YadaYadaYada,

Just wish I could put and external link on Fotolias forum thats so "of the hour"
Personaly I cant afford to just take my portfolio away from Fotolia, If I could I would do it right now. But I am not just going to sit and do nothing. Fotolia have a habbit of shooting themselves in the foot, after all this is how we found out about this !!
And if I think something is wrong I will say it.
I do think that some people at Fotolia would make a hell of a lot more money if they came and worked for the political parties over here as they do need new spin doctors.

I do think that some people at Fotolia would make a hell of a lot more money if they came and worked for the political parties over here as they do need new spin doctors.

Spin spin spin - yep you're right there Warren. The only clear communication we have had since this whole thing started was that rude reply you got back from support!!! 

BaldricksTrousers,

My problem with your posts is that we've seen too many new people coming to stir the discussions more than necessary, and I am tired of that.  Writing in caps, or bold, or red, just yelling, I do find it annoying and unpolite. 

I'm sorry you find red annoying, I won't do it again. Can you tell me what the permissible degree of stirring up discussions is for a newbie? Or should I just not say anything because you might not like it?

Baldricks,

The big problem is with me and prob a few of the others is that we just dont know who you are and where your coming from. I have no problem as I use the same name here as I do with all the stock agencies. this can be verified by other people here in a matter of clicks, so for me nothing to hide.
You have posted your reasons for not wanting to be known and thats ok but I have no way of finding out if those reasons are true or not, and you could say anything you like (within reason) and get awat with it, i cant do that what I say here I have to stand by and have good reason to say it, i cant tell any lies here and what I post is based on what I know to be the truth.

Cheers
Warren

Danicek,

I totaly depend on the money I earn on stock sites, people who know me know this only too well, and dont doubt for one second what FT are capable of, so yeah anyone can hide there true identity, even Fotolia so thats why the likes of me have to be careful in what we say and what we do.

You've hit the nail on the head, Danicek.

Warren, I do understand the issue with anonymity and credibility but that wasn't Maria's issue. First she didn't like newbies appearing and posting "flames" on a single topic, then she was bothered about one paragraph because the colour and size offended her. She hasn't said anything about anonymity.

By itself, a name proves nothing. Anybody could sign up here using the name I use everywhere else and people would think it was really me.

Lisafx's method of judging the credibility of a contributor's comments by the evidence contained in all that person's posts is really the only certain way of arriving at a sensible conclusion. Thank you, Lisa.

As for Maria's concern about "flames" - if telling the truth is "flaming" then it's the fault of those who created that truth in the first place. And I'm in Catch 22. If I tell you exactly who I am and what THE CHAD did to anger me so much, then I will undoubtedly get the Bobby Deal treatment.

You see, I do understand the messages Fotolia sends to us. It doesn't matter if you are their fifth-biggest selling artist, if they don't like comments you make anywhere, not just in their own forum, they will have no qualms about kicking you off. And, despite keeping my mouth shut in public up to now, I had already been threatened. I can't tell you how or why, because that would identify me and, no doubt, get me kicked off. If I'm going to quit I want to decide when - and it would be six months after I stopped uploading at Dreamstime.

Anyway, despite the resentment it creates, I don't care much about the threats or insults as long as they pay me the right percentage of the actual sale price of each file. The only relationship I want between them and me is that I send them images and they Paypal me the agreed commission without undue delay. Then I can shut up again and concentrate on creating images.

...Anyway, despite the resentment it creates, I don't care much about the threats or insults as long as they pay me the right percentage of the actual sale price of each file. The only relationship I want between them and me is that I send them images and they Paypal me the agreed commission without undue delay. Then I can shut up again and concentrate on creating images.

I completely understand the anonymity thing even though I don't like it much. I don't blame you, however, but FT whose repeated underworld-like behavior has necessitated this sort of thing. They threatened me too a while ago for speaking up and organizing on an independent forum on one of their earlier lets-hose-our-contributors-and-hope-they-don't-notice/fuss maneuvers.

I think the long term problem exists with agencies like FT even if you get some sort of resolution on the current issue. They've repeatedly pulled stunts, it gets noticed, there's a big fuss, they make some changes and then things go quiet for a bit. I was hoping that when Patrick Lor joined them things might improve, but I guess culture trickles down from the top of the organization and nothing much has changed.

