Author Topic: Fotolia - Unsold contents (ANNOUNCEMENT) (Read 49802 times)

luissantos84 · « **Reply #125 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:36 »

Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:33

Quote from: Mellimage on July 24, 2013, 14:21
Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 13:59

Certainly makes it more complicated to decide what to send to fotolia.

Or incredibly easy... nothing. Because the file needs to earn its cost back within the first 6 months or it is unlikely it ever will.

No, there are files for every price point. But I thought the system with a mix of indie and partly exclusive content was a brilliant move to attract localized content and more high end stuff.

Let´s see if they rework this system. Otherwise, they will really only attract all the things that can sell in superhuge quantities.

And since Fotolia shows visible downloads for each file - this will lead to even more copying because as soon as a file has sales, it will be copied by someone else who hopes to get the same success.

At least they should remove visible downloads to avoid endless duplications between contributors if they want everyone to shoot ultrafast selling generic content.

sorry but that is the least important thing at this moment, we talking about 50% slash in pricing, don't think that today there is one person concerned about copy cats

cobalt · « **Reply #126 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:37 »

So what is your solution? Just not upload until they change things?

Mellimage · « **Reply #127 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:39 »

Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:33

Quote from: Mellimage on July 24, 2013, 14:21
Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 13:59

Certainly makes it more complicated to decide what to send to fotolia.

Or incredibly easy... nothing. Because the file needs to earn its cost back within the first 6 months or it is unlikely it ever will.

No, there are files for every price point. But I thought the system with a mix of indie and partly exclusive content was a brilliant move to attract localized content and more high end stuff.

There certainly is, but the question is - is fotolia the one.
They really have a sweet spot in my heart, because they were the first i signed with and had sales with eons ago, but things have gone from good to bad and from bad to worse and i wonder if the time has come to reconsider sending any work to them.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #128 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:42 »

Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:37

So what is your solution? Just not upload until they change things?

yep something like that

is removing the number of downloads the solution? we aren't here talking about the solution because there isn't one, we are trying to understand what is going on, at this moment this bug that is affecting most pictures doesn't matter how old or how many downloads it has

DonLand · « **Reply #129 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:42 »

I too only wish SS would offer special terms for exclusives, because if they did they would hold all of the content, can you say monopoly? They'd have what Getty use to have in RM. With everything going wrong at IS and now FT why would any photographer not jump at it. After a few months they could even raise the rates a bit because they'd be the only ones with content as all other agencies would loose anyone that is on SS. But alas, they apparently don't want to even if they can be the driver!

Ron · « **Reply #130 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:42 »

I emailed them asking about applying the changes to files that havent sold in 6 months PRIOR to the announcement, if anything it needs to start from today.

If the answer is not satisfactory I will email the BBB or whoever.

Ron · « **Reply #131 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:43 »

Quote from: ferdinand on July 24, 2013, 14:09

Quote from: cthoman on July 24, 2013, 13:51
Quote from: Ron on July 24, 2013, 13:32
If Shutterstock would offer exclusivity they would wipe out a lot of agencies indeed. Jon has the power to do that. If he wanted to.

It might be nice for the rest of us because we'd probably be able to negotiate better rates with the other agencies. I might send out letters the day of the announcement to the other agencies asking if they want to negotiate.

SS doesn't seem to have any interest in it though.

And WHY?!!! SS doesn't have any interest in that - I don t understand - can you give some explanation - it is in their interest - and probably in our interest too...

Because Jon said so. He is not going to offer exclusivity.

DonLand · « **Reply #132 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:46 »

Forgot to say. I've only been with them for a couple of months and have under 200 images with them. I will not be uploading any more and at the 6 month point will go through and delete any unsold images.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #133 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:49 »

Quote from: Ron on July 24, 2013, 14:43

Quote from: ferdinand on July 24, 2013, 14:09
Quote from: cthoman on July 24, 2013, 13:51
Quote from: Ron on July 24, 2013, 13:32
If Shutterstock would offer exclusivity they would wipe out a lot of agencies indeed. Jon has the power to do that. If he wanted to.

It might be nice for the rest of us because we'd probably be able to negotiate better rates with the other agencies. I might send out letters the day of the announcement to the other agencies asking if they want to negotiate.

SS doesn't seem to have any interest in it though.

