need to acquire some wholly owned content that they can give away as they please - or pay more to license content to which they don't own the copyright

Our images are the "free" plastic toy in the cereal box at this point.

Bingo!!!

Congratulation on the "sell out deal" Serban Enache, Dragos Jianu, Jeff Prescott, Noelle Federico!

It gets harder and harder to respect management in any microstock company these days. We need to look hard at other options.

What really annoys me about all these deals is that it cuts my options to grow/spread  my earnings. I am no longer with DP FT DT IS and Alamy so SS share of earnings increased from 70% to roughly 90%. That worries me. I wish agencies started to respect the law and copyrights. And most of all... Respect us the contributors.