MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: Fotolia D-Day (Deactivation Day) - May,1  (Read 305666 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« Reply #375 on: April 30, 2014, 15:43 »
+7
Every day many requests are sent from Dollar Photo Club members wanting to purchase an Extended License.  In response they are directed to Fotolia to make the purchase.  Ive just been notified that Dollar Photo Club will soon be adding an Extended License. The commission paid to photographers will be an even $30 (US).  The cost for the member for this license will be $50 resulting in a 60% commission rate for contributors.

For any of us who have been selling for a while and through multiple sites, the ratio of an extended license sales to others is reasonably well established. You cannot solve a basic pricing problem with the volume sales by having a few extended licenses (even though there's nothing wrong with the price and royalty for those, depending on what rights you're including).

This seems as if management thinks that dangling a nice, though very occasional trinket of an EL sale will cause contributors to forget about the fundamental problem.

The tech crunch article quotes Fotolia's owner saying that he's trying to use the pricing to take market share away from Shutterstock and iStock. Almost all of us would lose badly if that were to succeed, $30 EL royalties or no.

There we go! Even thou- there are missleaded buyers, who will think that they by EL instead of SL.  If in the front page, when you sign up- there is 1$ no limits, no extra money- what do you mean with that? Hah?
That's just misleading. The same thing- we are going to invent EL- so?! The one I just bought isn't fit on my cup? Etc...  just recently they changed the limit to 500.000. What was there before that- unlimited. mark my words- there are more than few of such remarks.  So- just keep reading their interpretation capabilities and deleting my portfolio. :)


« Reply #376 on: April 30, 2014, 15:45 »
0
Just imagine how proud they will be in 2 years when the whole marked is selling photos for $1 and they are forced to lower theirs to 50 cents.

Forced? I think they would be eager to do it.

Every day many requests are sent from Dollar Photo Club members wanting to purchase an Extended License.  In response they are directed to Fotolia to make the purchase.  Ive just been notified that Dollar Photo Club will soon be adding an Extended License. The commission paid to photographers will be an even $30 (US).  The cost for the member for this license will be $50 resulting in a 60% commission rate for contributors.

I see the next thing fotolia is going to say to promote their disruptive initiative... you can make UP to 60% on a sale and up to $30 on Photos.com.

If 60% is sustainable on Extended Licenses, why not do it on all sales? That would be a real sign that they are working to increase contributor's revenue.

They (informally via Mike) did that.
Matt Hayward wrotes- Every day many requests are sent from Dollar Photo Club members wanting to purchase an Extended License. In response they are directed to Fotolia to make the purchase. Ive just been notified that Dollar Photo Club will soon be adding an Extended License. The commission paid to photographers will be an even $30 (US). The cost for the member for this license will be $50 resulting in a 60% commission rate for contributors.

« Reply #377 on: April 30, 2014, 15:56 »
+11
they lie. our partner lies. our agency lies. they tell "stories", but not the truth. How we can make business with them?

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #378 on: April 30, 2014, 15:57 »
+8
The real problem is that these agencies have 10s of millions of images, a large percentage of which were parked there long ago by people who don't pay attention to new developments, don't read this forum, and have decided to just take whatever they get for however long it lasts.   So bottom feeders like FT can count on having enough reasonably good material for a long time to come, no matter what they do.   They  compete on nothing but price and that can only lead in one direction.   

I don't see any hope of a turnaround. 

Not necessarily. If a big deactivation of files occurs tomorrow, many buyers will be unpleasantly surprised to find the images they want are no longer downloadable. A few hundred or thousand experiences like that and DFC gets a bad rep. And you know all the stock sites are paying attention to this group action.

