MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: cuppacoffee on January 19, 2015, 07:23
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Just announced (from Serban, on the forums) -
Hello everyone,
As some of you will recall, we advised you many months ago that we would have some exciting news to share. This is that news: Dreamstime has been selected as a beta provider of stock photos for Google display ads! Although we have agreed to keep details of our arrangement confidential, we can share with you as a selected member of our contributor community a few specifics about this relationship. We commend Google on their efforts to effectively utilize and integrate stock photography into their advertising products in a way that will be beneficial to advertisers and photographers alike.
The details of the program that we can share with you at this time are that Google has selected a large number of images from our collection for use in display ads: Google will be able to use pre-selected Dreamstime RF images only for ads, and in limited sizes to accommodate ads. During the beta period, images will not be available in a template library. These images will be used under the Royalty Free license in a beta for the next 12 months, and contributors will receive royalties soon. The royalties for the first 12 months will be based on our all-at-once subscriptions – i.e., $2.00 (non exclusive) and $2.20 (exclusive) per image. As we do with other initiatives, Dreamstime supports the volume discounts and we expect to at least double our regular royalty rate. The volume discount also reflects the use case, since these images will be used in limited-sized ads and not in more prominent uses. We have decided to provide a higher royalty rate for this launch than originally planned as a demonstration of our long-term commitment to offering fair revenue to our contributors. It is important to note when considering the amounts that we’re talking about a very high volume purchase that will hopefully increase even more over time.
Provided the first phase of this project goes as expected, after a maximum of 12 months (we all hope it will be sooner), in addition to the royalties described above, Google will initiate another volume purchase of an upgraded W-EL license for each image. We might switch images that didn't perform well with new ones, awarding royalties as appropriate. For the second stage we will award EL royalties (25%-60%). Overall the royalties will average approximately 50%.
Although we are very enthusiastic about the long-term potential for this collaboration, and we would anticipate your enthusiastic participation in this groundbreaking program, you may elect to “opt out” any time until January 31st by removing your participation in the Alliances program on your account management page. We will proceed awarding royalties after this date. If you have opted-out in the past from Alliances and wish to participate you can opt-in using same Alliances & Partnerships page (which will of course enroll in all our Alliances).
In our opinion, this is potentially not only a very attractive deal for our contributors, but with so much future potential, will ultimately be good for our entire community. It’s a collaboration with the world’s most acclaimed advertising network and is something we have dreamed of since inception of the site. This has taken many months to finalize, we thank all of our contributors for their patience and, of course, for their support through all these years.
Good times!
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http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797)
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Google purchases the image once and its millions of clients use it on ads?
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Google purchases the image once and its millions of clients use it on ads?
This was my VERY FIRST QUESTION I asked myself. I posted over in the DT forum asking this very question.
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[url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797[/url])
Thanks for posting that link, Sean. I don't normally spend time on the forums, but that thread looks like something worth monitoring.
Most of the first responses there were the usual wooyay! I may be more clueless than most, but I don't understand the deal at all. Seems wise to be cautious at this point.
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Google purchases the image once and its millions of clients use it on ads?
Déjà vu
Google seems to be good at screwing the contributors! Also, now when I read "Exciting News for Contributors" I will run like hell! :-[
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Once again an "exciting" announcement that leaves out a lot of the pertinent details. If it's a yearlong license for Google to make the images available for infinite use and we get paid $2 once, it svcks. If we get paid every time someone wants to use one of our images in a Google ad, like the Facebook/SS deal, woo yay.
I'm always suspicious when they leave out important details like that.
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Once again an "exciting" announcement that leaves out a lot of the pertinent details. If it's a yearlong license for Google to make the images available for infinite use and we get paid $2 once, it svcks. If we get paid every time someone wants to use one of our images in a Google ad, like the Facebook/SS deal, woo yay.
I'm always suspicious when they leave out important details like that.
Why do you think there is anything "left out"? In my opinion it's quite clearly written: "Google licenses those images for the next 12 months, and the royalty is $2 per image."
It's just not what we would rather think as reasonable from a contributor's perspective: "Google's clients can license those images, and the royalty is $2 per use"
Anything else would surprise me. I think the words were wisely chosen to reflect what the deal is.
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I had a $2.00 subscription sale on DT yesterday, small, licence RF. I do not allow the web usage licence, but wonder if this one was sold to Google. I have not seen $2.00 subscriptions on DT before.
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I've had 2 $2 sales.
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Thankfully I am not enrolled in third party partnerships.
The announcement is incredibly badly written and convoluted. I think I get the gist now after the thread over on DT plus here.
This deal is another terrible one for contributors. We need a commission per use. Google hates paying for content, their whole model is to present other people's content for free and rake in the cash. I would rather not have any deal with them at all than get into bed with them for peanuts.
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hmmmm... I'm showing 12 $2- subscriptions dating back into December...
I will opt out of any deal that is not pay per download/end user.
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Of my last 200 sales I've had 11 of the $2.00 sub sales - and I am not opted into any of the Alliances or partnership deals.
I'm not interested in this new deal with Google and won't be opting any of my files into the alliances -- it's all or nothing. You either opt into all of their alliances or out of all of them.
Nothing said so far makes me want to opt into all of their side deals.
Edit: why is everbody's DT meter on the left at zero today?
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I'm also opted out of alliances... I'm really not sure where the $2- subs are coming from.
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I've had 2 $2 sales.
So have I, and I didn't know what in he_ll they were for. Guess I do now.
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Quote : "During the beta period, images will not be available in a template library ..."
I had $2 sales too, but that does not have to be a Google sale.
My BIG question is : do I smell exclusivity here? If Google gets exclusivity during these 12 months, with one of my best selling images, that would mean I will lose instead of earn money ...
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I think (hope!) what they mean is that if it is an exclusive DT image you get a bit more money NOT that Google will get exclusive use. That would be insane for $2.20. You would be paying Google for the privilege of having them give your work away.
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I've been opted out of Alliances for a while now (can't remember which partner site with a crappy rate led to that, but I'm pretty sure that was why).
I had several $2 sales last week and one on Sunday, so they're definitely coming from other buyers, not just Google.
If I thought this was a good deal, I'd be urging them to allow contributors to choose individual alliances, so one could opt out of the bad deals and opt in to the favorable ones (it's just software, and an API could certainly handle something of this sort)
However the notion that because Google is technically the purchaser, they get to pay $2 royalty once for resale of the image in multiple ads over a period of time is insane. Daylight robbery is the phrase that comes to mind.
I know many weren't happy over the SS/Facebook deal, but we get a subscription royalty for every ad usage, and while that won't make me rich, it's pretty much the subscription deal I already agreed to with SS.
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the $2.00 sales are the under the 'Subscription all at Once' plan...
"These plans are now available at $39 and $69, giving access to five or ten files. The files can be downloaded anytime throughout the next 30 days. The royalties awarded are $2.00 for non-exclusive contributors and $2.20 for exclusives. These values are computed based on our historical average for downloads generated by both credits and subscriptions."
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_35047 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_35047)
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I just checked, and I am not enrolled in their alliance program. :D
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I posted something in the DT forums asking for clarification. It's all very well that they trumpet that the selected images get a $2 royalty even if no advertiser ever uses the image, but they're apparently glossing over the fact that Google can resell the image to multiple end users multiple times if an image ends up in lots of ads.
This really isn't different from the Google/Getty deal with the exception that there's an opt out offered (which is a very good thing; and the worse the deals, the more I appreciate that). I think people see Google and get all starry eyed and do daft things.
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I feel like I'm having deja vu... (the last google drive/istock licensing agreement). I seriously hope $2 isn't all we're going to get for adsense users to have full reign to plaster our image's thumbnails all over the internet. $2 per use; that would be incredible. I hope Dreamstime allows us to opt out of the google adsense program. I am interested in the other partnerships, but not one like this.
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This is very different from the iStock/google drive deal. It is a lot worse for the contributor. In the Dreamstime/google deal, an unlimited amount of end users can use our images for advertising purposes and all you get is 2 dollars. No one should ever accept this.
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I posted something in the DT forums asking for clarification. It's all very well that they trumpet that the selected images get a $2 royalty even if no advertiser ever uses the image, but they're apparently glossing over the fact that Google can resell the image to multiple end users multiple times if an image ends up in lots of ads.
This really isn't different from the Google/Getty deal with the exception that there's an opt out offered (which is a very good thing; and the worse the deals, the more I appreciate that). I think people see Google and get all starry eyed and do daft things.
Agreed - this sounds exactly like the Google/Getty deal and if that is the case (I need to look more into it) I'll certainly be opting out.
The Shutterstock/Facebook version of this type of partnership is what should be the standard.... Everyone wins in that situation.
The advertiser gets a 'free' image to use in their facebook ads, the shutterstock contributer gets paid for each image that is used in an ad (every time it is used).. Shutterstock get's their cut and facebook collects their image use fees through the ad fees. Four wins.
As far as the Dreamstime / Google deal - I'm not ready to give away a year long unlimited reselling license to my best images for $2.00
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To opt out: http://www.dreamstime.com/alliances (http://www.dreamstime.com/alliances)
I was not opted in - opted out when they wanted us to donate to a "big secret partner" and donating is almost the same as $2 unrestricted as far as I'm concerned.
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This really isn't different from the Google/Getty deal with the exception that there's an opt out offered (which is a very good thing; and the worse the deals, the more I appreciate that). I think people see Google and get all starry eyed and do daft things.
I can't find the opt out possability. Either you agree to any partnership or you opt out from any partnership. A special opt-out option for the Google deal does not exist
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[url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797[/url])
Thanks for asking the questions in the DT thread Sean. Maybe I'm just dense, but it still seems we are awaiting a clear straight forward answer of how much we will get paid ($2.00 once / more if they get used/picked in phase 2.. what is phase 2 etc.etc.) and how Google will be able to sell / resell our images :S
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This really isn't different from the Google/Getty deal with the exception that there's an opt out offered (which is a very good thing; and the worse the deals, the more I appreciate that). I think people see Google and get all starry eyed and do daft things.
I can't find the opt out possability. Either you agree to any partnership or you opt out from any partnership. A special opt-out option for the Google deal does not exist
Right - it's all or nothing. If I were interested in other alliances, I'd fuss about this, but as I'm not (almost all of these schemes to let multiple people siphon off some of the money my work earns don't interest me), I can live with it.
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This is very different from the iStock/google drive deal. It is a lot worse for the contributor. In the Dreamstime/google deal, an unlimited amount of end users can use our images for advertising purposes and all you get is 2 dollars. No one should ever accept this.
I'd have to disagree on general terms. The IS/G deal gave access to large, unwatermarked images to anyone that accessed Google Drive, without giving any real restriction on use. At least this is only for small images, embedded into ads, like the FB/SS deal, but on worse terms.
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I´m surprised nobody called for a d-day yet ;)
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I´m surprised nobody called for a d-day yet ;)
There's an opt out.
In the Getty/Google case, the Fotolia/DPC case, Deposit Photos and their credit sales for subs royalties partners, (and to a lesser extent BigStock's subscriptions-for-peanuts-royalties case) there was no opt out (Fotolia eventually caved and provided one).
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Phase 2 sounds like it could be an EL for a perpetual use with no time limit. This is the deal Google arranged with iStock I guess they want the same thing. Free images to give away to their customers while they collect repeat ad revenue.
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Well hopefully this deal is better than it looks. I'm hoping so... but so far it is looking essentially like $2.00 for unlimited uses by google customers (for the next 12 months).. with unknown terms after that.
I've opted out.
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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.
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I want to automatically opt out, once and for all, from anything described in an "exciting announcement".
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What i wonder is whether being in this deal would actually cost any other sales? If not, then maybe it's not really all that bad (though it's certainly not all that good).
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Is there anything in this 'deal' that is different than a standard RF sale to an ad agency (aside from Google's larger reach to customers)? Can not an ad agency currently purchase an RF license and resell the image as part of an ad to multiple customers of theirs without needing another license? So long as Google isn't actually giving the images to the 'customers' and just making them available as part of their ads, isn't that fair game under current RF licensing terms?
If anything, DT has talked Google into their most expensive subscription model ($2 versus $.35), and guaranteed us payment whether anyone selects our image for an ad or not... Not trying to defend this plan, as I'm not decided yet on whether this is good, bad or neutral, but when I try to see this through DT's eyes I can't really see why this is a bad idea for them (and us, from their perspective).
Is it just that I'm unhappy with selling under a sub model, when I actually know who the end customer is? :-\
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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.
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double, sorry.
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Is there anything in this 'deal' that is different than a standard RF sale to an ad agency (aside from Google's larger reach to customers)? Can not an ad agency currently purchase an RF license and resell the image as part of an ad to multiple customers of theirs without needing another license?
No, ad agencies cannot buy an image and resell it to multiple clients. (And why would they? Think how angry their clients would be if they were running campaigns for different clients using the same imagery. And they can't have different clients who sell the same products, because they sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. Though some mega-merger_agency behemoths manage this by buying up smaller agencies and keeping them separate from one another.)
