Author Topic: EL price change at Fotolia? (Read 23840 times)

Elenathewise · « **on:** November 17, 2010, 00:48 »

Did Fotolia just changed the upper limit for EL license for emerald contributors or is just me? Used to be 200, now the upper limit is 100... What's going on? No announcements, no explanations... I am getting sick of this.

Anyka · « **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2010, 01:08 »

Thanks for pointing that out. I am gold and my upper EL limit has gone from 150 to 100. Even for my one and only exclusive image!!

fotografer · « **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2010, 03:10 »

Ok now they have managed to get me pissed. I sold at 200 credits and sell between 1 and 4 a month so that is a lot of money to lose!!!!!!!!

RT · « **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2010, 04:48 »

I never used to set mine at the upper limit, but I have just checked and now my upper limit choice is at a maximum of 100, I know for a fact it's different from two days ago because I always had to manually change the amount to my choice.

click_click · « **Reply #4 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:18 »

Mine also dropped from 200 to 100

Elenathewise · « **Reply #5 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:30 »

I asked them what's going on. Here is the answer I received. Amazing, isn't it? They seem to think they can treat contributors as retards.

Question   I see that my files are limited to a maximum extended license price of 100 credits instead of 200 as it used to be. Why has this changed? Was this change announced? Can it be corrected?

Elena Elisseeva (elenathewise)
Answers:
Fotolia :   Hi Elena,

We have checked your account and noticed the the maximum price you can have for the EL license, according to your rank and exclusivity, is 100 credits each. Please visit http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors for more information.
Kind regards,   11-17-2010 04:51 pm

I also sold a few of 200 ones a month. I'll be losing 100-200 dollars a month because of this.

click_click · « **Reply #6 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:34 »

So they changed the EL prices. Here is the old chart:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-SkT-uOXhIkJ:www.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors+http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Scroll down half way.

WOW and not just that... hang on

click_click · « **Reply #7 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:42 »

Here you go:

click_click · « **Reply #8 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:45 »

Pixart · « **Reply #9 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:52 »

Removed.. Read the credits amount wrong. FT just can't stand being overshadowed by anyone can they? They must have noticed all the negative talk was focused on Istock recently.

cthoman · « **Reply #10 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:53 »

While this doesn't affect me, it's disappointing to see price setting become more restrictive instead of less. Every change I've seen recently seems to be a move in the wrong direction. I'm starting to wonder if my idea of what the industry should look like is so far off from what the agencies want to do that I'm somehow that delusional or out of touch.

click_click · « **Reply #11 on:** November 17, 2010, 11:56 »

Quote from: Pixart on November 17, 2010, 11:52

So there really are no Rubis and Diamond contributors any more -...?

Wow, I bet Yuri is having a party now - NOT!

Elenathewise · « **Reply #12 on:** November 17, 2010, 12:34 »

What I can't get my head around is they end up punishing their most productive, most hard-working and talented contributors, the very people that bring them most sales. First they dangle a carrot in front of you to get you motivated to produce more and better, and then when you get there, the carrot is gone! Basically the idea is "Let's tell them we'll pay more as they sell more, so they'll work even harder to makes us rich, but then we won'd really pay them anything... har har har..." Treating us like we're stupid donkeys, which we kind of are going along with this.
Actually, with all this ranking crap - if the agency is doing something like this, this should be in a contract. A binding one. You can't just change your mind or make false promises, this is bad business ethics. All of them are doing that kind of shady stuff. As I said before, I'll sign up with anyone who'd take a task to get this industry regulated. I don't know much about it myself, but will be willing to help. They have to be accountable for their actions.

Blufish · « **Reply #13 on:** November 17, 2010, 12:45 »

What the...

? When did this take effect? Wait. No notification. No communication. Did Getty buy them while we were sleeping??

gostwyck · « **Reply #14 on:** November 17, 2010, 13:18 »

Quote from: Elenathewise on November 17, 2010, 00:48

Did Fotolia just changed the upper limit for EL license for emerald contributors or is just me? Used to be 200, now the upper limit is 100... What's going on? No announcements, no explanations... I am getting sick of this.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this before but FT did make an announcement in their email newsletter which I received on 12th Nov. Here's the text;

"We have recently run several studies on sales depending on price structure and we have concluded that the contents with a price superior to 3 credits for a XS size were sold considerably less often. The consequence is a decrease in revenue.

We have therefore decided to limit the Standard XS license to 3 credits and the Extended license to 100 credits. This is an experiment in order to optimize our prices structure.
This change will apply to all sizes with the current mechanism (S = 3*XS, …) and will be active on November 16th 2010. It could be adjusted in the next weeks.

As always, it is our priority to offer the best possible revenue to our contributors. This adjustment is necessary and we are convinced that it will help development our common sales.

The entire Fotolia team thanks you for your confidence and wish you great sales!

Sincerely,
The Fotolia Team"

Elenathewise · « **Reply #15 on:** November 17, 2010, 13:35 »

Hmm... Looks like you're the only one they sent that newsletter to:)

lisafx · « **Reply #16 on:** November 17, 2010, 13:54 »

Thanks for pointing this out Elena. I missed the newsletter too. Maybe went to my spam filter?