« Reply #379 on: April 30, 2014, 16:02 »
+20
D-day has begun in some parts of the world.
I think it's time to sum things up (Current forum time: April 30, 2014, 15:48).
According to the boycottfotolia.org 87900 images and 67 portfolios have already been deleted.
And according to the posts from microstock.ru (April,25) there was a number of 28,360,932 Royalty Free Stock Photos on the main page and now it shows 28,213,920, so it is minus 147,012 files difference! Add here all those uploads from the contributors who continued uploading. I think that only thanks to all that people Fotolia started some actions and communication. They made some changes to the DPC license and finally introduced opt out option. The problem is that by default everyone still opted-in and they didn't notify contributors about DPC. According to the forums those "You probably heard that we have launched Dollar Photo Club" messages got only the ones who somehow showed their awareness about DPC (by deleting files, support messages, clicking opt out button and even active forums discussions (if forum name is equal to fotolia's display name)). And of course they didn't remove cheap $10 Membership plan. Some contributors already tried and got approved to DPC within an hour - proof http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img835/2648/tsxi.png
It is a little bit sad to see some passiveness on English speaking forums about the issue. In comparison only on one of the three main independent Russian speaking microstock forums I've counted 4500+ messages about the DPC since April, 24 till now. It also sad to see people happy about opt out, pulling out your own port from DPC doesn't make the future of industry healthier having in mind that still only small group of contributors aware ot the situation. FT made this only after our petition and only to calm us down. Who knows what they will do some time later.
Thanks to all who signed petition, and helped to spread the world! I think that we should continue to inform contributors about DPC since FT failed to do so.
For now I would like to give you some D-Day tips to make things faster ;D
1) Open My Files page in your account and set show 100 files per page,
2) hold Ctrl and click all 100 deletes with your left mouse button near your files (100 new tabs will open in background),
3) move from page to page with Ctrl+Tab, and click on "delete this file" confirmation button, don't waite page loading - go on,
4) After that hold Ctrl+F4 or Ctrl+W to close all those browser tabs.
5) repeat N1 and have fun! :)
Don't forget that you can use StockSubmitter to do the job (look at the first message in this thread) and now you can choose not to delete videos and option to start with top downloaded, least downloaded, newest or oldest files.
I think everyone (and fotorob ;)) can afford to delete some files to support D-Day and microstock community!
Happy D-Day!
Watch the numbers at fotolia.com and compare


« Reply #380 on: April 30, 2014, 16:14 »
+4
Just imagine how proud they will be in 2 years when the whole marked is selling photos for $1 and they are forced to lower theirs to 50 cents.

Forced? I think they would be eager to do it.

Every day many requests are sent from Dollar Photo Club members wanting to purchase an Extended License.  In response they are directed to Fotolia to make the purchase.  Ive just been notified that Dollar Photo Club will soon be adding an Extended License. The commission paid to photographers will be an even $30 (US).  The cost for the member for this license will be $50 resulting in a 60% commission rate for contributors.

I see the next thing fotolia is going to say to promote their disruptive initiative... you can make UP to 60% on a sale and up to $30 on Photos.com.

If 60% is sustainable on Extended Licenses, why not do it on all sales? That would be a real sign that they are working to increase contributor's revenue.

They (informally via Mike) did that.
Matt Hayward wrotes- Every day many requests are sent from Dollar Photo Club members wanting to purchase an Extended License. In response they are directed to Fotolia to make the purchase. Ive just been notified that Dollar Photo Club will soon be adding an Extended License. The commission paid to photographers will be an even $30 (US). The cost for the member for this license will be $50 resulting in a 60% commission rate for contributors.

 O yes- every one someday wants to feel special. Especially for THE price. All that thing about membership is such a crap.  Pay 10 bucks, (wich appearantly turn ouet to be credits, because you dont't loose them they say so).  Next month comes your 10. usd payment- you still have left some, lets say 5  from previous. This month you sort of can downlod allready 15 hi res images/ vectors.  And so go on on on. The only thing is- their quotation- (Need remarks, but tired to copy links)- looking for large amount buyers  is so bull***,- if you need amount, you go to subscription. Any kind of them is better than this. And even if you buy something you don't  need- it rather will be cheaper than buy from fck'''club, where you have to to pay so called membership (unless you opt out).

« Reply #381 on: April 30, 2014, 16:19 »
+7
D-day has begun in some parts of the world.
I think it's time to sum things up (Current forum time: April 30, 2014, 15:48).
According to the boycottfotolia.org 87900 images and 67 portfolios have already been deleted.
And according to the posts from microstock.ru (April,25) there was a number of 28,360,932 Royalty Free Stock Photos on the main page and now it shows 28,213,920, so it is minus 147,012 files difference! Add here all those uploads from the contributors who continued uploading. I think that only thanks to all that people Fotolia started some actions and communication. They made some changes to the DPC license and finally introduced opt out option. The problem is that by default everyone still opted-in and they didn't notify contributors about DPC. According to the forums those "You probably heard that we have launched Dollar Photo Club" messages got only the ones who somehow showed their awareness about DPC (by deleting files, support messages, clicking opt out button and even active forums discussions (if forum name is equal to fotolia's display name)). And of course they didn't remove cheap $10 Membership plan. Some contributors already tried and got approved to DPC within an hour - proof http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img835/2648/tsxi.png [nofollow]
It is a little bit sad to see some passiveness on English speaking forums about the issue. In comparison only on one of the three main independent Russian speaking microstock forums I've counted 4500+ messages about the DPC since April, 24 till now. It also sad to see people happy about opt out, pulling out your own port from DPC doesn't make the future of industry healthier having in mind that still only small group of contributors aware ot the situation. FT made this only after our petition and only to calm us down. Who knows what they will do some time later.
Thanks to all who signed petition, and helped to spread the world! I think that we should continue to inform contributors about DPC since FT failed to do so.
For now I would like to give you some D-Day tips to make things faster ;D
1) Open My Files page in your account and set show 100 files per page,
2) hold Ctrl and click all 100 deletes with your left mouse button near your files (100 new tabs will open in background),
3) move from page to page with Ctrl+Tab, and click on "delete this file" confirmation button, don't waite page loading - go on,
4) After that hold Ctrl+F4 or Ctrl+W to close all those browser tabs.
5) repeat N1 and have fun! :)
Don't forget that you can use StockSubmitter [nofollow] to do the job (look at the first message in this thread) and now you can choose not to delete videos and option to start with top downloaded, least downloaded, newest or oldest files.
I think everyone (and fotorob ;)) can afford to delete some files to support D-Day and microstock community!
Happy D-Day!
Watch the numbers at fotolia.com and compare


