Recently a buyer contacted me and happened to mentioned they had purchased an image from me through a FT partner .. they had bought it at non-sub prices ... got me curious so I looked in my FT earnings and saw that FT paid me for a sub sale. I looked a few pages deep and found more partner sales ... all of which I was paid sub-sale percentages. I'm thinking ok a 8% commission is just not cool.

Then I started looking into FT's new project Photoexpress. Through Photoexpress a buyer can get a subscription for $10 a month and have access to all of FT's free files plus 1 premium download. In other words FT is selling one of your images for $10 through a subscription process on a partner site which they own. So this made me ask .. ok can FT now sale our images for $10 a pop and pay us a 3% commission? This is a huge concern for me so I contacted FT about it.

I asked FT if one of my images uploaded to FT was sold through Photoexpress as a premium download what would I be paid? ... here was their reply ...

"Thank you for your e-mail. Please note that we are a separate company and we have no Photoxpress customer service department here. For more information please contact the Customer Service department from the Photoxpress site."

That sounds like a stupid reply ... why would Photoexpress tell me how much FT is going to pay me?

Ok so I emailed them again further explaining I do not have an account with Photoexpress and that my images showing on Photoexpress are premium images in my FT account .. I didn't put them there FT did and when I get paid on a partner sale FT is going to be the one who pays me .. now tell me how much I am going to be paid?

and here's FT's next reply ...

"Please note that some of your files were added into our API Free section, and they have been payed to you by Fotolia already. PhotoXpress is a sister website of Fotolia and all free files are currently showing on the same data base. For more information please contact PhotoXpress customer service."

What the F**K are they talking about ?!?!?!?! These are premium files in everyone's accounts that we make our living from. They are not free files. I made it clear I was talking about the premium files they are selling so why don't they want to tell us how much they are going to pay us.

Ok at this point I'm thinking it's a bunch of total BS but I'm going to play along and contact the Photoexpress people just for giggles. I ask how much will FT contributors be paid on PREMIUM image sales.

and here we go with the Photoexpress (AKA FT) reply ...

"Dear Randy, Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately PhotoXpress does not provide any royalties to members. Please note that Fotolia has already payed the contributors for those images, when adding them into the Free API section. Kind regards, PhotoXpress C.S. Department"

If I was a postal worker I'd be loading my gun right now. I feel like I'm talking to Sean Penn in a bad remake of I am Sam. Are these employees IQs so incredibly low that they cannot understand the difference between .. "How much will I be paid for a Premium sale?" and "Will I be paid for free image downloads?" ... I don't think so .. that would be pretty F'in bad. The only logically conclusion I can come up with is that ... FT does not want us to know how much they intend to give us ... if anything at all. At this point I would totally not be surprised if images were being sold and not reported.

I have absolutely no trust for FT at this point. I strongly urge everybody here to start paying attention to what's going on. How much money have you lost? For those who FT is your highest earner .. you should REALLY be looking into this .. because chances are you're getting the big stiff one harder and faster than everybody else.

Everyone should remember that yeah FT makes a lot of sales ... but if we don't upload to them the buyers go elsewhere .. they don't just up and shut their design businesses down. If FT was unable to produce fresh content buyers would just move over to SS, DT and IS ... which would mean more sales and faster payouts. The problem is too many hobbyist and the lack of microstockers organizing into a collective where we can have the power to make demands. At this rate I'm seeing this as my last year in FT.

Ok I'm done. If anyone doubts FT's intentions contact them for yourself and see if they give you the runaround too. I'd love to see some black n white facts on how exactly we are being paid for partner sales and FT's new Evil Empire Photoexpress.

Don't be a bunch of punks and just stand there .. or should I say bend over .. and let FT smack it to ya. Do something about it.

2 minutes of searching and I probably saw a thousand images of mine that are all premium files for sale on FT ... they have FT watermarks all over them and a huge ribbon that reads "PREMIUM" ... It's totally obvious and to the point yet FT refuses to answer on the subject.

I think Fotolia's customer service is constantly working on perfecting their Abbot and Costello "Who's on first?" routine. That said, Fotolia seemed to insinuate that you had opted into something in their response (too vague to know for sure though). How did your portfolio get on there? I saw some people that looked like they had most of their images on there, but I didn't see any of mine.

I hope you can get a clear answer. These partner programs definitely seem a little devious at times, so I feel your suspicion (and pain). I think if Fotolia ever crosses the line too far, I'll be back on that IS exclusive fence. 

It sounds like $9.99 for 30 images (one a day) so it is roughly .30 per download. for buyer. How much did you get?

Then I started looking into FT's new project Photoexpress. Through Photoexpress a buyer can get a subscription for $10 a month and have access to all of FT's free files plus 1 premium download. In other words FT is selling one of your images for $10 through a subscription process on a partner site which they own. So this made me ask .. ok can FT now sale our images for $10 a pop and pay us a 3% commission? This is a huge concern for me so I contacted FT about it.

Hello Randy, firstly I think everybody agree that Fotolia are and have been the worst communicator of all sites. It does show in the kind of replies you did get from them. However, without wanting to be a FT defender, I would like to point out that from what I can understand from the Photoexpress subsriptions page at http://www.photoxpress.com/Info/Upgrade that our photos are not sold at $10 a pop. That $9.99 deal is a subscription deal for which a buyer would have to pay $9.99 a month for a minimum of three months and would give him/her the right to download a maximum of 1 premium image a day for which I guess we get .32 per download.  I still don't like subscription but I think this scenario is better then the one you presented. Denis

i think this is quite serious. any options to opt out from partner sales ?

I think sooner or later satellite partner sites will be future of microstock and they will not allow contributors to opt out :-)

Don't agree at all with this. As and example in the last few hours I have sold an extra small image for 9 credits giving me 4.32$ and a small for 11 credits giving me 6.35$.  I don't get these sort of commisions anywhere else for small and extrasmall images.

, and that from DT is going down.

Between this, their monkeying around with the whole "exchange rate" issue, opting you into stuff, etc... I think Fotolia is really sleazy.  At least Getty tries to explain why and how they are raping you... Fotolia just seems to do it and try to hide it.

Ah yes, the legendary FTL support. They mastered the skill of question-dodging. How to answer your questions without answering the question - no one is better in that, they the real masters. First it was annoying but now I find it more and more funny every time I read a story about it.
I tell you the secret counter action: never ask them anything you don't already know the answer for.

... and the RPD at fotolia get smaller and smaller...

Sure, last month at Fotolia I had a BME.
But for me, as a vector artist, other agencys have a better RPD.
And not only at Fotolia I had a BME last month. 

And the spring-sun is shining ! 

in Germany its already well-known that fotolia is not a trustworthy partner.
I also deleted my account at fotolia couple of months ago!

This is a severe accusation, do not judge them before you hear them. Ah , I forgot they don't talk. Anyway I am sure they don't cheat but it would be nice to hear their voice.