Hi guys

Seems to be a lot going on with Istock these days!

Do you know of a site called http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ - it's based in UK. They are also giving away free photos, but in smaller, almost useless sizes and quality. Then the bigger, better and more useful versions of the same pictures are being sold at a pretty good price. This is all something that you as a contributor knows, when you sign up. These are the terms that you sign up to. I have had lots of downloads of my pictures, and a fair amount of sale, where my commission ranges from $ 2,25 - 7,50 per file.

Their philosophy is that if people really want free pictures, nothing can prevent them to find it online. That's why they're giving customers access to photos in almost useless quality, and sell the bigger files at a little higher price.

What's your view on this kind of business plan?

Another thing: Do you know the Colourbox.com site? It's based in Denmark, with offices in Finland and New York. I guess they will be happy to take over Istock's contributors and customers :-) I'm having fair sales there, and uploading is pretty easy. They're covering Scandinavia, Germany, UK and other parts of Europe as it is now, and they're supplying MetroXpress in Scandinavia with photos. They're not even between the Low Earners in the microstock poll, but I think they could be worth trying out for some of you.

Best regards

Brian

And here is the answer from the Colourbox team:

Quote

Yes, it is correct that currently you receive EUR 0.35 per downloaded vector or EUR 0.70 per video, regardless of whether a client purchases it as a single download or though a subscription. By far most of our images are downloaded as part of subscriptions where they pay less than 1 Euro per image - see more details here

Here is my answer:
Wow, just saying for us contributors, it is really the lowest payout seen in the industry for single image download. You make 10 EUR and we make .20 or .35 EUR... This is putting me off. 0.70 EUR for Video subscription when other sites who has more traffic (Shutterstock) gives an average of 18.00$ per video download, no thanks again.

I will send them a thread to this page. They seem like a good agency but a 4% payout on single download and 0.70eur per video is a ripoff.

Colourbox pays as low as 3.5% royalties... I'm not interested in that.

It's the 'All images �9.50 - any size, any use' bit that puts me off.

... all that for a 0.35 royalty that puts me off even more.

how far can we go without having issues with "regular" stock agencies?

(I am talking about the free one)

Only 15 contributors on the contributor list of the Freedigitalphotos site with more that 1000 images and 15 with more that 500. That already shows big red lights and tells me that it can not be that a good a deal.

@dk - Your fears actually in their about page addressed:
These free images are small sized, but perfect for websites or draft printed work. 

Thanks, but no thanks.

PS They actually carry an advertisement of their "competitor" Dreamstime at the bottom of their about page - how clever..... 

(edited to correct typing error)

I've used Freedigitalphotos to find images for various blog posts. The free size is fine for this purpose. I have no budget for these blogs so if I couldn't find a free image I would go without, so in my case it is not taking away from a sale elsewhere. I wouldn't contribute though.

have you given the requested credit to the photographer/agency?

Quote from: damo87 on January 19, 2013, 19:30

I've used Freedigitalphotos to find images for various blog posts. The free size is fine for this purpose. I have no budget for these blogs so if I couldn't find a free image I would go without, so in my case it is not taking away from a sale elsewhere. I wouldn't contribute though.

have you given the requested credit to the photographer/agency?

Yes - this is a requirement of the free download.