And WHY?!!! SS doesn't have any interest in that - I don t understand - can you give some explanation - it is in their interest - and probably in our interest too...
Because Jon said so. He is not going to offer exclusivity.

yep and many times but I also woke up today and FT still haven't announced this brilliant thing

cobalt · « **Reply #134 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:50 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 24, 2013, 14:42

Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:37
So what is your solution? Just not upload until they change things?

yep something like that

is removing the number of downloads the solution? we aren't here talking about the solution because there isn't one, we are trying to understand what is going on, at this moment this bug that is affecting most pictures doesn't matter how old or how many downloads it has

Removing the numbers will at least give you the privacy you need when you upload new files now.

I don´t want to stop uploading. I want to keep on working.

sharpshot · « **Reply #135 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:56 »

Quote from: melastmohican on July 24, 2013, 13:05

Of course I assume changing prices will be extremely difficult as usually with Fotolia. I was asking many times to fix default price for Extended license which allowed range is 10-100. Auto-magically it is always set to 10 :-) Finally after lengthy tread rep said they will not do this because management do not want them to do that. When I asked to run a query and set all prices of my images to 100 they said no too. So the only option is to go to every single image and fix it :-) I would be it would be the same in this case.

They used to sell a few EL's for me but that dried up, so I don't think it really matters what price they set for them. SS has no problem selling $100 EL's and higher priced SOD's. Just shows how incompetent FT are. They're now focusing on lowering prices when they could make much more money selling higher priced licences.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #136 on:** July 24, 2013, 14:57 »

Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:50

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 24, 2013, 14:42
Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:37
So what is your solution? Just not upload until they change things?

yep something like that

is removing the number of downloads the solution? we aren't here talking about the solution because there isn't one, we are trying to understand what is going on, at this moment this bug that is affecting most pictures doesn't matter how old or how many downloads it has

Removing the numbers will at least give you the privacy you need when you upload new files now.

I don´t want to stop uploading. I want to keep on working.

again that is a thing that doesn't bother me that much and less at this exact moment

I wonder what Robert thinks about this...

cobalt · « **Reply #137 on:** July 24, 2013, 15:05 »

Yes, his next blog posts will be interesting...

heywoody · « **Reply #138 on:** July 24, 2013, 15:36 »

Wow it's RCs for individual images...

Bit like DT's level 0 at a lower price, except no automatic increase when sales come, they won't go beyond original base price and can drop over and over again - sweet deal.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #139 on:** July 24, 2013, 15:41 »

Quote from: cobalt on July 24, 2013, 14:33

I mean, now all you have to do is look at what sold in the last 6 months from the new uploads...and copy...

Lol! I recall that just under nine years ago someone was banned from iS for recreating the main elements of a famous 17th or 18th century painting - and he did a shameful mea culpa and departed with his head hanging in shame.

Of course, there was copying back then, too, but people needed to take care that they weren't spotted .... well, apart from some of the in-crowd who seem to have been immune.

Perry · « **Reply #140 on:** July 24, 2013, 16:58 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 24, 2013, 08:04

Once the image has sold 3 times, the contributor will have the ability to reset his image price once again.

... ... I really don't have the time and/or energy to start resetting my image prices file by file

Xanox · « **Reply #141 on:** July 24, 2013, 17:30 »

exactly as i predicted long time ago : agencies are forced to do something against oversupply and to give more visibility to sandboxed images that could have potential but have been buried for whatever reason.

i'm curious to see how this will translate in the real world, in my opinion it could be very good for some contributors and disastrous for others.

besides, it could be a total fiasco as Fotolia's theory is that if an image never sells is because it's too pricey or not on par with similar images at the same price.

so, we will see but in my opinion if a photo never sold once is because there's either zero demand for that or it looks good enough but not as good as the other similars, or finally it just su-cks and nobody would buy it even as a gift !

cthoman · « **Reply #142 on:** July 24, 2013, 18:19 »

Quote from: Ron on July 24, 2013, 14:43

Quote from: ferdinand on July 24, 2013, 14:09
Quote from: cthoman on July 24, 2013, 13:51
Quote from: Ron on July 24, 2013, 13:32
If Shutterstock would offer exclusivity they would wipe out a lot of agencies indeed. Jon has the power to do that. If he wanted to.

It might be nice for the rest of us because we'd probably be able to negotiate better rates with the other agencies. I might send out letters the day of the announcement to the other agencies asking if they want to negotiate.

SS doesn't seem to have any interest in it though.

And WHY?!!! SS doesn't have any interest in that - I don t understand - can you give some explanation - it is in their interest - and probably in our interest too...
Because Jon said so. He is not going to offer exclusivity.

Yep, he has said no exclusivity, although I guess you never know when things are going to change.

I don't think SS has a ton of extra cash to offer contributors though, so I'm not sure where the money would come from to sweeten the pot for exclusives. I guess they could implement the Bigstock model and exempt exclusives. But, that would be more of a threat than a perk.

lisafx · « **Reply #143 on:** July 24, 2013, 18:31 »

To be honest, I can't see why anyone would want to go the artist exclusive route anymore. We've all seen what stock sites will do if they feel they have contributors over a barrel.

If SS did indeed wind up with a large number of exclusives and managed to get a monopoly or even close to it, who's so say they won't start pulling the same sh*t?

cobalt · « **Reply #144 on:** July 24, 2013, 18:40 »

Well there are all these smaller agents that take exclusive content, prefilter it and then send it off to the macro agencies. istock used to do it direct with the exclusive content.

SS could easily open up a portal for more specialized content and let contributors submit exclusive series. Instead of sourcing from external agents, they could have their own "blend collection".

Exclusive images is a useful idea. It doesn´t tie the artist down the way artist exclusivity does and the artist is free to work with different companies, especially if they have different styles.

Fotolia could probably do a lot more with their exclusive content, or just invest in a better search experience to help the customers find more unusal images. There are many things they can do bevor they just drop the price.

But of course, you don´t know what is really going. Maybe in the last 10 days fotolia has already lost a lot of customers to istock and their half price campaign. Or just enough to make them panic and so they come up with these extreme systems.

I believe there is a good market there for edited midstock and high end content. I would have thought that to give the customer the best possible search experience and choices from well edited lightboxes and collections is more important than the lowest price.

But maybe the agency owners read this and think we are incredibly naive and price trumps everything, I don´t know.

ferdinand · « **Reply #145 on:** July 24, 2013, 19:04 »

if SS goes for exclusive photographers only - not photos... only IS would survive -

...and then we have new problems - of course - but - something has to change drastically - situation in MS becomes unsustainable...

DonLand · « **Reply #146 on:** July 24, 2013, 21:22 »

Quote from: ferdinand on July 24, 2013, 19:04

if SS goes for exclusive photographers only - not photos... only IS would survive -

...and then we have new problems - of course - but - something has to change drastically - situation in MS becomes unsustainable...

Ah, perchance to dream....

With SS's current client and photographer lists they should offer 50% commissions on exclusive content and raise the sub price to $1/image. I doubt many photogs would not jump at this because it would take out all the competition where we are competing with ourselves and both us and SS would earn more money. Someday maybe Jon will change his mind.... Ok time to wake up....

gillian vann · « **Reply #147 on:** July 24, 2013, 21:44 »

Quote from: Xanox on July 24, 2013, 17:30

exactly as i predicted long time ago :

no, really, you predicted this too?

Silken Photography · « **Reply #148 on:** July 25, 2013, 00:50 »

6 months does seem short, there's a lot of annual events where I assume a lot of images are only popular for the 3-4 months leading up to it. Aren't Fotolia missing out on revenue by forcing all their highly seasonal content to be sold at the lowest price, regardless of quality, year after year?

Lack of automation is painful too. If it's possible to automate an image price dropping, it's perfectly possible to automate an image price rising again after three sales, but they clearly want to encourage low prices.

Ron · « **Reply #149 on:** July 25, 2013, 01:01 »

Quote from: Silken Photography on July 25, 2013, 00:50

6 months does seem short, there's a lot of annual events where I assume a lot of images are only popular for the 3-4 months leading up to it. Aren't Fotolia missing out on revenue by forcing all their highly seasonal content to be sold at the lowest price, regardless of quality, year after year?

Lack of automation is painful too. If it's possible to automate an image price dropping, it's perfectly possible to automate an image price rising again after three sales, but they clearly want to encourage low prices.

They should at least flag an image when its ellegible for a price change again

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Author Topic: Fotolia - Unsold contents (ANNOUNCEMENT) (Read 49802 times)

luissantos84

cobalt

Mellimage

luissantos84

DonLand

Ron

Ron

DonLand

luissantos84

cobalt

sharpshot

luissantos84

cobalt

heywoody

BaldricksTrousers

Perry

Xanox

cthoman

lisafx

cobalt

ferdinand

DonLand

gillian vann

Silken Photography

Ron

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