I am not Russian anymore

thanks for the clarification Chad.

If there's a rank above sapphire then that's favoritism to keep the top ports from being affected.  If there isn't disregard because I can not find the rank list on the site anymore.

Folks,

After carefully considering your feedback, we've decided to focus on retail pricing rather than commissions. Most of the photographers that we have spoken to agree that destructive retail pricing is not good for the industry. We have worked with industry leaders such as Yuri Arcurs and Mark Butler (Monkey Business) to convince agencies like deposit photos to sell at sustainable prices reflected by the current online market leaders. We applaud their recent success and hope the trend will continue. We encourage all photographers with portfolios on this and similar sites to do the same.

Based on your feedback, we've modified our rule to allow Fotolia to decrease retail pricing to the lowest tier, if a photographer's images are being sold on other sites for significantly less, **without** modifying the royalty levels.

Please note that this rule only applies to Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire ranked images that are non-exclusive, and selling at prices above the standard XS price. No changes will occur without prior communications with the artist.

Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com

I suppose that it is hard to compete with others on commissions when you are the low commission leader.

actually I agree that sites offering images for too low is a problem - I believe Fotolia offers free images does it not? What are you going to do about that assault on retail pricing?

This is almost funny.  Microstock agencies came in and literally pulled the rug out from under the entire stock photo industry and put many stock photo agencies that charged fair prices out of business by licensing photos for less than pennies on the dollar compared to the pricing structure at that time.  They are now finding both that they can't survive on the prices they themselves set and they are attempting to address this by cutting royalties...  and they are finding THEY DON'T LIKE IT MUCH WHEN SOMEONE DOES TO THEM ON A SMALL SCALE WHAT THEY DID TO THE INDUSTRY ON A GRAND SCALE.

It's poetic justice and it would be funny were it not for the fact that the real losers are the photographers who earn their livings making images that others depend on to market themselves.

It's not the same. Macro agencies and macro photographers didn't react, they just made fun of the "poor quality" of microstock agencies and photographer's, stating that susch stuff could never be a threat. I read that hundreds of times in a variety of forums. Big mistake, but their mistake. Never the arrogance sin had a worse punishment.

We have worked with industry leaders such as Yuri Arcurs and Mark Butler (Monkey Business) to convince agencies like deposit photos to sell at sustainable prices reflected by the current online market leaders. We applaud their recent success and hope the trend will continue. We encourage all photographers with portfolios on this and similar sites to do the same.

Based on your feedback, we've modified our rule to allow Fotolia to decrease retail pricing to the lowest tier, if a photographer's images are being sold on other sites for significantly less, **without** modifying the royalty levels.

So, you're saying that since these two companies sell on iStock, where work is available for 1 credit, as opposed to fotolia's 3 credit level, for an XS for example, which is 1/3 of the price, that you'll be dropping them both to the lowest tier?  How did that fly with them?

Someone email that thread to Fotolia... 19 pages of talk might give them some thoughts

Quote from: sjlocke on October 03, 2011, 19:31

Quote from: chad_fotolia on October 03, 2011, 16:26

We have worked with industry leaders such as Yuri Arcurs and Mark Butler (Monkey Business) to convince agencies like deposit photos to sell at sustainable prices reflected by the current online market leaders. We applaud their recent success and hope the trend will continue. We encourage all photographers with portfolios on this and similar sites to do the same.

Based on your feedback, we've modified our rule to allow Fotolia to decrease retail pricing to the lowest tier, if a photographer's images are being sold on other sites for significantly less, **without** modifying the royalty levels.

So, you're saying that since these two companies sell on iStock, where work is available for 1 credit, as opposed to fotolia's 3 credit level, for an XS for example, which is 1/3 of the price, that you'll be dropping them both to the lowest tier?  How did that fly with them?

Erm ... I think that was probably covered in FT's original 'rule change' which appeared to discount the 'Top 4' agencies from their latest master plan. FT's words and deeds appear riddled with inconsistency and contradiction.

And also covered by the part of it that says Fotolia can choose whether or not to apply its rules to any particular submitter.

At the very least Fotolia must make it clear that it will apply its rules equally to all, not pick and choose between contributors according to what it thinks it can get away with or who it regards as a special friend.