In fact, ad agencies are usually the customers who buy the most expensive options, because often they need extended licenses, RM, or outright buyouts for large campaigns.
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Is there anything in this 'deal' that is different than a standard RF sale to an ad agency (aside from Google's larger reach to customers)? Can not an ad agency currently purchase an RF license and resell the image as part of an ad to multiple customers of theirs without needing another license?
No, ad agencies cannot buy an image and resell it to multiple clients. (And why would they? Think how angry their clients would be if they were running campaigns for different clients using the same imagery. And they can't have different clients who sell the same products, because they sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements.
Though some mega-merger_agency behemoths manage this by buying up smaller agencies and keeping them separate from one another.)
In fact, ad agencies are usually the customers who buy the most expensive options, because often they need extended licenses, RM, or outright buyouts for large campaigns.
Actually, Mega is right-ish. Designers can use RF images for any number of clients in designs ( yes I know there's one or two that say one project ). But it's pretty unlikely they would use it for more than a few designs. This is Google playing 'designer' but the benefit is so ridiculously one sided it hinges on being inappropriate.
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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
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My take on this is a bit different and no doubt simplistic.
Your 'agent' - Dreamstime - just licensed one of your photos to a corporation with a market cap of $344 billion, with the potential for that photo to be seen around the planet. You get $2. You should be happy with the deal he cut for you. He's a hard bargainer.
That's what you have to accept, in order to believe this is "a good deal". Are we there yet?
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Our images are the "free" plastic toy in the cereal box at this point.
Bingo!!!
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I've opted out.
Me too. It was easy. Felt good.
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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.
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Opt out for me. Sounds a terrible deal.
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Opt out.
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And.......I'm out! :D
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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.
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
which agency deal really did?
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
which agency deal really did?
Google drive could well have done.
I'm opting into this because it might be a bit more money and I'm d'mned sure none of my images is so wonderful that 10,000 advertisers would grab it for free just because it is one of a pile available free. I'll probably get a handful selected and be able to buy a beer with the proceeds.
There may be a "devalues the market" argument, but since we all opted out of the mysterious free give-away last year and there are still enough images available for DT to go ahead with this, being opted in or out is going to make no difference to that at all.
Having what is going on explained actually removes the objection I had to secret giveaways which caused me to opt out in the first place.
Besides, I'm not in the mood today to light my brand, pick up my pitchfork and head up to the grim old Romanian castle, I've got other things to do.
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Verified that it is opted out. Will revisit this setting to be sure that it is opted out till decide to close account. Many years, but no regret
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Verified that it is opted out. Will revisit this setting to be sure that it is opted out till decide to close account. Many years, but no regret
But you have to opt out of all parter alliances, right? I couldn't find any opt out option just for the Google deal, which would be nice if they offered that. Not sure if anything is happening with Google yet but I've had several $2 dl's in the last week, very unusual compared to the dozens of 35 cent sales.
On another note, but DT related, isn't it strange that DT cut our sub commissions from tiered to one size fits all then ALL OF A SUDDEN we see a flood of subs that make up 95% of my downloads now. I think they knew all along that they were going to make a big push for sub growth and knew they could do a big money grab by eliminating tiered sub commissions in prep for that growth. All of this conveniently happened at the same time.
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Yes they don't provide a selective opt-out. And i opted-out all.
I think that working with Google i will loose much more than "lost" 2$ now. This will damage my business in general.
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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.
I'm with you there, Ron. The first agency I applied to was iStock, and I was delighted when they accepted me right away. Then I got into SS on the first try, then DT, FT, P5, and Envato.
But then... after the nasty stuff started for non-exclusives at iS, I dropped out early in 2011. I dropped out of FT after the Dollar Photo Club debacle. So now I'm down to DT, which seems to be fading away, and SS, which is fast becoming a monopoly.
I'm still in P5 and Envato, but they've never done much. If DT collapses, SS will be the only game in town for me. That's sad.
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Yes they don't provide a selective opt-out. And i opted-out all.
I think that working with Google i will loose much more than "lost" 2$ now. This will damage my business in general.
If everyone has opted out, it will hurt DT's business also. What about all the "partners" who suddenly have no inventory to sell? I don't know how many deals they have, but the Google deal better be great for them if their existing partners suffer!
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Well said "for them". And i think about myself. :-)
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
This is the first thing I thought and my big reason for opting out. If one of my best sellers ends up littering the internet all over the place in Google ads, nobody is ever going to buy it again.
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I am confused that anybody who opted out from DPC where you get a sub royalty for every use would opt in to this deal where you get one time payment of $2 for unlimited use by an unlimited number of different users.
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
This is the first thing I thought and my big reason for opting out. If one of my best sellers ends up littering the internet all over the place in Google ads, nobody is ever going to buy it again.
I thought about that, too, but if it is a best-seller it is already littering the internet - and the best-sellers keep selling regardless.
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I don't know about anyone else, but I think just being pissed off is enough reason to opt out. These guys made a nice deal for themselves and gave their suppliers two bucks. It's insulting. That's enough for me.
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
This is the first thing I thought and my big reason for opting out. If one of my best sellers ends up littering the internet all over the place in Google ads, nobody is ever going to buy it again.
I thought about that, too, but if it is a best-seller it is already littering the internet - and the best-sellers keep selling regardless.
I don't understand what the mechanism might be for this deal to boost sales.
DT images (some selection) appear in Google ads. The buyers of ads don't get to look at DT (at least not for the first year) or have any reason to look at anything other than which of the freebie images they can put in their ad. They might not even know where the images come from.
If I could envision some workflow where something good (for contributors) might come from this deal, I'd be game to take some risk, but I can't.
Can you walk me through a possible scenario where this deal (first 12 months) boosts DT traffic/business and/or your sales at DT?
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Can you walk me through a possible scenario where this deal (first 12 months) boosts DT traffic/business and/or your sales at DT?
I'm not thinking about a positive effect on sales, I'm thinking that it won't have a negative effect so it might chuck a bit of beer money in the kitty. I don't see it as making much difference either way, really.
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What sucks here is that we dont know whats in the deal yet we have to choose to opt in or out before we know any details.
We have to opt in before we know whats in it. The window of opting in or out closes before we know any key factors of the deal to make an informed opt in or out business decision. Does that sound anything like Nancy Pelosis classic comment, you have to pass the bill before you know whats in it. This is exactly that scenario.
So, if we opt in and it is nothing more than $2 and the image is used 50 times, BIG FAIL.
if we opt out and then the details emerge where we can make a fair recurring return, BIG FAIL.
Only those who guess correctly win.....in some ways.
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Can you walk me through a possible scenario where this deal (first 12 months) boosts DT traffic/business and/or your sales at DT?
I'm not thinking about a positive effect on sales, I'm thinking that it won't have a negative effect so it might chuck a bit of beer money in the kitty. I don't see it as making much difference either way, really.
Ah.
If you're not on Canva yet, once they've sorted out their review backlog (not yet), give them a try for beer money for the kitty :)
I'll take another look in a year when they roll out phase 2 to see if the deal looks any better to me.
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I'm opting into this because it might be a bit more money and I'm d'mned sure none of my images is so wonderful that 10,000 advertisers would grab it for free just because it is one of a pile available free. I'll probably get a handful selected and be able to buy a beer with the proceeds.
There may be a "devalues the market" argument, but since we all opted out of the mysterious free give-away last year and there are still enough images available for DT to go ahead with this, being opted in or out is going to make no difference to that at all.
<Sigh> You won't so much 'devalue the market' but, by your actions, you certainly devalue your own portfolio. You were amongst the first to dive into Istock's PP and I'm quite sure, if you were still with FT, that you'd have opted-in to the DPC too.
There is a major problem with these 'fantastic opportunities' that involve major operators such as Google or Microsoft. As we know from previous similar deals at IS and FT you will likely lose control of any images involved forever.
A few of my images were 'selected' for both the IS and FT deals which again was supposedly for a time-limited period of one year. I got paid a handful of change for maybe 20 images. Thirty months later all the images were still available for free to anyone who wanted them and had been downloaded thousands of times. Things/personal had moved on at all of the companies involved and no-one was interested in doing anything about the issue (or could even remember what the original deal was).
As far as I'm concerned my images are widely available for cheap enough prices already. If a potential user wants to pay less then I'd rather they go elsewhere. If Google want to give images away for free then they are wealthy enough to buy the images outright or create their own content.
DT need to be stronger and negotiate a MUCH better deal for us ... or recognise what a waste of time this is and walk away from it.
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I'm opting into this because it might be a bit more money and I'm d'mned sure none of my images is so wonderful that 10,000 advertisers would grab it for free just because it is one of a pile available free. I'll probably get a handful selected and be able to buy a beer with the proceeds.
There may be a "devalues the market" argument, but since we all opted out of the mysterious free give-away last year and there are still enough images available for DT to go ahead with this, being opted in or out is going to make no difference to that at all.
<Sigh> You won't so much 'devalue the market' but, by your actions, you certainly devalue your own portfolio. You were amongst the first to dive into Istock's PP and I'm quite sure, if you were still with FT, that you'd have opted-in to the DPC too.
There is a major problem with these 'fantastic opportunities' that involve major operators such as Google or Microsoft. As we know from previous similar deals at IS and FT you will likely lose control of any images involved forever.
A few of my images were 'selected' for both the IS and FT deals which again was supposedly for a time-limited period of one year. I got paid a handful of change for maybe 20 images. Thirty months later all the images were still available for free to anyone who wanted them and had been downloaded thousands of times. Things/personal had moved on at all of the companies involved and no-one was interested in doing anything about the issue (or could even remember what the original deal was).
As far as I'm concerned my images are widely available for cheap enough prices already. If a potential user wants to pay less then I'd rather they go elsewhere. If Google want to give images away for free then they are wealthy enough to buy the images outright or create their own content.
DT need to be stronger and negotiate a MUCH better deal for us ... or recognise what a waste of time this is and walk away from it.
this time i have to agree with gostwyck.
dt has been sinking from the time they rejected anything more than 2 "similars" which was also the time they brought in facebook like.
when business starts to suck, they think it will improve by giving the shop away. much easier for agencies since the shop is filled with our work not their homes or property or children,etc
it's like your children and wife are unemployable in a world of stiff competition for jobs,
so you give your wife and children away free to be scrub maids, cha lady, escorts for free >:(
so they now have a job.
i remember once long ago, some wise promoter suggested we hold free seminars for pros. no one came because it was free (can't be that good).
they fire this promoter and the new one came in and had us charge $100 per seat. the seminar was filled.
something to think about why freebies never win paying clients, they only attract scavengers
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<Sigh> You won't so much 'devalue the market' but, by your actions, you certainly devalue your own portfolio. You were amongst the first to dive into Istock's PP and I'm quite sure, if you were still with FT, that you'd have opted-in to the DPC too.
DPC was fundamentally different from the Thinkstock. But thank you for telling me what I would have done. I didn't know that.
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If Google want to give images away for free then they are wealthy enough to buy the images outright or create their own content.
agree again. even gmail is not free as ads pay for the freebies.
while we are talking about giving away everything, may we suggest these hot shots provide us with their homes to be used for our photo-shoot for free, (and for those who are into "glamor" work, maybe we could suggest to have these hot shots provide us with their wives and daughters to serve them cookies during shoots at their homes, or model for them for free too ) .
absurd idea isn't it?
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<Sigh> You won't so much 'devalue the market' but, by your actions, you certainly devalue your own portfolio. You were amongst the first to dive into Istock's PP and I'm quite sure, if you were still with FT, that you'd have opted-in to the DPC too.
DPC was fundamentally different from the Thinkstock. But thank you for telling me what I would have done. I didn't know that.
Well, as you pointed out a few posts earlier, you are always happy to opt-in your images if you think there might be a beer in it for you. Me thinks a leopard cannot change his spots.
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<Sigh> You won't so much 'devalue the market' but, by your actions, you certainly devalue your own portfolio. You were amongst the first to dive into Istock's PP and I'm quite sure, if you were still with FT, that you'd have opted-in to the DPC too.
DPC was fundamentally different from the Thinkstock. But thank you for telling me what I would have done. I didn't know that.
Well, as you pointed out a few posts earlier, you are always happy to opt-in your images if you think there might be a beer in it for you. Me thinks a leopard cannot change his spots.
I didn't say "always", I was referring to my assessment of this particular issue. I don't think that having some thumbnails pop up in Google adverts will adversely affect ordinary sales. So it is a case of some images earning a little bit more than they would otherwise. Of course, I might be wrong, but as far as I can see there isn't really any downside to this (and there certainly is with the DPC which is aiming at undercutting the entire industry - that's a completely different kettle of fish).
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No way I'm handing out my portfolio forever for 2 bucks per image.
I make that every couple of months.
This is a pure crap of a deal.
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I didn't say "always", I was referring to my assessment of this particular issue. I don't think that having some thumbnails pop up in Google adverts will adversely affect ordinary sales. So it is a case of some images earning a little bit more than they would otherwise. Of course, I might be wrong, but as far as I can see there isn't really any downside to this (and there certainly is with the DPC which is aiming at undercutting the entire industry - that's a completely different kettle of fish).