Although emerald, I have always kept my EL's at 100, so I am not personally affected, but I do understand how this could be a problem for folks that have been charging more.

djpadavona · « **Reply #17 on:** November 17, 2010, 15:46 »

I received the newsletter too. They have a study justifying the move on XS prices, and I can't argue with the logic.

From the Old vs New Charts above, it looks to me like Exclusives are getting hammered much harder than non-Exclusives. Yet more proof of what exclusivity will get you in microstock.

RT · « **Reply #18 on:** November 17, 2010, 15:59 »

Recently I enquired with a senior member of management why Fotolia do not promote exclusive images, I got this reply:

"Fotolia has never been huge proponents of exclusivity however if a photographer wanted to be exclusive we are willing to pay extra for that loyalty, but exclusivity does not mean an image should be promoted more than others, thats and istock model we don't want to follow."

leaf · « **Reply #19 on:** November 17, 2010, 18:05 »

Quote from: gostwyck on November 17, 2010, 13:18

Quote from: Elenathewise on November 17, 2010, 00:48
Did Fotolia just changed the upper limit for EL license for emerald contributors or is just me? Used to be 200, now the upper limit is 100... What's going on? No announcements, no explanations... I am getting sick of this.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this before but FT did make an announcement in their email newsletter which I received on 12th Nov. Here's the text;

"We have recently run several studies on sales depending on price structure and we have concluded that the contents with a price superior to 3 credits for a XS size were sold considerably less often. The consequence is a decrease in revenue.

We have therefore decided to limit the Standard XS license to 3 credits and the Extended license to 100 credits. This is an experiment in order to optimize our prices structure.
This change will apply to all sizes with the current mechanism (S = 3*XS, …) and will be active on November 16th 2010. It could be adjusted in the next weeks.

As always, it is our priority to offer the best possible revenue to our contributors. This adjustment is necessary and we are convinced that it will help development our common sales.

The entire Fotolia team thanks you for your confidence and wish you great sales!

Sincerely,
The Fotolia Team"

do they have several newsletters? I got an October contributors newsletter but it just had a tutorial and a photographer bio in it. No news about changes or any 'business' at fotolia.

Do you know what was the email subject line of the newsletter you got?

gostwyck · « **Reply #20 on:** November 17, 2010, 18:24 »

Quote from: leaf on November 17, 2010, 18:05

do they have several newsletters? I got an October contributors newsletter but it just had a tutorial and a photographer bio in it. No news about changes or any 'business' at fotolia.

Do you know what was the email subject line of the newsletter you got?

Both the subject and the sender were entitled 'Fotolia Newsletter'.

cathyslife · « **Reply #21 on:** November 17, 2010, 18:37 »

Quote from: RT on November 17, 2010, 15:59

Recently I enquired with a senior member of management why Fotolia do not promote exclusive images, I got this reply:

"Fotolia has never been huge proponents of exclusivity however if a photographer wanted to be exclusive we are willing to pay extra for that loyalty, but exclusivity does not mean an image should be promoted more than others, thats and istock model we don't want to follow."

I have to say I find that attitude on exclusivity refreshing. Good for them for not following the istock model. And yes, I do believe exclusives should be rewarded for their loyalty.

madelaide · « **Reply #22 on:** November 17, 2010, 19:26 »

I didn't get anything from Fotolia either.

It doesn't affect me, but it surely sucks. Of course some sales are lost in the high credit images, but everyone seems to report better overall results. And it was an option to set at the maximum, contributors had a choice not to overprice their images if they wanted to.

cathyslife · « **Reply #23 on:** November 17, 2010, 19:33 »

I'm not affected, but I am still amazed at why the micro sites don't send out emails on these types of changes. They bury the news in some newsletter that nobody reads or posts it on some big long forum thread, which a lot of people don't read.

I guess I just gave two big reasons why they don't.

djpadavona · « **Reply #24 on:** November 18, 2010, 02:23 »

Maybe it's just me, but I can't draw any comparisons between this and what Getty pulled on its contributors. Fotolia lowered the credit costs for a few images sizes and top line ELs. I realize this sucks for high end contributors. But it hits Fotolia harder than the contributor, since FT make the lion's share of the commission.

Obviously they wouldn't lower the credit cost if they could avoid it, because it hits them harder than it hits any contributor. So their data shows them this is the right move for their company and its contributors. I find no problem in this.

Unlike Getty/IS which just decided to lower contributors' commission percentages and keep a higher % of the profit, in this case Fotolia and its contributors are clearly in the same boat together. If Fotolia is wrong on this move, it will hit them harder than it will any of us.

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Author Topic: EL price change at Fotolia? (Read 23840 times)

Elenathewise

Anyka

fotografer

RT

click_click

Elenathewise

click_click

click_click

click_click

Pixart

cthoman

click_click

Elenathewise

Blufish

gostwyck

Elenathewise

lisafx

djpadavona

RT

leaf

gostwyck

cathyslife

madelaide

cathyslife

djpadavona

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