What has happened to Depositphotos pricing as a consequence of Yuri's/Mark's intervention? How have they been successful? If they've been successful, why should other contributors seek to negotiate retail pricing with Depositphotos? Is Chad saying that Mark and Yuri's submissions are now being sold at a different price on DP than other people's work? If not, does this mean that Depositphotos has received the Fotolia seal of pricing approval? Will Yuri and Mark confirm that they are acting as intermediaries for Fotolia to get other sites to change their pricing so as not to challenge Fotolia's sales/profits?

And, if Fotolia requires DP to price its sales at the same level as Fotolia, will Fotolia assure us that it will pay all artists the same percentage of the sales value as DP, to prevent Fotolia having an unfair competitive advantage as a result of its massively higher profit margin?

I must confess, I dont understand Chads post? I must be stupid,  so whats happening, etc, are we pushed back to zip or do we carry on with our present rankings?

Quote from: Anyka on October 04, 2011, 00:11

What Yuri can do, might be possible for us too, but only if we work together.  I wonder if it had any effect if we all wrote to Istock/Thinkstock with only 1 simple request :  raise the subscription price at Thinkstock with X %.   That would benefit us, Thinkstock, and the whole microstock industry in one go.  (if they listened, like Fotolia did this time).

You will have to write to Shutterstock telling them to raise their subscription price first, since Thinkstock's is currently higher than Shutterstock's.

Christian, Chad appears to be saying that images will be dropped to level-one prices but the percentage commission paid will be according to the existing ranking level. Basically, it is scrapping the ability to promote the price of a file if you are an independent on a site they don't like. Unless you are exempt from the punishment for some reason or other.

Thanks mate!  I get it.

best.

...We have worked with industry leaders such as Yuri Arcurs and Mark Butler (Monkey Business) to convince agencies like deposit photos to sell at sustainable prices reflected by the current online market leaders. We applaud their recent success and hope the trend will continue. We encourage all photographers with portfolios on this and similar sites to do the same....

Does this mean that Deposit Photos are raising their prices?  Perhaps Yuri can tell us what's happening?  He seems quite active with his own threads here but it would be appreciated if he could spend some time clarifying what's going on with this.  Mark is probably looking here too, would be nice to know what's going on, even if all you can say is that you can't say anything about it.

Folks,

After carefully considering your feedback, we've decided to focus on retail pricing rather than commissions. Most of the photographers that we have spoken to agree that destructive retail pricing is not good for the industry. We have worked with industry leaders such as Yuri Arcurs and Mark Butler (Monkey Business) to convince agencies like deposit photos to sell at sustainable prices reflected by the current online market leaders. We applaud their recent success and hope the trend will continue. We encourage all photographers with portfolios on this and similar sites to do the same.

Based on your feedback, we've modified our rule to allow Fotolia to decrease retail pricing to the lowest tier, if a photographer's images are being sold on other sites for significantly less, **without** modifying the royalty levels.

Please note that this rule only applies to Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, and Diamond ranked images that are non-exclusive, and selling at prices above the standard XS price. No changes will occur without prior communications with the artist.

Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com

Chad,

if retail pricing is such an issue to Fotolia, then please explain following of Fotolia's own pricing policies:

- PhotoXpress is a site launched by Fotolia. Looking at their pricing they do sell monthly subs, from as low as 5 monthly downloads for $9,99. No daily limits, unused downloads roll over to the next month if you renew your subscription. Looks like severely undercutting other subscription sites and at the same time moving customers from PPD to subs (I assume these are credited as subs to photographers, no other way it would work). Which customer in his right mind will buy a XXL for 10 Credits when he can get 5 for $9,99? Maybe this is one reason why Fotolia sells more and more subs and less credit sales...

- EL prices: why don't you allow lower levels to set competitive EL prices (maximum prices for white are 20 Credits, for bronze 50 credits)? Why not set everything to 100 Credits?

- Why does your regular licence include unlimited reproduction rights? This requires an EL at other sites.

These are all examples of Fotolia trying to undercut the market. Did you discuss these things with Yuri and others as well? And did you promise to change, to keep up a reasonable pricing level for the entire industry?

Quote from: sjlocke on October 03, 2011, 20:40

Ah, ok, well ... a couple minutes of searching will bring up things like photaki and the israeli micro and yay, etc.

Anyways, yes, the whole punishment program is confusing.

This is hilarious, watching sjlocke calling out Fotolia, while submitting to IStockphoto - talk about pot calling kettle black...LOL.

Maybe it is, I don't know... but it is not a bit less hilarious than watching nruboc calling out constantly istock while submitting to Fotolia and affiliates and supporting their new policies.