Forums like this one have time and again been the point for people to find out what's going on and try to organize and fix things. Having to deal with one another anonymously instead of openly (where we can see people's portfolios and tell the newbie who's uploaded 50 images from the person who's been around for years and has thousands of images) makes things much more difficult.

I don't have a direct stake in this tussle any more, but I'm sure Getty's watching this and I think it's better for all of us that FT not be able to succeed in a stealth royalty cut because that will encourage copycats.

I wish we could just get on with creating stuff, but I guess a cost of doing business for contributors is the ongoing struggle for fair and straightforward dealings with our agents.

Is there any photographer/contributor with US zone account?.. Do you have 50$ on your account??.. The conversion is on 1.2$ or not?..

thanks!

I 've reached that and the cash-out value today is $1 per credit, not $1.20.

^^ None yet. I'm watching that FT thread from Chad and expecting something there... It may well be they are expecting us to give up on following this.

Do you know of any way to check the partner sites? I know I've heard someone in one of these threads talking about their pictures still being on the partner sites, but I don't remember who it was.

I don't know if this helps anyone.

I asked FT:

Hi

I have noticed that the grey box to the left of my contributor account page no longer contains the credit value of which I will my commission is based. Has this changed and will it be displayed in the future? Thanks

FT Replied:

Thank you for your e-mail.

We are currently updating our website. I was told that we will won't display that anymore.

Kind regards,

Fotolia Team U.K.


I asked FT a further question beceause the first reply didn't realy answere the question:

Hi

Thanks for the prompt reply. As the current credit value is no longer displayed in the grey box, please could you let me know where I can find this information. Is the current credit value for contributors commission still �0.75 and will it be changing in the near future. Thanks.

FT Replied:

Thank you for your e-mail. The current value for contributors is the same - �0.75, it never changed so far. I am not certain about any future plans.

Kind regards,

Fotolia Team U.K.



So there you have it, make of it what you will. I still don't know where on the site I can find out how to calculate my commission, does anyone?

Wow..if that ain't a slap in the face I don't know what is!! How the H*** are we suppose to know if they are paying us the correct amount or not...

Quote from: massman on February 06, 2010, 13:27

I don't know if this helps anyone.

I asked FT:

Hi

I have noticed that the grey box to the left of my contributor account page no longer contains the credit value of which I will my commission is based. Has this changed and will it be displayed in the future? Thanks

FT Replied:

Thank you for your e-mail.

We are currently updating our website. I was told that we will won't display that anymore.

Kind regards,

Fotolia Team U.K.


I asked FT a further question beceause the first reply didn't realy answere the question:

Hi

Thanks for the prompt reply. As the current credit value is no longer displayed in the grey box, please could you let me know where I can find this information. Is the current credit value for contributors commission still �0.75 and will it be changing in the near future. Thanks.

FT Replied:

Thank you for your e-mail. The current value for contributors is the same - �0.75, it never changed so far. I am not certain about any future plans.

Kind regards,

Fotolia Team U.K.



So there you have it, make of it what you will. I still don't know where on the site I can find out how to calculate my commission, does anyone?

Wow..if that ain't a slap in the face I don't know what is!! How the H*** are we suppose to know if they are paying us the correct amount or not...

As FT unusual commission structure becomes more and more widely known and becomes unattractive to serious new recruits, I think that it is inevitable, FT will eventually have to come out with a fair and transparent commission structure to get new fresh smart content. But as we have seen two months ago with their ITIN number requirement, it took a while to make them understand, although they would have found out the hard way anyway later on with massive W7 letter rejections if we had not intervene. I think that  FT should now take this opportunity to provide a new fair and transparent commission structure to prevent another unfortunate situation.  I think that the reason why they are not communicating about this at the moment is because they are probably working at such a transparent commission structure and probably trying to bridge the gap between the time we did not know about this and the time when the new commission structure will be announced so that this present gap will not look as bad even if it still look bad as it is. I am just guessing.

Denis

Why they removed it from the grey box I have no idea, but I did some more searching and the info is available here: http://en.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors  about halfway down the page. I don't know why FT didn't point that out to me in their reply.