Well the PP wasn't "undercutting the entire industry" either, it was 'just' undercutting the subscription royalties paid to contributors at SS, DT and FT. But you still volunteered your portfolio for it at the first opportunity. I hope you enjoyed the beer you got out of it whilst the rest of us successfully held out for the higher royalty payments we earned for you.
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If DT doesn't have the balls to chime into this discussion that tells me enough - I am out >:(
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whilst the rest of us successfully held out for the higher royalty payments we earned for you.
I really don't recall that, as far as I remember the TS rate has been the same ever since I joined.
* Correction * I see that they increased the rate from 25 to 28c in Jan 2011, a year after the programme started, not sure you can claim credit for that, though.
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If DT doesn't have the balls to chime into this discussion that tells me enough - I am out >:(
DT won't respond here because the first question I'd ask would be "did you receive an upfront payment from Google for this deal, in addition to per-image revenues, and if so what was the amount?" And they'd have to reply "terms of the deal are not being disclosed".
Then they'd tell us that these are sales which we otherwise would not have gotten. But what they really mean is, sales THEY otherwise would not have gotten.
And that's all we'd get.
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I certainly have my suspicions on this and most deals these days that there is a per image component that we get a percent of and there is an up front deal fee (or however the accountants justify it) that we will never see a piece of. I can see why the buyers and the sites would be fine with that and why it would hurt us.
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I opted my 3000 images out. This is a goldmine for dt and peanuts for us.
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So there is still nobody thinking about whether or not this would actually affect any other sales?
which agency deal really did?
Google drive could well have done.
I'm opting into this because it might be a bit more money and I'm d'mned sure none of my images is so wonderful that 10,000 advertisers would grab it for free just because it is one of a pile available free. I'll probably get a handful selected and be able to buy a beer with the proceeds.
There may be a "devalues the market" argument, but since we all opted out of the mysterious free give-away last year and there are still enough images available for DT to go ahead with this, being opted in or out is going to make no difference to that at all.
Having what is going on explained actually removes the objection I had to secret giveaways which caused me to opt out in the first place.
Besides, I'm not in the mood today to light my brand, pick up my pitchfork and head up to the grim old Romanian castle, I've got other things to do.
Tend to agree. It's all very well to talk about licencing for peanuts but most of us went down that road by putting material on subs sites in the first place.
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... It's all very well to talk about licencing for peanuts but most of us went down that road by putting material on subs sites in the first place.
I think there's a big difference between agreeing to a small per sale amount in return for high volume sales - 300 x y - and a small amount for an unlimited number of sales - (300 x 0) + 5y
* Correction * I see that they increased the rate from 25 to 28c in Jan 2011, a year after the programme started, not sure you can claim credit for that, though.
There was a big forum fight over that raise. A number of exclusives, including me, opted out of the PP and argued strenuously that this notion that subs buyers were different and it wouldn't erode credit sales was nonsense. Because of the holdouts, they tried to encourage more people to opt in by very slightly increasing the bribe royalty.
Back then, iStock was still a major player and provided substantial income to indies and exclusives alike; it was worth the risks of a fight to try and get the contributor situation improved. DT is a fast-sinking also ran, so given they've let us opt out, I'm not sure they're worth arguing with - except to say that the deal sucks for contributors in spite of all their happy talk :)
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What sucks here is that we dont know whats in the deal yet we have to choose to opt in or out before we know any details.
We have to opt in before we know whats in it. The window of opting in or out closes before we know any key factors of the deal to make an informed opt in or out business decision. Does that sound anything like Nancy Pelosis classic comment, you have to pass the bill before you know whats in it. This is exactly that scenario.
So, if we opt in and it is nothing more than $2 and the image is used 50 times, BIG FAIL.
if we opt out and then the details emerge where we can make a fair recurring return, BIG FAIL.
Only those who guess correctly win.....in some ways.
If it was a good deal for us, no reason to keep it secret. It would not be a guessing game if it was positive for contribs. They treat us like marks in a con game, not like informed business partners. Any casino owner will tell you, when you gamble odds are always in the house favor.
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I really don't recall that, as far as I remember the TS rate has been the same ever since I joined.
* Correction * I see that they increased the rate from 25 to 28c in Jan 2011, a year after the programme started, not sure you can claim credit for that, though.
No, I wouldn't expect you remember the facts let alone to thank or even acknowledge the steadfast position of your fellow contributors that secured your royalty increase. Why would you?
For several years you have quite deliberately undermined your fellow contributor ... as you are doing yet again with DT ... because apparently, to quote yourself, you think you might get a beer out of it. Well done you.
Hope you enjoy that beer and can live with how you sold out so cheaply, once again, to the detriment of your fellow contributor. Like I said, a leopard really doesn't change it's spots. Once a cheap sell-out ... always a cheap sell-out.
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If DT doesn't have the balls to chime into this discussion that tells me enough - I am out >:(
DT won't respond here because the first question I'd ask would be "did you receive an upfront payment from Google for this deal, in addition to per-image revenues, and if so what was the amount?" And they'd have to reply "terms of the deal are not being disclosed".
Then they'd tell us that these are sales which we otherwise would not have gotten. But what they really mean is, sales THEY otherwise would not have gotten.
And that's all we'd get.
I doubt you will ever see DT respond here considering the last time he visited (around 2 years ago) Serban was treated so badly he said he'd had enough and would NEVER speak up on MSG again.
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I doubt you will ever see DT respond here considering the last time he visited (around 2 years ago) Serban was treated so badly he said he'd had enough and would NEVER speak up on MSG again.
Well that shouldn't happen. I can promise that if he did show up, I'd be polite. But I would ask those questions. If he refused to answer, then I'd have to ask why he came here at all.
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I really don't recall that, as far as I remember the TS rate has been the same ever since I joined.
* Correction * I see that they increased the rate from 25 to 28c in Jan 2011, a year after the programme started, not sure you can claim credit for that, though.
No, I wouldn't expect you remember the facts let alone to thank or even acknowledge the steadfast position of your fellow contributors that secured your royalty increase. Why would you?
For several years you have quite deliberately undermined your fellow contributor ... as you are doing yet again with DT ... because apparently, to quote yourself, you think you might get a beer out of it. Well done you.
Hope you enjoy that beer and can live with how you sold out so cheaply, once again, to the detriment of your fellow contributor. Like I said, a leopard really doesn't change it's spots. Once a cheap sell-out ... always a cheap sell-out.
Total nonsense - and as I said once before, it's a bit thick to be lectured by someone who constantly calls on his fellow contributors to man the barricades and then after declaring that iStock is so outrageous that he will probably never upload there again (and urging his fellow contributors to join him in sacrificing income) quietly chickens out a month later ... at exactly the same time that I started uploading again after I said that I would temporarily suspend uploads as a gesture. Your stand on principle lasts as long as my temporary gestures, and you then quietly leave your followers in the lurch ... a veritable Napoleon, abandoning his Grand Army at Moscow!
Going back to TS, you may - with your excellent memory for ancient spats - remember the reason you gave me for not joining "you probably won't see $30 a month, it's not worth it" and that you were a bit miffed when you belatedly discovered that your return would have been five or ten times your estimate and you had gone without that for a couple of years. It's like the old joke about a guy asking a girl if she would sleep with him for a million bucks: "oh yes," she coos. "well, what about $10 then?" he asks. "What sort of girl do you think I am?!!!" "We've already established that," he replies, "now it's just a matter of haggling about the price." The funny thing is, that if you weren't so aggressive then people might have told you in this forum how much you were missing out on from TS.
You're not logical, either, because you admitted earlier that being part of the DT/Google deal wasn't going to undermine other contributors, though you said it would undermine my own portfolio. Now you accuse me of undermining my fellow contributors "again".
However, contrary to your belief you are not the Voice of Microstock (there would be more people on this thread and this site if you were), though you may be good at working a crowd and browbeating those who disagree with you into silence (which happens to be a tactic that doesn't work with me - though according to Pixart it's a tactic that worked on Serban).
What I have done in this thread is not to "undermine my fellow contributors", it is to let them know what my opinions are so that they can see another point of view. Obviously, several people disagree with me, from the "down" arrows, but that's fair enough. Unlike you I don't hold to the Stalinist notion that my view is the only one that should be heard. As far as I can see the latest DT deal is not going to hurt us and one of your arguments against it - that Google can afford to buy expensive content so it shouldn't do a deal with the micros - makes no sense at all, it's just an argument against microstock in general. I also think that, being realistic rather than talking about hypothetical cases, it is unlikely that the same images will turn up in ads for many different Google customers, there may be some that don't get used at all, so I'm not convinced by the argument about images swamping the internet and being devalued (I don't think there is any evidence that simply being popular and being seen a lot damages an images sale value).
So my opinion is that this whole rabble-rousing exercise is misguided and a waste of time that will just cost your supporters a little bit of money and do them no good at all. It's fine for you to disagree, but never forget that you sold out your supporters over iStock because - as you say - a leopard never changes its spots: once a turncoat, always a turncoat - and I really don't want to have to remind you again.
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Opted out, as it didn't make financial sense to me from a contributors point.
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I really don't recall that, as far as I remember the TS rate has been the same ever since I joined.
* Correction * I see that they increased the rate from 25 to 28c in Jan 2011, a year after the programme started, not sure you can claim credit for that, though.
No, I wouldn't expect you remember the facts let alone to thank or even acknowledge the steadfast position of your fellow contributors that secured your royalty increase. Why would you?
For several years you have quite deliberately undermined your fellow contributor ... as you are doing yet again with DT ... because apparently, to quote yourself, you think you might get a beer out of it. Well done you.
Hope you enjoy that beer and can live with how you sold out so cheaply, once again, to the detriment of your fellow contributor. Like I said, a leopard really doesn't change it's spots. Once a cheap sell-out ... always a cheap sell-out.
Total nonsense - and as I said once before, it's a bit thick to be lectured by someone who constantly calls on his fellow contributors to man the barricades and then after declaring that iStock is so outrageous that he will probably never upload there again (and urging his fellow contributors to join him in sacrificing income) quietly chickens out a month later ...
However, contrary to your belief you are not the Voice of Microstock (there would be more people on this thread and this site if you were), though you may be good at working a crowd and browbeating those who disagree with you into silence (which happens to be a tactic that doesn't work with me - though according to Pixart it's a tactic that worked on Serban).
What I have done in this thread is not to "undermine my fellow contributors", it is to let them know what my opinions are so that they can see another point of view. Obviously, several people disagree with me, from the "down" arrows, but that's fair enough. Unlike you I don't hold to the Stalinist notion that my view is the only one that should be heard.
Excellent post
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My take on this is a bit different and no doubt simplistic.
Your 'agent' - Dreamstime - just licensed one of your photos to a corporation with a market cap of $344 billion, with the potential for that photo to be seen around the planet. You get $2. You should be happy with the deal he cut for you. He's a hard bargainer.
That's what you have to accept, in order to believe this is "a good deal". Are we there yet?
There was nothing stopping this from happening before, though, for $0.35 to the contributor! Starbucks could purchase a shot of coffee beans and plaster it all over the world, Hilton could print wall art in their hotel chain, a web designer could use our images for Fortune 500 company websites, etc. Did Serban drive a hard bargain? Is it any kind of 'good deal' for contributors? No. But did he attract a large client to purchase RF licensing from DT? Yes. Surely better news for the site than contributors, though...
When you read between the lines in people's posts, I think the real complaint here is that sites sell images as RF for subscription (or low dollar) pricing at all. This deal is just a sad reminder of the potential of what one agrees to, when one agrees to sell RF under a subscription model... This use by Google sounds to me exactly like what the RF license was intended for (which is to say nothing about getting good returns for the contributor):
What Royalty-Free means is that you pay for the image only once and then you can use it as many times as you like, with just a few restrictions. In other words, there are no license fees except the initial fee and no other royalties to be paid except those included in the initial cost.
...you may use the image in a concept in as many websites as you want, for any number of clients.
Their announcement sounds more like a news release for shareholders, than for contributors!
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A while ago I was directly contacted by DT asking my permission to use a certain number of my images in their beta test program. Their email was considerate and polite, and I was given an easy way to opt out - which I did since I didn't particularly like the deal. I understand that the agency might be looking for new sources of revenue and trying new things out, and I also don't have to like everything they are doing, but if they are properly informing me and giving me an easy opt out - I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I don't see a problem with that at all. This is how it should be.
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...When you read between the lines in people's posts, I think the real complaint here is that sites sell images as RF for subscription (or low dollar) pricing at all. This deal is just a sad reminder of the potential of what one agrees to, when one agrees to sell RF under a subscription model... This use by Google sounds to me exactly like what the RF license was intended for (which is to say nothing about getting good returns for the contributor):...
I don't think it is at all a typical RF use - it's more like Google becoming a distributor to all the companies it sells an ad with that image to.
In the "normal" way of things, each company buying an ad would have to purchase an RF license for the smallest size to use the image in their ad. And that's very much how SS's deal with Facebook works - we get a subscription royalty for each ad run; what Facebook has done is make it easy for the ad customer to do this by taking the image purchase complexities off their plate.
In the DT/Google scheme, the contributor gets paid a very small amount once for 12 months of unlimited ads.
As I said above "I think there's a big difference between agreeing to a small per sale amount in return for high volume sales - 300 x y - and a small amount for an unlimited number of sales - (300 x 0) + 5y"
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These days I don’t think that there is a “normal” way of things when it comes to the purchase of microstock images. I worked for a large company that produced newspaper fliers for many clients. They would buy a stock image (microstock) and use it in many different print vehicles, mainly newspaper inserts. The example I always like to use is that of Danny Smythe’s wonderful image of a simple orange on a white background (we’ve all seen it and probably never paid any attention). The image was purchased by the company and then used in every grocery store newspaper ad under the sun in every state in the US when oranges were in season. They probably should have purchased the license for extended seats but didn’t know or care that that license even existed. No one kept track. They still use the image and I’ve been gone 7 years. Once the image was purchased and thrown in the pool of other images it was free to be used as needed and was, over and over again for multiple clients. Is it right? No. Does it happen more than we would like to know about. Yes.
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These days I don’t think that there is a “normal” way of things when it comes to the purchase of microstock images. I worked for a large company that produced newspaper fliers for many clients. They would buy a stock image (microstock) and use it in many different print vehicles, mainly newspaper inserts. The example I always like to use is that of Danny Smythe’s wonderful image of a simple orange on a white background (we’ve all seen it and probably never paid any attention). The image was purchased by the company and then used in every grocery store newspaper ad under the sun in every state in the US when oranges were in season. They probably should have purchased the license for extended seats but didn’t know or care that that license even existed. No one kept track. They still use the image and I’ve been gone 7 years. Once the image was purchased and thrown in the pool of other images it was free to be used as needed and was, over and over again for multiple clients. Is it right? No. Does it happen more than we would like to know about. Yes.
Too bad this happens. But in this we are being asked to consent to this sort of abuse, not being random victims of it.
And I agree with Jo Ann. Each company buying an ad should pay at least a sub royalty for the image to make it fair or reasonable.
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In this deal google becomes a redistributor, which is strictly prohibited by existing licenses and is one of the only things that is preventing the whole business from collapsing.
RF low prices are sustainable because the price is per single use/client. There is no way that a sane person would consider this deal as a single use on google part, it's a redistribution loud and clear.
Now imagine that thinkstock paid $2 to istock users once and licensed the images indefinitely, suddenly $0.28 per download is a fantastic deal.
And this could apply to any other partner, POD site, ad agency.
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These days I don’t think that there is a “normal” way of things when it comes to the purchase of microstock images. I worked for a large company that produced newspaper fliers for many clients. They would buy a stock image (microstock) and use it in many different print vehicles, mainly newspaper inserts. The example I always like to use is that of Danny Smythe’s wonderful image of a simple orange on a white background (we’ve all seen it and probably never paid any attention). The image was purchased by the company and then used in every grocery store newspaper ad under the sun in every state in the US when oranges were in season. They probably should have purchased the license for extended seats but didn’t know or care that that license even existed. No one kept track. They still use the image and I’ve been gone 7 years. Once the image was purchased and thrown in the pool of other images it was free to be used as needed and was, over and over again for multiple clients. Is it right? No. Does it happen more than we would like to know about. Yes.
Too bad this happens. But in this we are being asked to consent to this sort of abuse, not being random victims of it.
And I agree with Jo Ann. Each company buying an ad should pay at least a sub royalty for the image to make it fair or reasonable.
+10
Ad agencies working on multi million dollar campaigns pay peanuts for our work.
Total rip off!
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In this deal google becomes a redistributor, which is strictly prohibited by existing licenses and is one of the only things that is preventing the whole business from collapsing.
RF low prices are sustainable because the price is per single use/client. There is no way that a sane person would consider this deal as a single use on google part, it's a redistribution loud and clear.
Now imagine that thinkstock paid $2 to istock users once and licensed the images indefinitely, suddenly $0.28 per download is a fantastic deal.
And this could apply to any other partner, POD site, ad agency.
This
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I wonder where the bottom is. The more announcements I see like this the more I think we're not even close.
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A while ago I was directly contacted by DT asking my permission to use a certain number of my images in their beta test program. Their email was considerate and polite, and I was given an easy way to opt out - which I did since I didn't particularly like the deal. I understand that the agency might be looking for new sources of revenue and trying new things out, and I also don't have to like everything they are doing, but if they are properly informing me and giving me an easy opt out - I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I don't see a problem with that at all. This is how it should be.
Very good point here. I'm opted out and don't particularly like the deal, but a big applause to Dreamstime for making an easy opt-out before the deal launches.
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I used to run google adwords campaigns for my business. To get my ad seen on the first page for some keywords I had to pay 5 dollars per click. On average I was paying between 30-1.50 per click.
Paying 30 cents for the right picture is less than peanuts for the google adwords user. These are not private bloggers, this is straightforward commercial use.
I really cannot understand the idea of allowing Google to freely redistribute even small files for commercial advertising and just be paid 2 dollars.
But I appreciate that I was given an opt out and removed my files. It is sad, because dreamstime has a good reputation I decided to opt in end of last year to see if it is worth it. It was the only company I was opted in for distribution deals.
They announced the plan in time and gave us an opt out. That is definitely more than the other agencies did.
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Same here, I was only opted in for partner sites at DT, but have now opted out there also. It is good they give us the opportunity, maybe they learned something from the DPC thing.
I also got that mail from DT last year, they wanted to use a couple I my images for the beta test program and I agreed to it. It was not a problem for me with those two images. But I have not heard anything more about those images. Guess I will never know if they have been sold and used within the program, because I should not get paid in the beta program. Now I regret i agreed.
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
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A while ago I was directly contacted by DT asking my permission to use a certain number of my images in their beta test program. Their email was considerate and polite, and I was given an easy way to opt out - which I did since I didn't particularly like the deal. I understand that the agency might be looking for new sources of revenue and trying new things out, and I also don't have to like everything they are doing, but if they are properly informing me and giving me an easy opt out - I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I don't see a problem with that at all. This is how it should be.
Very good point here. I'm opted out and don't particularly like the deal, but a big applause to Dreamstime for making an easy opt-out before the deal launches.
Not really. It would have been much better if we could opt out only from that deal.
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+1 for good that DT offered the opt out and properly notified us, as opposed to FL for example. People can do what they like with their images and DT can enter into any deal it wants, just not with my work.
I have to reiterate that I think this is a terrible deal, you only have to sell one license for your image to a google ads user to make the same as the thousands of downloads you will be giving away for $2.
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Not really. It would have been much better if we could opt out only from that deal.
I agree completely. We had to opt out from all partners just because of this deal. I'm still not sure what will be the impact on our DT income but it will not be good considering the free-fall on the income in all agencies. Another hit is not good at all.
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I was already opted out of deals with DT and my income has been rising with them, so I wouldn't worry too much about opting out.
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I can't be bothered with these penny pinching carpet baggers I opted out
They only made round $16 maximum per month with over 1,000 images any way why should even raise my pulse thinking about their BS "exciting deals" when they know and I know it means jack to me in terms of income. ::)
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I was already opted out of deals with DT and my income has been rising with them, so I wouldn't worry too much about opting out.
I had a happy surprise on DT this morning.
A few days after opting out of their partners program because of Google, and after a loooooooong string of sub sales, I found one 9-credit download ($2.59) and two 10-credit downloads ($2.88 each)… all scenic shots of a Kansas wildlife refuge that I photographed last fall and uploaded in December.
It was a real "deja vu all over again" moment that reminded me why I loved DT so much my first years with them. How sweet if they could go back to that model, but I doubt it will ever happen.
Still, I have to wonder… could it be (as Justanotherphotographer's experience suggests) that opting out of partner deals on DT actually might make the old-fashioned credit sales come back???
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Still, I have to wonder… could it be (as Justanotherphotographer's experience suggests) that opting out of partner deals on DT actually might make the old-fashioned credit sales come back???
I don't think so, I've had 12 of them in the last 10 days, both before and after I opted back into the scheme so it doesn't seem to make any difference either way.
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So someone can sum this up? We get payed once for google unlimited use (12 months). Is that correct?
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
Either Google walks away or they negotiate a fair rate for the artists. (EDIT - when I said "They" I meant DT would have to come up with something better for their artists or they won't have any in the deal)
Don't forget - if everyone opts out DT will have no content to sell via their OTHER partners, so they lose more than the Google revenue.
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So someone can sum this up? We get payed once for google unlimited use (12 months). Is that correct?
Seems to be correct.
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
Either Google walks away or they negotiate a fair rate for the artists.
Don't forget - if everyone opts out DT will have no content to sell via their OTHER partners, so they lose more than the Google revenue.
This seems both pointless speculation and rather confused. Google can't remove the opt-out, only DT can do that. And if they do, it means you are either fully in or you have to leave the agency - iStock did something similar and even the most ferocious critics of Thinkstock quietly knuckled under and accepted their files being sent there.
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When I said "They" I meant DT would have to come up with something better for their artists or they won't have any left in the deal - not Google. This was likely some kindof contra deal where Google exchanged a certain value of advertising credits and DT gave them the sweet redistribution license. So when they (DT) say they pay $2 per image, they likely received 10 times that.
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When I said "They" I meant DT would have to come up with something better for their artists or they won't have any left in the deal - not Google. This was likely some kindof contra deal where Google exchanged a certain value of advertising credits and DT gave them the sweet redistribution license. So when they (DT) say they pay $2 per image, they likely received 10 times that.
Even the DPC campaign only got about 25% of images opted out so you can pretty much guarantee that whatever happens, DT would have 80+% of the collection opted in. Look at how many (or few) people have shown an interest in this thread.
As for what their deal is - I've no idea, though I can't imagine DT agreeing to pay out the cash if it's not receiving cash from Google. If it were an advertising contra deal, then everybody would gain if it generated extra business, the cash would only be a part of the benefit. I doubt if it will be that good for us.
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It is very insulting how we are being treated. I feel sick to my stomach. All the work we put into our photographs and they think we should live off of pennies. I had no idea I was opted in. Thank you for letting me know how to opt out.
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
Either Google walks away or they negotiate a fair rate for the artists.
Don't forget - if everyone opts out DT will have no content to sell via their OTHER partners, so they lose more than the Google revenue.
This seems both pointless speculation and rather confused. Google can't remove the opt-out, only DT can do that. And if they do, it means you are either fully in or you have to leave the agency - iStock did something similar and even the most ferocious critics of Thinkstock quietly knuckled under and accepted their files being sent there.
I wouldn't call it pointless speculation. More like preemptive planning.
Google is a giant used to getting their way. DT is a small fish. This joint deal clearly is lining someone's pockets at both Google and DT regardless of how negatively it affects contributors. So if Google doesn't like all of the opt-outs what do you think is going to happen? Right. They'll tell DT either to disable the opt-out or the money faucet gets turned off for DT.
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Look at how many (or few) people have shown an interest in this thread.
This thread only began on Jan 19, just 3 days ago. Not like it's ancient history.
There are days when I have time to spend checking out these threads, then I can go a month without showing up at all. I suspect there are many MSG followers who are late coming to this thread. Angelawaye (2 posts up) seems to be an example.
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Still, I have to wonder… could it be (as Justanotherphotographer's experience suggests) that opting out of partner deals on DT actually might make the old-fashioned credit sales come back???
I don't think so. I've been opted out of partner sales at DT for about a year. I have had these lurches between subs sales dominating (most was 19/20 on one sales page) and bursts of credit sales (where it's more like 50/50 for a bit). I can't explain the lurches - no other agency that sells both subs and credit sales has patterns like these - but I don't think it's different from what I saw before dumping the partner deals.
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Still, I have to wonder… could it be (as Justanotherphotographer's experience suggests) that opting out of partner deals on DT actually might make the old-fashioned credit sales come back???
I don't think so. I've been opted out of partner sales at DT for about a year. I have had these lurches between subs sales dominating (most was 19/20 on one sales page) and bursts of credit sales (where it's more like 50/50 for a bit). I can't explain the lurches - no other agency that sells both subs and credit sales has patterns like these - but I don't think it's different from what I saw before dumping the partner deals.
You're probably right, Jo Ann. I've seen those wild swings too. Just wishful thinking on my part. :-\
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So if Google doesn't like all of the opt-outs what do you think is going to happen? Right. They'll tell DT either to disable the opt-out or the money faucet gets turned off for DT.
Yes, of course there might be a possibility of Google threatening to cancel the deal if there was not sufficient material available, in which case DT might decide to make participation a condition of continued representation on their site (but it's still DT's decision, not Google's). So what would you do then, close your account at DT or agree to the changed terms? That's the only contingency planning needed.
In any case, as at least 80% of the collection is almost certain to remain available given previous experience of opt out campaigns, it seems very unlikely that Google would feel there was insufficient choice.
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I see some $2 sales, does this mean that the images have been sold in these "unlimited templates"?
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YUCK! Glad I've opted out long time ago. :o
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I see some $2 sales, does this mean that the images have been sold in these "unlimited templates"?
No, those are from small subscription packages http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/)$2-subscriptions/?PHPSESSID=7dc6502945dc4dbfa1c835084cb54ca2
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This is why I started two years ago opting out of entire agencies that were doing things like so called partner programs. They didn't tell us who or how much and tried to hide the truth. I felt I would lose control of my work and have no way of knowing who was using it.
It only got worse with the DP back door deals last year, where we got a sub commission for some reseller charging high prices, close to EL levels. (potentially it was the same people who ran DP?) Then the deals upon deals, like this?
I know some people actually depend on this income and can't break away from the abusive relationships. But most have seen the trend and are making other provisions for making money from their work and getting away from Microstock.
I'm happy at two agencies now, SS and IS, and this type of deal is why. The invisible and unaccountable partners are another. The trend for agencies to come up with new ways to screw contributors is another.
I wonder where the bottom is. The more announcements I see like this the more I think we're not even close.
You covered it just fine.
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This is why I started two years ago opting out of entire agencies that were doing things like so called partner programs. They didn't tell us who or how much and tried to hide the truth. I felt I would lose control of my work and have no way of knowing who was using it.
It only got worse with the DP back door deals last year, where we got a sub commission for some reseller charging high prices, close to EL levels. (potentially it was the same people who ran DP?) Then the deals upon deals, like this?
I know some people actually depend on this income and can't break away from the abusive relationships. But most have seen the trend and are making other provisions for making money from their work and getting away from Microstock.
I'm happy at two agencies now, SS and IS, and this type of deal is why. The invisible and unaccountable partners are another. The trend for agencies to come up with new ways to screw contributors is another.
I wonder where the bottom is. The more announcements I see like this the more I think we're not even close.
You covered it just fine.
but even ss is not all that transparent with partner programs. i still see some partners which are just some individual with their own blog site linking to selected images from each ss contributors.
but this is not an agency but a person . if this is the case, eventually, everyone can call themself an agency of ss,etc
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
Either Google walks away or they negotiate a fair rate for the artists.
Don't forget - if everyone opts out DT will have no content to sell via their OTHER partners, so they lose more than the Google revenue.
This seems both pointless speculation and rather confused. Google can't remove the opt-out, only DT can do that. And if they do, it means you are either fully in or you have to leave the agency - iStock did something similar and even the most ferocious critics of Thinkstock quietly knuckled under and accepted their files being sent there.
Totally different situation to Istock and TS. Istock was most people's top or second agency then, plus by the time opt out was removed they were paying .28 per download.
From the info in this site, DT earnings has fallen to almost nil for most of us. If they remove the opt out, they will lose a lot of content. Mine for sure.
As it stands now there is an opt out. I am not going to fall over myself praising DT for the opt out tho, cuz they make me opt out of all alliances just to avoid this one crappy deal.
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Those sites aren't partners and aren't agencies of SS. Off the subject unfortunately.
My concern is undisclosed partners, api sites, agencies that re-sell and re-package our work and all we see is some Sub reported, never knowing who or what. This could lead to complete loss of all rights and does lead to anyone participating with their images being used in unknown ways by unknown parties, for undisclosed sums.
Loss of all control or tracking, loss of your work because you don't know who has it or what license they are re-distributing it under.
That kind of partner. >:(
but even ss is not all that transparent with partner programs. i still see some partners which are just some individual with their own blog site linking to selected images from each ss contributors.
but this is not an agency but a person . if this is the case, eventually, everyone can call themself an agency of ss,etc
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
Either Google walks away or they negotiate a fair rate for the artists.
Don't forget - if everyone opts out DT will have no content to sell via their OTHER partners, so they lose more than the Google revenue.
This seems both pointless speculation and rather confused. Google can't remove the opt-out, only DT can do that. And if they do, it means you are either fully in or you have to leave the agency - iStock did something similar and even the most ferocious critics of Thinkstock quietly knuckled under and accepted their files being sent there.
Totally different situation to Istock and TS. Istock was most people's top or second agency then, plus by the time opt out was removed they were paying .28 per download.
From the info in this site, DT earnings has fallen to almost nil for most of us. If they remove the opt out, they will lose a lot of content. Mine for sure.
As it stands now there is an opt out. I am not going to fall over myself praising DT for the opt out tho, cuz they make me opt out of all alliances just to avoid this one crappy deal.
But look at what this actually means - as long as a site is delivering decent returns people will swallow their pride and accept the crappy deals. It comes back to the bottom line - yet it is the sites that DO deliver that will do most damage with lousy deals, sites that aren't selling don't have the same impact on the industry.
I understand that people get mad over getting very small returns for the effort they put into their work, but that has always been the ethos of microstock. When you get offered "insulting" deals, it's not so much the agencies that have changed, it's the expectations of the contributors.
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Where can I opt out? Sorry, couldn't find it!
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Found it!
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As it stands now there is an opt out. I am not going to fall over myself praising DT for the opt out tho, cuz they make me opt out of all alliances just to avoid this one crappy deal.
Amen, PB.
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So let's say that Google decides offering an opt-out doesn't make sense for their deal with DT and removes the option to opt-out. What then?
Either Google walks away or they negotiate a fair rate for the artists.
Don't forget - if everyone opts out DT will have no content to sell via their OTHER partners, so they lose more than the Google revenue.
This seems both pointless speculation and rather confused. Google can't remove the opt-out, only DT can do that. And if they do, it means you are either fully in or you have to leave the agency - iStock did something similar and even the most ferocious critics of Thinkstock quietly knuckled under and accepted their files being sent there.
Totally different situation to Istock and TS. Istock was most people's top or second agency then, plus by the time opt out was removed they were paying .28 per download.
From the info in this site, DT earnings has fallen to almost nil for most of us. If they remove the opt out, they will lose a lot of content. Mine for sure.
As it stands now there is an opt out. I am not going to fall over myself praising DT for the opt out tho, cuz they make me opt out of all alliances just to avoid this one crappy deal.
But look at what this actually means - as long as a site is delivering decent returns people will swallow their pride and accept the crappy deals. It comes back to the bottom line - yet it is the sites that DO deliver that will do most damage with lousy deals, sites that aren't selling don't have the same impact on the industry.
I understand that people get mad over getting very small returns for the effort they put into their work, but that has always been the ethos of microstock. When you get offered "insulting" deals, it's not so much the agencies that have changed, it's the expectations of the contributors.
Listen, I think we have to each make our own choices, and your entitled to your own opinion, but to me, there is a big difference between .28 per customer download and $2 one time for unlimited usages to many customers.
Yeah I agreed to sell for pennies when I joined micro, but that was a set amount per customer with no redistribution allowed. This is a whole different thing . Only thing I seen that is as bad was the Getty Google deal and the Getty free blog use giveaway.
If Getty gives our images free to bloggers, and Google gives free thru Drive and Google Ads, who's left to PAY us for our images?
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If Getty gives our images free to bloggers, and Google gives free thru Drive and Google Ads, who's left to PAY us for our images?
Yep.
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If Getty gives our images free to bloggers, and Google gives free thru Drive and Google Ads, who's left to PAY us for our images?
That's a sensible question. My conclusion was that Google Ads hasn't been a market for my work in the past and I don't think this deal will impact the existing pool of buyers at all. So far, I haven't seen any persuasive post explaining how it would. But the question you ask is the reason i don't have anything in DT's dreadful free section or on iStock's StockXpert (I think that's their free site, isn't it?).
I completely respect your right to make whatever decision you like for your own business and I wasn't criticising you, I was just trying to point out that a lot of this discussion seems to be a general complaint about how much images are being sold for, rather than a reasoned consideration of the particular deal DT has made.
On average, earnings of $2 per image per year are somewhat less than my average return on the 6,000+ I have online but it's not wildly different from the average (yes, it's a lot less than the top 5% make and maybe that's what I should be looking at .... but then, if it's not going to affect other sales anyway it doesn't matter).
For me, DT is delivering earnings of about a third of what it was at its peak but it's still a top-tier earner worth three figures a month.
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....On average, earnings of $2 per image per year are somewhat less than my average return on the 6,000+ I have online but it's not wildly different from the average (yes, it's a lot less than the top 5% make and maybe that's what I should be looking at .... but then, if it's not going to affect other sales anyway it doesn't matter)......
Don't forget that just like the Getty-Google deal, it wont be a random sample of your photos Google gets. They will pick the cream of the crop. If they offered you $2 per image per year for your whole portfolio the deal would make more sense.
Where I see the draw back is the point I made before. Only one or two of the hundreds of users would have to buy the image for their ads through a regular RF license for you to make more money than this deal.
I can see the advantage to DT, they get a huge wad of cash for the batch. Probably a lot more than they would make through Google ads otherwise as buyers would potentially be buying form other sites. For us, the content creators, it absolutely stinks.
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Where I see the draw back is the point I made before. Only one or two of the hundreds of users would have to buy the image for their ads through a regular RF license for you to make more money than this deal.
It's the great unknowable, though, isn't it? One or two of the postulated hundreds of users might buy a licence from SS and I get 56c instead of $2 for that image and then lose whatever other $2 contracts there are in order to make sure that I get that 56c - or I might lose half-a-dozen $50 Alamy sales for the sake of keeping half-a-dozen $2 sales. But since it's only for thumbnails, I doubt that it's really going to hit Alamy ... or even SS, really.
To some extent the judgement of risk depends on how optimistic you are about the sales prospects for your images in the broader market. If a lot of my images sold thousands of times a year then I would worry, but I don't have any like that. I probably have half-a-dozen that get around 100 sales a year from all the sites combined.
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I was already opted out of deals with DT and my income has been rising with them, so I wouldn't worry too much about opting out.
I opted out some days ago and suddenly the sales are rising! Strange, but true!
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I was already opted out of deals with DT and my income has been rising with them, so I wouldn't worry too much about opting out.
I opted out some days ago and suddenly the sales are rising! Strange, but true!
I didn't actually mean it improved my credit sales, I was just saying it didn't seem to impact me too negatively as I am one of the few who have seen increasing sales on DT and am also opted out. Great to hear that others are seeing better credit downloads though whatever the cause!
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When you get offered "insulting" deals, it's not so much the agencies that have changed, it's the expectations of the contributors.
Interesting observation and I think it is quite accurate. How many of us were happy with 25 cents per DL when we started with SS but now want much more? I think you're right here - the agencies have had their way with us for years, only now we are starting to notice.
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But the question you ask is the reason i don't have anything in DT's dreadful free section or on iStock's StockXpert (I think that's their free site, isn't it?).
No, StockXpert is the remains of an agency that iS bought and basically froze - images there still sell, they are not free (I still get a few DLs there a month and will close that account when that stops). I cant imagine anyone letting their images be sent to a free section.
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Here's why there's some confusion. What is called Free Images http://www.freeimages.com/ (http://www.freeimages.com/) now, was a Sister site to Stockxpert. They worked providing FREE images, which I suppose, in theory, drove people to buy images? The site was http://www.sxc.hu/ (http://www.sxc.hu/) or stock.xchng. If you go to sxc it redirects you to the free images site.
It will look familiar, just like Stockxpert. :)
StockXpert was bought by Jupiter in 2008, who was then bought by Getty in 2009. And for the topping on that confetti cake, TS was announced at the end of 2009. Some images were transferred from StockXpert to TS.
At any rate, StockXpert closed to new contributors, around Feb 2010.
These are rough dates, I didn't go dredge through emails and notices from TS and StockXpert for the exact dates.
But the question you ask is the reason i don't have anything in DT's dreadful free section or on iStock's StockXpert (I think that's their free site, isn't it?).
No, StockXpert is the remains of an agency that iS bought and basically froze - images there still sell, they are not free (I still get a few DLs there a month and will close that account when that stops). I cant imagine anyone letting their images be sent to a free section.
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Here's why there's some confusion. What is called Free Images [url]http://www.freeimages.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.freeimages.com/[/url]) now, was a Sister site to Stockxpert.
Just read some of the comments. Hey waitaminute. I thought free images didn't affect sales.
8. May 15, 2014 ELGraphics
"Thanks! We will be using this on one of our upcoming daily email newsletters. God bless you! www.elijahlist.com (http://www.elijahlist.com)"
7. Mar 29, 2014 ohtea
"Photo will be used in a book :) Thanks!"
6. Dec 4, 2013 legacy3600
"We will be using this photo in a sign language course. Thank you!"
5. May 26, 2013 hyxmedia
"Will use it on letenkovnik.cz, thank you!"
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When you get offered "insulting" deals, it's not so much the agencies that have changed, it's the expectations of the contributors.
Interesting observation and I think it is quite accurate. How many of us were happy with 25 cents per DL when we started with SS but now want much more? I think you're right here - the agencies have had their way with us for years, only now we are starting to notice.
Maybe we were happy with 25 cents in 2006, but back then I had a D70 and a set of cheap hot lights. I have budgeted to buy a body in March that is 30 mp larger than that D70, I have invested tens of thousands in my business and then there's that little nuisance they call inflation that has been steadily rising since I bought my first RF at Istock. I don't live in a third world country, 25 cents doesn't cut it any more.
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I don't do free anything anywhere on the web. No Flickr, no freebees, no samples. And I won't send anything to Freeimages.com either. The flawed idea is that someone will see your work and then want to buy it?
The agencies that have free images, are trying to bring in new buyers and show them the product line. Not sure how much of a turn they have on new people buying into packages, after seeing the collections on the web. That would be an interesting statistic.
One reason I think it's fruitless is, most of the agencies have pretty much all the same images, from the same people. Why would anyone want to change? Is the Coke or Pepsi different tasting, buying at the Big grocery, instead of from the convenience store? No it's all the same. The only distinction is PRICE!
And the only way someone = agency, can compete on price is cut their own profits or cut the cost from suppliers. Hey, that's us losing as usual? Pay suppliers less and agencies can make more... or stay at the same levels on lower sales.
Nothing is free!
As for the actual issue with DT and this specific deal. It will be interesting to watch. It doesn't look good to me, but I'm not there anymore, so I'll just observe.
I can't seem to get a clear idea of what they are actually doing? One time buy for $2.00 for a years use? What's the bottom line. I missed the financial rewards specific facts behind this change?
Here's why there's some confusion. What is called Free Images [url]http://www.freeimages.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.freeimages.com/[/url]) now, was a Sister site to Stockxpert.
Just read some of the comments. Hey waitaminute. I thought free images didn't affect sales.
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what i like on all the "exciting news" - which in general are about additional screwing and squeezing us - the contributors (you know - if there is not our content - no business at all, if there is no agencies - business somehow will run as it was before agencies, right?)(just pointing what is "essential" and what is not in business - essential is - our content) ... - is the speed in which - i call these people "little dogs" (you know - poltroon, / sponger... people) overwhelm these threads with "what a big (smart, good, very good, excellent ... ) business move, ... THANK YOU (xyz agency)".
i guess hoping that somehow management is going to notice that kind of messages, and these people are going to get some small gain for themselves.
here where i live, we say "i have to go to bathroom" (to do "big" job, (or to vomit))... :)
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I like DT more than any other microstock site, but I opted out.
DT management may want to read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game)
and know we are way below the 30% "fair" limit
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Good one airphoto.
"The ultimatum game is important from a sociological perspective, because it illustrates the human unwillingness to accept injustice. The tendency to refuse small offers may also be seen as relevant to the concept of honour."
As my Uncle Ed used to say: I'd rather sit for nothing than work for nothing. :) Must run in the family.
So tell me? People here are "Excited" about being "Selected" for this? Why I thought acceptance was a reward in itself. Kind of like when I was accepted into the US Army. Why I was so "excited" to pass and be drafted by the Selective Service? They are selective and I was picked...
So people fight on Micro to be accepted and then paid low rewards for their hard work. Something just seems wrong doesn't it? And then the agencies change the rules, mid-game, lower commissions and make new deals, which cost us income.
Yeah I can see all the excited people telling their friends how to get into this business because it's so f'in wonderful, and a good way to make money. Maybe we should have done more warning years ago, and tried to discourage new people. Oh wait. The agencies offered rewards for referral and recruiting, which they also pulled back from us.
But that's OK many people just want to blame the search, not the flood of new people and new images that have submerged anything old and made most of the work on the sites, about as rare as rain in the jungle.
Now you've all been selected as a beta provider, without the terms, commissions or how the program works, being once again, thrown into the pond of new Microstock plans and schemes. And people wonder why some people are bitter?
My viewpoint is now to refuse, and drop the sites that aren't making a fair offer. It's my personal decision. Everyone else can do what they want. But unless these agencies are holding your family or relatives hostage or somehow you made a deal with the devil, you have Free Will to leave at any time.
Every one of us has a choice to stay or leave. In other words reject the unfair offers and refuse to accept the injustice.
Nothing will ever change because people write messages and endless complaining on a forum. The only action that will bring about change is leaving and taking your work with you. (or stay and accept that you are a willing victim)
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I like DT more than any other microstock site, but I opted out.
DT management may want to read this [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game[/url] ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game[/url])
and know we are way below the 30% "fair" limit
I also like DT a lot, and I also opted out of the Google Deal, which forced me to opt out of all their other "partner" arrangements. No doubt that will cost me money, but opting out was my choice and I did it freely. No regrets.
Thank you, airphoto, for sharing that link to the Ultimatum game. I'd never heard of that before, and it was fascinating. Something we all should be aware of.
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Every one of us has a choice to stay or leave. In other words reject the unfair offers and refuse to accept the injustice. ... The only action that will bring about change is leaving and taking your work with you. (or stay and accept that you are a willing victim)
I'm with you, Pete. Opting out feels good when it's warranted.
We are free agents. We need to think and act like free people, not slaves.
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I'm out. Not a big earner for me in any event. I allowed some images for the test, which I now regret in principle.
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Earnings have started to be reported. Today and tomorrow. Just in case you are opted in.
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Yes, these are flowing in. VERY nice.
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Yes, these are flowing in. VERY nice.
I am desperate for some good news this Friday... please share, if any? :-)
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Verified that it stays opted out in my account. With experience of FT i think i will check this periodically
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What i wonder is whether being in this deal would actually cost any other sales? If not, then maybe it's not really all that bad (though it's certainly not all that good).
When he posted this, I PMed him, "You make a valid point. Not much point in posting about it though, with blood in the water and a 'kill DT' frenzy getting started. If Google said to me, "We would like to offer 500 of your images in small size to our display advertisers for one year and pay you $1000" I would think about, because you are probably right, very few if any of those advertisers would have bought my images on say SS, where I might only have earned. 38 anyway. So I'm not opting out.
I have never seen any reason to distrust or doubt Serban. He is a smart businessman who has done a lot of things that are good for contributors. I thought this looked like it might be a good deal for me and I never opted out.
Today so far I have gotten $168 subscription sales at DT. Still not planning on opting out.
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Not only did I just get a huge influx from these sales, almost all of them were very old and only a few were decent sellers.
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I am oupted out all the time - but I had some 2$ sub sales in january
edit - I can see now that it is already answered
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Dreamstime.... THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
PLUS... and this is a Big plus... this is only phase one of the Google deal. Remember that Google will be buying W-ELs on these (some? all?) about a year from now. That windfall has the potential to make this one look like peanuts.
Did I say it yet? Thank you Dreamstime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I guess we are all turning into "whatever works" and living a low cost life.
I am happy for all who will take their families on vacation with Dreamstime/Google deal and looks like there are many happy and rather modest folks out there.
http://www.dreamstime.com/forumm_40127_pg1 (http://www.dreamstime.com/forumm_40127_pg1)
:-X
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I would be careful. The trend is - to hide real process behind deals. The mass expectations are usually correct - avoid max not clear situations in business. And somebody wrote already on this forum: after pessimistic posts always come just several positive which don't do a trend. If it is so good for contributors, why to provide opt-in /out only all or nothing? Why not per client/contributor/image? Why not to give more clarity before action? Was the result of any deal of any agency last years positive for contributors? Why all agencies started to work through partners? Symbiostock with good idea could not compete with advertising budgets and power platforms. But the idea was idealistic and practically doable with heavy investments. Personally i don't want to give for google licensing images which will be used as they were boughtout forever. For majority of contributors it will be final. Even somebody from them will receive good money, still current situation cannot change my opinion and opt in.
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Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
I was working in a major ad agency this week. If you saw what an ad agency pays for one-time use of an image (from Shutterstock and Getty in most ad agencies), you'd be shaking your head sadly at these $2 resell-all-you-like Google payments, as I am today.
I'm not kicking myself at all about opting out...instead I'm realizing how much people are actually willing to pay for one use of my images. (It's a lot more than all the $2 payments you got for all those images put together.)
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There's no way for me to let DT sell my images and pay me $2 royalty for an EL!
Some of these images will be used (sold by G**gle) thousand times over and over again!
Usually the contributor knows the price customer pays for a license and the percentage he gets! I don't know how much money DT gets from this shady deal?! I'm pretty sure their cut is shamefully bigger!
BTW I have few thousand SOD(FB deal) sales on SS and I get paid for every single usage in FB advert. That's how it should be!
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What I'm waiting to hear is Serban said something along the lines of, "there is a lot more good stuff coming for the contributors but I can't divulge that at this time"....... Something along these lines. I'm definitely not a fan if these $2 sales are essentially selling the rights as has been discussed. To me the Google deal IStock/Getty did was stealing my work legally. My knee jerk reaction is that DT picked up on this scheme and did their own, but opt-inners might find that Serban has some more goodies in store for artists and his integrity is shored up by the details. It's important that he come in here and share "phase two" as he promised, or the other half of the deal. Or it could be just BS like most agencies spread.
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Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
I was working in a major ad agency this week. If you saw what an ad agency pays for one-time use of an image (from Shutterstock and Getty in most ad agencies), you'd be shaking your head sadly at these $2 resell-all-you-like Google payments, as I am today.
I'm not kicking myself at all about opting out...instead I'm realizing how much people are actually willing to pay for one use of my images. (It's a lot more than all the $2 payments you got for all those images put together.)
I can confirm this and I am very upset about bargaining that is happening all over.
Ad agencies with massive budgets gets stuff for nothing.
How to stop this, I have no idea! :( :( :(
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Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
I was working in a major ad agency this week. If you saw what an ad agency pays for one-time use of an image (from Shutterstock and Getty in most ad agencies), you'd be shaking your head sadly at these $2 resell-all-you-like Google payments, as I am today.
I'm not kicking myself at all about opting out...instead I'm realizing how much people are actually willing to pay for one use of my images. (It's a lot more than all the $2 payments you got for all those images put together.)
I can confirm this and I am very upset about bargaining that is happening all over.
Ad agencies with massive budgets gets stuff for nothing.
How to stop this, I have no idea! :( :( :(
Wow, did you misunderstand me. It's just the opposite...ad agencies pay more than anyone else.
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Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
I was working in a major ad agency this week. If you saw what an ad agency pays for one-time use of an image (from Shutterstock and Getty in most ad agencies), you'd be shaking your head sadly at these $2 resell-all-you-like Google payments, as I am today.
I'm not kicking myself at all about opting out...instead I'm realizing how much people are actually willing to pay for one use of my images. (It's a lot more than all the $2 payments you got for all those images put together.)
I can confirm this and I am very upset about bargaining that is happening all over.
Ad agencies with massive budgets gets stuff for nothing.
How to stop this, I have no idea! :( :( :(
Wow, did you misunderstand me. It's just the opposite...ad agencies pay more than anyone else.
That's exactly what I am saying. Ad agencies pay more than anyone else with Getty and Shutterstock but slowly they are switching to these cheap deals too.
What I am saying, nobody should bargain their own work.
(sorry if I wasn't clear enough)
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What i wonder is whether being in this deal would actually cost any other sales? If not, then maybe it's not really all that bad (though it's certainly not all that good).
When he posted this, I PMed him, "You make a valid point. Not much point in posting about it though, with blood in the water and a 'kill DT' frenzy getting started. If Google said to me, "We would like to offer 500 of your images in small size to our display advertisers for one year and pay you $1000" I would think about, because you are probably right, very few if any of those advertisers would have bought my images on say SS, where I might only have earned. 38 anyway. So I'm not opting out.
I have never seen any reason to distrust or doubt Serban. He is a smart businessman who has done a lot of things that are good for contributors. I thought this looked like it might be a good deal for me and I never opted out.
Today so far I have gotten $168 subscription sales at DT. Still not planning on opting out.
But its more like: "We would like to offer 500 of your images for free to our advertisers for one year without any limit to the amount of advertisers who can use the images and pay you $1000"
Its great making 168$ today, but people seem to forget thats the only time they get paid. Once Google is done shopping, you wont see any more $$$ but your images are being used over and over and etc by anyone and everyone for a whole year and you wont get another cent.
At least in the SS / FB deal you get paid for every usage. And we know from the Microsoft/Getty and Google/Getty deals that images are used in the thousands and millions of times. The Google/Getty deal caused an outrage when they found out they got paid 12$ per image. But now at 2$ per image its a great deal.
People need to start valuing their work.
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Also don't forget the reports on the DT forum of $2 royalties "raining down" from the Google deal. Weeks ago. Before any Google payments were even made ???
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Its great making 168$ today, but people seem to forget thats the only time they get paid. Once Google is done shopping, you wont see any more $$$ but your images are being used over and over and etc by anyone and everyone for a whole year and you wont get another cent.
Wrong. In a year W-EL licenses will be purchased for the images. It will make yesterday's and today's windfalls look tiny. (And for the record, I've made considerably more than $168 from this deal so far.)
I look at it this way... Google paid $2 per photo to put them in a gallery where its advertisers MIGHT choose them to run in their ads. I bet a majority of them will never be used. Maybe some will be used multiple times. It will probably balance out to maybe a few uses per image. And then I get W-EL revenue on them a year from now. (You might scoff and say "We'll see," but so far this deal has played out exactly the way DT told us it would, so we have NO reason to call them liars.)
In the end, people can accuse me of prostituting my images all they want. Guess what... they're right! I'm selling rights to my images here, there, everywhere that looks like a good deal to me. Isn't everyone contributing to microstock a prostitute? Are you selling your precious images for pennies on several ms sites? You've accepted subs. But you've drawn a line here. Which is fine... microstock is a big gray area, and we all decide when we're being taken advantage of. All I can say is when I do the math on this deal, and look at how often my images are actually likely to be used, and the fact that these buyers would not have otherwise purchased my images anywhere else, it's clear to me that the rewards FAR outweigh the risks.
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Its great making 168$ today, but people seem to forget thats the only time they get paid. Once Google is done shopping, you wont see any more $$$ but your images are being used over and over and etc by anyone and everyone for a whole year and you wont get another cent.
and the fact that these buyers would not have otherwise purchased my images anywhere else
The key part right there.
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Its great making 168$ today, but people seem to forget thats the only time they get paid. Once Google is done shopping, you wont see any more $$$ but your images are being used over and over and etc by anyone and everyone for a whole year and you wont get another cent.
Wrong. In a year W-EL licenses will be purchased for the images.
I didnt know that. Thats great. Maybe I had it wrong and in a year from now I punch myself in the head. Too late now for me anyway, I only have 58 images on DT as I cant be bothered by their similars policy.
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No, in a year -some- ELs will be purchased for some.
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Does the fact that the $2 royalties are being paid out mean that Google (or DST) has finished selecting the images?
If yes, is it "safe" to opt in again? (the "old" opt-in I mean)
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Not only did I just get a huge influx from these sales, almost all of them were very old and only a few were decent sellers.
Strange but true in my case also. A surprising number of the 100 or so of my images selected so far are of Level 1 or Level 2 sellers. A few of them have only sold once or twice on any microstock site. One was a Level 0 submitted in April 2013, in other words, as I understand DT's level system, in almost 2 yrs on DT that image has never been sold, until today.
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No, in a year -some- ELs will be purchased for some.
I'm just going by what Serban (Achilles) explained in the DT forum:
"Provided the first phase of this project goes as expected, after a maximum of 12 months (we all hope it will be sooner), in addition to the royalties described above, Google will initiate another volume purchase of an upgraded W-EL license for each image. We might switch images that didn't perform well with new ones, awarding royalties as appropriate. For the second stage we will award EL royalties (25%-60%). Overall the royalties will average approximately 50%."
Yes, he does leave the door open for removing or replacing underperforming images, but in general it appears that each image will get an EL.
Or did he amend this later? If so, please share the link.
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Does the fact that the $2 royalties are being paid out mean that Google (or DST) has finished selecting the images?
If yes, is it "safe" to opt in again? (the "old" opt-in I mean)
Seems to me that there have been two distinct waves of the sales showing up... mid day on Friday and very early on Saturday... Nothing for the past 12 hours or so.
So it may be safe to say by now you've missed the boat/narrowly averted catastrophe, depending on your level of paranoia over this.
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Does the fact that the $2 royalties are being paid out mean that Google (or DST) has finished selecting the images?
If yes, is it "safe" to opt in again? (the "old" opt-in I mean)
Seems to me that there have been two distinct waves of the sales showing up... mid day on Friday and very early on Saturday... Nothing for the past 12 hours or so.
So it may be safe to say by now you've missed the boat/narrowly averted catastrophe, depending on your level of paranoia over this.
They said that after a unspecified length of time (up to a year but hopefully sooner) they will change out non-performing images with others, so if you want to be sure of not having images in this deal, you should stay opted out of partners,
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Does the fact that the $2 royalties are being paid out mean that Google (or DST) has finished selecting the images?
If yes, is it "safe" to opt in again? (the "old" opt-in I mean)
Seems to me that there have been two distinct waves of the sales showing up... mid day on Friday and very early on Saturday... Nothing for the past 12 hours or so.
So it may be safe to say by now you've missed the boat/narrowly averted catastrophe, depending on your level of paranoia over this.
They said that after a unspecified length of time (up to a year but hopefully sooner) they will change out non-performing images with others, so if you want to be sure of not having images in this deal, you should stay opted out of partners,
From the DT forum: "I had 5 sales on a batch, 4 photos and one illustration. The illustration is a good seller, but the photos were all bad sellers"
Maybe the reason so many bad sellers are being chosen is that all the Genius Artists have opted out their Priceless Masterpieces? ???
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So that solves that mystery. I had 15 $2 sales in the past 3 days. Considering that doubled my sales for February, and all at higher than my average royalty price lately, I wasn't complaining, but I was wondering what was going on. This will be my best month at Dreamstime in quite awhile, methinks.
Well done, Dreamstime!
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Is it too late to opt out?
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.....
i remember once long ago, some wise promoter suggested we hold free seminars for pros. no one came because it was free (can't be that good).
they fire this promoter and the new one came in and had us charge $100 per seat. the seminar was filled.
something to think about why freebies never win paying clients, they only attract scavengers
which is an argument FOR opting in --- maybe '50' people will use these images for free -- the important question is whether ANY of them would have found the image otherwise, much less PAID for it
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Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
I was working in a major ad agency this week. If you saw what an ad agency pays for one-time use of an image (from Shutterstock and Getty in most ad agencies), you'd be shaking your head sadly at these $2 resell-all-you-like Google payments, as I am today.
I'm not kicking myself at all about opting out...instead I'm realizing how much people are actually willing to pay for one use of my images. (It's a lot more than all the $2 payments you got for all those images put together.)
realizing how much agencies might pay is quite different from GETTING that payment -- i don't see how that makes any difference in deciding whether to opt in to DT-google; the 2 are entirely separate - a few people opting out is not going to affect the deal.
another factor people are forgetting is how SMALL images are that are used in google ads
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Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.
I was working in a major ad agency this week. If you saw what an ad agency pays for one-time use of an image (from Shutterstock and Getty in most ad agencies), you'd be shaking your head sadly at these $2 resell-all-you-like Google payments, as I am today.
I'm not kicking myself at all about opting out...instead I'm realizing how much people are actually willing to pay for one use of my images. (It's a lot more than all the $2 payments you got for all those images put together.)
realizing how much agencies might pay is quite different from GETTING that payment -- i don't see how that makes any difference in deciding whether to opt in to DT-google; the 2 are entirely separate - a few people opting out is not going to affect the deal.
another factor people are forgetting is how SMALL images are that are used in google ads
To each his own, I suppose. I don't mind the SS/Facebook deal, where the images are also tiny but we're paid for each use. I have a problem with gigantic Google paying me $2 and then making my image available 10,000 times. Clearly, it's possible to make deals where artists are compensated for each use, because SS did that. I also see that SS and Getty are selling our work--the same work--for hundreds of dollars for each use while DT sells it for two bucks for thousands of uses. SS is looking in the right direction, IMO. Their prices are going up and they're aiming for larger sales. I've decided I'd rather look in that direction too.
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To each his own, I suppose. I don't mind the SS/Facebook deal, where the images are also tiny but we're paid for each use. I have a problem with gigantic Google paying me $2 and then making my image available 10,000 times. Clearly, it's possible to make deals where artists are compensated for each use, because SS did that. I also see that SS and Getty are selling our work--the same work--for hundreds of dollars for each use while DT sells it for two bucks for thousands of uses. SS is looking in the right direction, IMO. Their prices are going up and they're aiming for larger sales. I've decided I'd rather look in that direction too.
Do you really think that your images are so super-brilliant that they will be used 10000 times during this one year (or less)? For your information, 11 of my 813 images were selected in this deal and 8 of them were never sold in DT (and 4 of them were also never sold in any other agency). As it was already said, there is probability that many of these selected images will be never used (and replaced) and some may by used many times and in the average, it could be not so bad deal. Who knows.
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To each his own, I suppose. I don't mind the SS/Facebook deal, where the images are also tiny but we're paid for each use. I have a problem with gigantic Google paying me $2 and then making my image available 10,000 times. Clearly, it's possible to make deals where artists are compensated for each use, because SS did that. I also see that SS and Getty are selling our work--the same work--for hundreds of dollars for each use while DT sells it for two bucks for thousands of uses. SS is looking in the right direction, IMO. Their prices are going up and they're aiming for larger sales. I've decided I'd rather look in that direction too.
Do you really think that your images are so super-brilliant that they will be used 10000 times during this one year (or less)? For your information, 11 of my 813 images were selected in this deal and 8 of them were never sold in DT (and 4 of them were also never sold in any other agency). As it was already said, there is probability that many of these selected images will be never used (and replaced) and some may by used many times and in the average, it could be not so bad deal. Who knows.
And who are you, exactly, person who hides behind anonymity yet feels free to dis other people's work?
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Do you really think that your images are so super-brilliant that they will be used 10000 times during this one year (or less)? For your information, 11 of my 813 images were selected in this deal and 8 of them were never sold in DT (and 4 of them were also never sold in any other agency). As it was already said, there is probability that many of these selected images will be never used (and replaced) and some may by used many times and in the average, it could be not so bad deal. Who knows.
Even if an image is only used twice, photographers are getting ripped off. Images are on an agency's site because they need to be SOLD, not given away.
This deal doesn't affect me, as I left Dreamstime long ago. In fact, I left Dreamstime when they made the deal with Pinterest. I don't want my images, that I put work into, being given away to anyone. Watermarked or not. Putting watermarked images on Pinterest and allowing them to be pinned hundreds of time only reinforced the idea that images are ok to be used watermarked and don't need to be paid for. Did anyone here get rich from that scheme? Will you be getting rich from this scheme? Guess who is really making the money, is getting rich? Not you, that's for sure.
I am glad to see they at least provided an opt out. But it wasn't much of a choice, yet again, because THEY still had control over the deal. They don't ever give the photographer the ability to evaluate a deal, and make a choice to opt out, for THAT deal. It's always an all or nothing. If I were still on DT, I would be opting out. Call me ungrateful, but I am not willing to watch others get rich off of my back anymore. If anyone is going to go on vacation, buy a new home or a fancy car, it's going to be ME. Those greedy ba$tards.
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Ive been back and forth on this since hearing about it however there are a few things to take into consideration. For instance in DT rules for image use on the web for anyone buying an image not just Google, they are allowed 10,000 uses and that can be on lets say a clients website for those who put together webpages for others, and then to take it a step further the person or business who has the website made for them which now has your image is also going to make money from using that image. In fact in just about all instances anyone purchasing a RF image is then making money from the image in some way or another either by placing it on a product or using it with a service they provide. So is Google any different in this regard?
As far as ads go, most people trying to sell something will first use their own images and then look for an image if they can't come up with their own. And thats if they choose to use an image with their ad in the first place!
On top of all of that one can only assume that there are only so many businesses that would be trying to sell a certain product that would require your image and thats if they even choose your image assuming that there will most like be more than one picture to choose from for any given category.
What are your thoughts on this?
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... the important question is whether ANY of them would have found the image otherwise, much less PAID for it
I disagree that this is a good reason to accept an unreasonably low extended license payment - $2, effectively - just because (a) they'd have stolen one otherwise or (b) it's a small size.
A bad deal can't be made better via the above reasoning, or the "it hadn't sold on DT anyway" reasoning. Every time you accept a crappier deal with the notion that "it's better than zero", you're just setting things up for an even worse deal down the road. Not to mention that many of the items that haven't sold much at DT have sold well elsewhere - unless you're exclusive there, think about the fact that you're undercutting future sales at other agencies.
I've opted out - I don't sell cheapie extended licenses anywhere (I opt out at PhotoDune for example) - but I think the folks who opt in are taking too little up front cash for a a broad license with some vague hope that the deal will bring in something better down the road.
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...For instance in DT rules for image use on the web for anyone buying an image not just Google, they are allowed 10,000 uses ... In fact in just about all instances anyone purchasing a RF image is then making money from the image in some way or another either by placing it on a product or using it with a service they provide. So is Google any different in this regard?...
The big difference here is that Google is redistributing the image to its clients, like a distributor or partner agency - Google sells ads and is offering images as part of the package (a discount, effectively, so the ad buyer doesn't have to buy their own license).
A designer is hired to produce a brochure for a client and the client licenses the image. The designer produces a web site for another client and the client licenses the image. Each of those clients may use the image multiple times in multiple projects, but client A cannot share the license with client B because that's redistributing the image, something their license prohibits.
Some sites permit images to be included in template products (a form of redistribution) with the purchase of an extended license. That's why this DT deal is granting Google a very very broad extended license for one year for $2 royalty to the contributor. If via SS's deal with Facebook, 100 ads are sold with my image, I make $38.00; if it were DT's deal with Google, I'd make $2
The Google/DT deal is different, and not in a good way
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Just to say that while I'm obviously not with Dreamstime, I agree with what cathyslife said above. We put our images for sale with agencies to sell them. We don't do it to give the agency a commodity to make deals with that are of most benefit to themselves. There's too much of this attitude that once material is uploaded it somehow becomes "theirs" to do with, and deal as they please apart from actually claiming copyright. To say nothing of the attitude that any money they get in sales is somehow "theirs" which they have to pay us out of, rather than "ours" which we agree to allow them to keep a percentage of.