Well keep on! Thanks! And the day is in here allready begun! Off to delete section! See ya guys in #boycottfotolia.org

« Reply #382 on: April 30, 2014, 16:29 »
+9
In 40 min will start day 1 here in Spain. I will delete some of my photos too for supporting our reasonable demands. In have opt out already.

Message for spanish speakers;

Aprovecho para animar a otros compaeros a unirse a la protesta y a rechazar la opcin de incluir su contenido en Dollar Photo Club, que est activada por defecto. Pueden hacerlo en;
Mi Cuenta / mi perfil / parmetros de colaborador / vender mis contenidos en Dpc

« Reply #383 on: April 30, 2014, 16:30 »
+15
I am very impressed with the strength and passion of the Russian language initiative. I understand if people are disappointed by the slower reaction here. But I think this might just reflect that Fotolia is not such a strong agency in the English speaking world. If you just make 20 dollars a month with Fotolia, you will not give it that much attention.

Fotolia is a very strong agency in Europe/Russia, but has little market share in North America.

The German fotolia board has a very frank discussion, and lots of respect for the initiative. Without the protest the changes announced in the last two days wouldnt have happened.


« Reply #384 on: April 30, 2014, 16:32 »
+18
My wife just removed her entire portfolio from FT as the part of 1st May protest (it is already 1st May there)

It was really hard to do it because it is plain loss of 10% of microstock earnings.
But we believe that this will help both us to make more money from ondemand/single sales on other agencies and the industry to stop this race to the bottom.

That's very sad but FT leaves no other option for contributors by ignoring their voice.

MxR

« Reply #385 on: April 30, 2014, 16:41 »
+4
Deleiting...
Up!!


« Reply #386 on: April 30, 2014, 16:41 »
+3
In 40 min will start day 1 here in Spain. I will delete some of my photos too for supporting our reasonable demands. In have opt out already.

Message for spanish speakers;

Aprovecho para animar a otros compaeros a unirse a la protesta y a rechazar la opcin de incluir su contenido en Dollar Photo Club, que est activada por defecto. Pueden hacerlo en;
Mi Cuenta / mi perfil / parmetros de colaborador / vender mis contenidos en Dpc

Gracias por su apoyo y comprensin

« Reply #387 on: April 30, 2014, 16:45 »
+13
Hi

I have been in this less than a year so I am certainly not an expert. It has been a surprisingly fun, struggling and learning experience to build up a small portfolio and try to think 'microstock'.

Now, I thought I would share a few thoughts on my perspective of this world that may come out as a bit simplified, but still, I feel there is a 'the emperor has no clothes' scenario here that many of you, us, need to wake up from.

Don't ever forget this (1):

The world needs new, unique, outstanding, beautiful and interesting images, vectors, sketches, visuals like never ever before and this demand will double and triple over the next years. Creating an image is very hard work and takes plenty of talent and skill as you know, but maybe forgot to value. As image makers we need to visualize, know various techniques, have color skills, know everything from sketching, design, computer skills, word skills for key wording and so much more.

I feel very disturbed when agencies dump prices like what is happening with Fotolia and the cheap dollar club just now. In my world it is a violation of a silent agreement that should be underlying all business you do in a partnership.  >:(

The damage was done simply by them trying because it revealed a very ugly attitude. Trust needs to be earned, and I don't think it helps to change conditions just because of our D-day reaction.

Is there an international stock photographers association? And a counterpart like a stock agency association? Why not get together with some of the honest and ethical smaller agencies and set up a midsize, mid stock or micro stock photographer's owned agency.

Some have perhaps tried and done that. I guess there are lots of 'doesn't work because' I guess there are lots of small, midsize agencies struggling. Maybe someone can get an idea on some steps that could be taken for a win-win situation for everyone.

But what I think I am mostly after is a way to kind of group together and agree on a few basic standards that we want to see in a stock agency. This 'group' should also be prepared to take a stand, ignore and leave out agencies that don't want to adhere to those standards.

