I posted a question about this at fotolias leagal board.
The answer I got was that yes, fotolia know and has approved this business.
They argued that since the photo ordered from a private person they don't have to pay an EL license and there is no option to opt out from this.
For Me thats unacceptable. My photos are not free to use for a company to market a service that i have not given approval to. My posting of photos at fotolia would newer have happened if i knew this in advance.
I have no problem with one private person enlarging one of my photos. But i DO have a problem if a business makes profit from marketing pictures for free. They don't take any risk and get their business to profit from products they never intend to pay for.
Unethical is the least i can call it.
So i seriously consider deleting my portfolio.
Why do you want to discourage people from buying your image to have printed and decorate their home? If someone like Bilderking is not available to make it easy to do this - mostly they are able to easily buy your image from FT for a customer that does not have an account - you will be missing a lot of perfectly legitimate sales.
Bilderking is taking a big risk. They put capital at risk to invest in a web site and web designers, in staff to manage and maintain the website, in materials, staff and equipment to print, frame and ship images and staff and computers to handle their accounting. From their pricing the margins look very reasonable to me.
Making money with Rights Free (RF) stock images is all about a flexible business model. If some company wants to put their money at risk to deliver services that require RF images it can only be to FT and the contributors advantage to interpret the license requirements as flexibly as possible to accommodate them if the effective license terms are adhered to. This arrangement seems to satisfy those requirements. If it complies with the spirit - if not the letter - of the license it can only benefit contributors.
fred
fred