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And who are you, exactly, person who hides behind anonymity yet feels free to dis other people's work?
I really have not say that your work is not good! Have I? I only asked, if you really think that your image is so beautiful, universal and suitable for so much different advertising topics that 10000 advertisers would use this each image in 10000 different advertising campaigns. Do you really think that Google has so many advertisers in one suitable topic that each of them would use exactly this one your image? If there is such demand for this image, would not you think that you would already sell this image several thousand times? If I count my 11 picked images, they were sold 6 times (8×0, 1×1, 1×2 and 1×3). Do you really think that now, as a miracle, will they be used 110000 times instead of 6? Each one of them 10000 times? 10000 times, if they had only 0.5 sales on average until now? Do be so naive.
Maybe it is not great deal, we do not know. On the other hand, almost everybody, who is opted-in, says, that mostly non-selling images were picked. So, maybe my image will be used 5 times or more and it will be not good for me, maybe they will never use it and I will get $2 for nothing (and the image would not be deleted after 4 years of no-sale). Maybe it will continue as EL (after year) and more money will come. I really do not know the numbers and how many times will be used these image on average, but I am certainly sure that it will not be 10000 times per image on average.
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The big difference here is that Google is redistributing the image to its clients, like a distributor or partner agency - Google sells ads and is offering images as part of the package (a discount, effectively, so the ad buyer doesn't have to buy their own license).
A designer is hired to produce a brochure for a client and the client licenses the image. The designer produces a web site for another client and the client licenses the image. Each of those clients may use the image multiple times in multiple projects, but client A cannot share the license with client B because that's redistributing the image, something their license prohibits.
The Google/DT deal is different, and not in a good way
So what your saying is that when Google lets one of the 10,000 clients use the image those clients can now also use it 10,000 times, thus 10,000 X 10,000 = 100,000,000 ?
And if so is it too late to opt out?
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And who are you, exactly, person who hides behind anonymity yet feels free to dis other people's work?
I really have not say that your work is not good! Have I? I only asked, if you really think that your image is so beautiful, universal and suitable for so much different advertising topics that 10000 advertisers would use this each image in 10000 different advertising campaigns. Do you really think that Google has so many advertisers in one suitable topic that each of them would use exactly this one your image? If there is such demand for this image, would not you think that you would already sell this image several thousand times? If I count my 11 picked images, they were sold 6 times (8×0, 1×1, 1×2 and 1×3). Do you really think that now, as a miracle, will they be used 110000 times instead of 6? Each one of them 10000 times? 10000 times, if they had only 0.5 sales on average until now? Do be so naive.
Maybe it is not great deal, we do not know. On the other hand, almost everybody, who is opted-in, says, that mostly non-selling images were picked. So, maybe my image will be used 5 times or more and it will be not good for me, maybe they will never use it and I will get $2 for nothing (and the image would not be deleted after 4 years of no-sale). Maybe it will continue as EL (after year) and more money will come. I really do not know the numbers and how many times will be used these image on average, but I am certainly sure that it will not be 10000 times per image on average.
I have no idea how many times the image will be resold, and neither do you, Milan. That's the problem in a nutshell. Sometimes relatively old images of mine catch on later for some reason and do sell hundreds or thousands of times. And though four out of eleven of your chosen images hadn't sold before, you had no choice about which images Google would choose. You didn't even know it was Google when you were required to decide whether to opt out or in.
As for my images being "so beautiful, universal and suitable for so much different advertising topics that 10000 advertisers would use this each image in 10000 different advertising campaigns," I do have images that have sold thousands of times. I got paid for each sale.
Am I "naive?" I've been on the "buyer" side of advertising for more than 30 years. I've seen ad agencies pay tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars for one image, many many times. I see art buyers pay hundreds for images from SS and Getty on a daily basis. That's their sole job...to buy art. They make six-figure salaries buying art, BTW (though I'm not sure how much longer that job will exist).
You got $22 for a full year of usage—who knows how many times—for 11 images. That's less than one ED sale for one image on Shutterstock.
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I've got to say that I'm skeptical about images suddenly catching fire and making thousands of sales. I've had 250,000 sales (more than 50,000 of them on iStock as you can see in my profile) and I've never observed that. I've only got a handful that have generated more than 1,000 sales on all agencies combined.
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I have no idea how many times the image will be resold, and neither do you, Milan. That's the problem in a nutshell. Sometimes relatively old images of mine catch on later for some reason and do sell hundreds or thousands of times. And though four out of eleven of your chosen images hadn't sold before, you had no choice about which images Google would choose. You didn't even know it was Google when you were required to decide whether to opt out or in.
As for my images being "so beautiful, universal and suitable for so much different advertising topics that 10000 advertisers would use this each image in 10000 different advertising campaigns," I do have images that have sold thousands of times. I got paid for each sale.
Am I "naive?" I've been on the "buyer" side of advertising for more than 30 years. I've seen ad agencies pay tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars for one image, many many times. I see art buyers pay hundreds for images from SS and Getty on a daily basis. That's their sole job...to buy art. They make six-figure salaries buying art, BTW (though I'm not sure how much longer that job will exist).
You got $22 for a full year of usage—who knows how many times—for 11 images. That's less than one ED sale for one image on Shutterstock.
I agree, we have not idea. Therefore I do not think that this deal is exteremely bad for sure as well as extremely good. We do not know. Yes, some images can be used many and many times. But the problem is somewhere else. It will not certainly apply for all of them. Some of these images will be surely very successful but the others will not. So, in the average, it does not need to be so extremely bad. And do not forget, if the image will be successful af the one year period, the EL licence will be paid (and one already has $2 for non-successful images). If the sub sale on DT is $0,35 and I got $22, it is 63 sub sales. Until now, these my 11 images had 6 sales from all posible companies and individuals an all DT channels. And now, there is a question. Can they manage to sell them 63 times in one year on this Google/DT channel only if they were sold only 6 times until now on all DT channels (all DT customers)? Let's admit that some of these Google/DT customers could buy the image somewhere else if there is not such G/DT deal. If only 6 customers bought my images on DT until now, how many of these 6 sales used that image in Google advertisment? Maybe 1? I do not think that suddenly these images would be used 63 times more often in Google ads than now. But maybe... they will. I do not know.
I agree that paying for each use is better, but on the other hand, I do not think that this deal is such an evil one. I only oppose the extreme negative opinions on this deal. But time will show. Maybe, it will be really disaster.
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I've got to say that I'm skeptical about images suddenly catching fire and making thousands of sales. I've had 250,000 sales (more than 50,000 of them on iStock as you can see in my profile) and I've never observed that. I've only got a handful that have generated more than 1,000 sales on all agencies combined.
I have several that have sold more than 1,000 times just on Shutterstock. One will pass 2,000 today. You have to keep in mind that subs sell much more often. I have a tiny fraction of that number of sales on iS.
(I'm not saying which image—but SS does not consider it one of my "most popular." I considered not uploading it because I thought it would never sell. Go figure.)
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I've got to say that I'm skeptical about images suddenly catching fire and making thousands of sales. I've had 250,000 sales (more than 50,000 of them on iStock as you can see in my profile) and I've never observed that. I've only got a handful that have generated more than 1,000 sales on all agencies combined.
I have several that have sold more than 1,000 times just on Shutterstock. One will pass 2,000 today. You have to keep in mind that subs sell much more often. I have a tiny fraction of that number of sales on iS.
(I'm not saying which image—but SS does not consider it one of my "most popular." I considered not uploading it because I thought it would never sell. Go figure.)
A different market, I guess, as you are dealing in designs rather than photos, which is my area.
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Its not really about how well they would sell. Its about what happens to them when they are in essence free. I have one particular image that was so popular it is now everywhere. It has probably been downloaded 20k times. But guess what... its only sold half a dozen. Someone got ahold of it traced it or stole it and uploaded it to a free site. Then someone else modified it and uploaded it again to another site. Now you can't go to a free site anywhere on the web without finding a variation of that one image. It's everywhere and I only got paid a few times. I even have people contacting me wanting me to clean up my substandard "free art" for them because the free version isn't done very well. I can't even fight it because stopping it would take more time than the image is worth. That image is now dead for me. How many potential sales could I have gotten if it weren't in the public domain? Maybe thousands of dollars. But the impression is that image should be free... so that is now its current value. Every one of your images that Google has chosen now has the impression that it is free. That is the new value of your images and you made $2.00.
Its not about actual sales it is about perceived value and once your images are worth nothing then people start thinking all images should be free. This is where we are headed yet I keep seeing the woo-yays for one time earnings of $20 to $200 dollars followed up by complaints about how the industry is dying and the agencies keep screwing us.
Insane!!!
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I guess it's not worth taking legal action against the people who've gotten in touch about cleaning up the image? Can't you at least send them a bill? That works well for Getty. ;)
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I guess it's not worth taking legal action against the people who've gotten in touch about cleaning up the image? Can't you at least send them a bill? That works well for Getty. ;)
I wouldn't even know where to start fighting this.
These people are crazy. They are actually offended that I won't do it for them. They think they are entitled to a nice clean vector file because the site they got it from said it was "easy to use". They also took the time to search and find my sites so they could send me an e-mail. Same image in a nice clean "non-autotraced" format is available for $14.75 on that very site. When I direct them to the link I never hear from them again.
One of those free sites has the same image 10 times with slight variations by 10 different "artists"
This is why "deals" like this one are so bad. They re-enforce this free notion and we are jumping up and down happy as clams because we made $22.
My solution - don't sell any new art via subscription until I have determined it won't sell at a much, much higher price. And certainly don't opt in to situations where it can be obtained for free.
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You might seriously consider having a lawyer write up a demand for payment and email it to these people. Getty charges punitive fees well over the price of licensing the image. Even if only 1 in 10 is intimidated enough to pay, the letter could pay for itself and you might make some money from the image. Don't know if it's worth your time.
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You might seriously consider having a lawyer write up a demand for payment and email it to these people. Getty charges punitive fees well over the price of licensing the image. Even if only 1 in 10 is intimidated enough to pay, the letter could pay for itself and you might make some money from the image. Don't know if it's worth your time.
I appreciate that, but its not my style. Just because other people can be like that doesn't mean I need to be. I learned a lesson from that image that in the long term will pay off much more handsomely than any earnings I would have gotten. I spend a lot of time controlling my own future and as a result I have never posted a complaint about earnings. I do however comment a lot about things that I view as harmful to my own future. This situation is one of those times. And no, its not about Dreamstime or any other agency... it's about us as a collective and how we keep shooting ourselves and each other in the foot.
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The big difference here is that Google is redistributing the image to its clients, like a distributor or partner agency - Google sells ads and is offering images as part of the package (a discount, effectively, so the ad buyer doesn't have to buy their own license).
A designer is hired to produce a brochure for a client and the client licenses the image. The designer produces a web site for another client and the client licenses the image. Each of those clients may use the image multiple times in multiple projects, but client A cannot share the license with client B because that's redistributing the image, something their license prohibits.
The Google/DT deal is different, and not in a good way
So what your saying is that when Google lets one of the 10,000 clients use the image those clients can now also use it 10,000 times, thus 10,000 X 10,000 = 100,000,000 ?...
No. Google can't transfer the right to redistribute to anyone else. The issue is that Google sells it multiple times - each time to a different client - when the contributor only gets paid for one sale to Google.
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Did wave 2 of the Google purchases hit today? Woke up to a large number of $2 subscription credits this morning. Anyone else?
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Instead i have refunds because of possible card fraud, 2 identical sales, and today i see again 2 identical sales in the same time.
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Did wave 2 of the Google purchases hit today? Woke up to a large number of $2 subscription credits this morning. Anyone else?
None here, usual slow start to the week
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Did wave 2 of the Google purchases hit today? Woke up to a large number of $2 subscription credits this morning. Anyone else?
I don't think so. For me DT has been dead since June 26th - must have rotated to the bottom of the search.
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No, not Google deal, Small subscription package that gives non-exclusives $2.
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No, not Google deal, Small subscription package that gives non-exclusives $2.
Huh, hadn't heard of this one. By Small you mean it's a small package or deal, not on the scale of the Google deal, right? Because the sales I've seen today are Large and not Small downloads.
Do we know more about this deal? Did others see a bunch of these today? I saw a large string of them, all at once. Nothing like that has happened for me since the big Google download day.
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5 and 10 image all in one subscriptions
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_35047 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_35047)
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And the second phase, when contributors would supposedly get the big(ger) bucks? People have been asking about it on the DT message boards and the company's response has been... deafening silence.
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OLD THREAD ALERT...
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So what if a thread was started a long time ago? Either it is still relevant (and this one is) or it isn't.
I doubt I'm the only one who finds it fishy (to put it kindly) that Dreamstime tells its contributors: "Great news! Google is buying your photos on two phases. On the first, you'll get paid a little, on the second you'll get paid much more," then the deadline for the second phrase comes and goes without DT posting any information/making any payments, and refuses to answer contributors' questions about it.
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I'd sure like to know when we're gonna get more money.