This group could invite leadership from the stock agencies and have yearly discussions that should be about the future of photography, image creating, markets etc. There could be negotiations about development yearly, agreements that two parts would be held accountable to keep. Vows to keep every year.

The market would accept whatever the status would be, if they want to buy images with a quality mark through acceptable agencies on the good list.

If they want to buy from the dollar clubs, then let them.

Don't ever forget this (2):
You can't be a doormat until you lay down!

Stand up and walk away from this.
Your work is too valuable.
Something great may come of this.

« Reply #388 on: April 30, 2014, 16:48 »
+2
In 40 min will start day 1 here in Spain. I will delete some of my photos too for supporting our reasonable demands. In have opt out already.

Message for spanish speakers;

Aprovecho para animar a otros compaeros a unirse a la protesta y a rechazar la opcin de incluir su contenido en Dollar Photo Club, que est activada por defecto. Pueden hacerlo en;
Mi Cuenta / mi perfil / parmetros de colaborador / vender mis contenidos en Dpc

Gracias por su apoyo y comprensin

De nada, es por el inters de todos nosotros. Tenemos que hacernos valer, nadie va a valorar nuestro tabajo si no empezamos nosotros mismos por defenderlo. Un saludo!

« Reply #389 on: April 30, 2014, 16:50 »
+9
Within 10 minutes it's May 1st here and to support the cause I will delete some images as well.

Edit: Done!
« Last Edit: April 30, 2014, 17:12 by Noedelhap »

« Reply #390 on: April 30, 2014, 17:39 »
+7
Happy D-Day!
Watch the numbers at fotolia.com and compare

Hour and a half later ;D

« Reply #391 on: April 30, 2014, 17:40 »
+2
i did not know what is going on, i just saw this.

havent decided to pull my pics yet.

last time i closed my istock port and a lot of good that did....i just shot my self in the foot.

fyi, i never reactivated it, like otheres.

anyway how do i OPT OUT my fololia pics, while i decide if i want to shoot my other foot.
thank you

« Reply #392 on: April 30, 2014, 17:43 »
+21
I'm in microstock business from the very beginning. I have seen the birth of all main agencies- iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Fotolia, BS, CS, 123RF etc. I watched how they grew up. And I saw how they acted at one point or another. Through the years Istockphoto and Fotolia appeared to be the most unfriendly agencies. Is so pity because Fotolia at one period (about 2007-2009) was my earner number one. I have 3500+ files on FT. I stopped upload a long time ago and now I'm deleting my photos in consolidation with Fotolia D-Day. I don't know yet how many I will delete- maybe half of them or maybe my all portfolio. But the fact is- I am with hardly working photogs and against abuse of agency. Good luck to my all colleagues!
« Last Edit: April 30, 2014, 17:48 by 4seasons »

« Reply #393 on: April 30, 2014, 18:05 »
+5
120 images deleted from my port. Maybe more in a few hours. Hope it will be helpful.

« Reply #394 on: April 30, 2014, 18:06 »
+2

anyway how do i OPT OUT my fololia pics, while i decide if i want to shoot my other foot.

One of my photographer friends who is at Fotolia posted this after I alerted people on Facebook (I hope this helps; I'm not with Fotolia any more so I can't use my experience)

" I found it too - it is in Profile, then Contributor Parameters and as Jo Ann says, it is called the DPC"

« Reply #395 on: April 30, 2014, 18:14 »
+4
Deleted 15 images, will delete more later !

« Reply #396 on: April 30, 2014, 18:26 »
+4
Just done a batch of deletions. Might do some more in the morning...

« Reply #397 on: April 30, 2014, 18:31 »
+9
Just deleted 800 photos and 3d-renders so far, will continue in the morning (it's 2:30 a.m. here in Belarus).

« Reply #398 on: April 30, 2014, 18:45 »
+3
So far 212 left. Just ready for kick them all- Ill leave one! :) - this one fits to be last one standing -http://eu.fotolia.com/Member/IndexContent/23713697

« Reply #399 on: April 30, 2014, 19:00 »
+12
Still a good 6 hours early for me here. But, I wasn't about to let all of you guys have the fun without me. I deleted all the photos and sent this
« Last Edit: April 30, 2014, 19:03 by DallasP »


 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
938 Replies
221599 Views
Last post April 30, 2014, 18:36
by deryl1975
64 Replies
31382 Views
Last post July 30, 2013, 12:08
by Noedelhap
4 Replies
3451 Views
Last post November 18, 2013, 08:36
by Mantis
11 Replies
7111 Views
Last post October 01, 2014, 13:42
by Freedom
46 Replies
19935 Views
Last post July 27, 2020, 13:29
by Suspect

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors