Author Topic: Fair Trade? (Read 6501 times)

Artist · « **on:** October 07, 2015, 03:10 »

Except for GraphicLeftovers, who are not working anymore... what other agencies are present who offer fair trade policy?

dirkr · « **Reply #1 on:** October 07, 2015, 04:35 »

Quote from: cgartist on October 07, 2015, 03:10

Except for GraphicLeftovers, who are not working anymore... what other agencies are present who offer fair trade policy?

What is a fair trade policy for you?
GL is the only one that refers to being "fair trade", but there are others that pay similar royalty percentages (50% or above):

Pond5
Zoonar
Featurepics
Alamy

maybe more. None of them sells much unfortunately.

bunhill · « **Reply #2 on:** October 07, 2015, 05:10 »

Alamy is the only open-access agency which I consider to be pro-actively contributor friendly.

ShadySue · « **Reply #3 on:** October 07, 2015, 05:44 »

It depends what you consider fair trade. But also fair trade is also about the dealer and the buyers, each of whom has a different perspective.
Is it only about percentage or is it also rpd? (for example, I've had Alamy sales at 50% which have netted me <$2)
Is it percentage and rpd over sales volume?
We all have to make up our own minds.
I won't 'get out of bed' to make images for iS which are almost certainly doomed to sell for 75c if at all, yet another thread here has people who are anxious for Ft/Adobe to sell editorial for as little as 25c, depending on level.

Artist · « **Reply #4 on:** October 07, 2015, 06:00 »

Quote from: ShadySue on October 07, 2015, 05:44

It depends what you consider fair trade. But also fair trade is also about the dealer and the buyers, each of whom has a different perspective.
Is it only about percentage or is it also rpd? (for example, I've had Alamy sales at 50% which have netted me <$2)
Is it percentage and rpd over sales volume?
We all have to make up our own minds.
I won't 'get out of bed' to make images for iS which are almost certainly doomed to sell for 75c if at all, yet another thread here has people who are anxious for Ft/Adobe to sell editorial for as little as 25c, depending on level.

I had no success with Alamy.

With fair trade I meant for contributor and buyers both.

ShadySue · « **Reply #5 on:** October 07, 2015, 06:15 »

Quote from: cgartist on October 07, 2015, 06:00

Quote from: ShadySue on October 07, 2015, 05:44
It depends what you consider fair trade. But also fair trade is also about the dealer and the buyers, each of whom has a different perspective.
Is it only about percentage or is it also rpd? (for example, I've had Alamy sales at 50% which have netted me <$2)
Is it percentage and rpd over sales volume?
We all have to make up our own minds.
I won't 'get out of bed' to make images for iS which are almost certainly doomed to sell for 75c if at all, yet another thread here has people who are anxious for Ft/Adobe to sell editorial for as little as 25c, depending on level.

I had no success with Alamy.

With fair trade I meant for contributor and buyers both.

OK, so there you have two contrasting expections and you have disenfranchised the middleman and their stockholders who might also feel they should have a say.

Is RF at all fair to the supplier? Actually, I don't think so, but that genie won't go back into the bottle.

Is it fair that multi-million corps (with millions of eyeballs) can get huge discounts but tiny local charities and organisations (who might only have a couple of hundred viewers) have to pay list price (that's Economics 101, but is it 'fair'?).

What you were really asking is 'what would I consider 'fair trade' but could also make reasonable amounts of sales?'. That's a difficult balance to achieve, especially right now with a huge race to the bottom.

Probably the fairest all round are the smaller, specialist RM libraries (either geographically or subject matter), if you're in a particular field and know the market well. These agencies do make sales (based on me seeing photo credits, not because I supply them) because the buyers can be confident of what they buy there and may even have a guarantee (that what they buy is really what it is claimed to be, or shot where it was said to have been shot). For some buyers, that might not matter, but for others, it's crucial.

bunhill · « **Reply #6 on:** October 07, 2015, 07:37 »

I don't believe that Fair Trade' is a particularly relevant paradigm in any industry unless the entire chain is "Fair Trade" (e.g. in this example, cameras, computers, their components, how the images are used etc).

So then it's really only about whether the money makes it worthwhile for the supplier.

wordplanet · « **Reply #7 on:** October 07, 2015, 08:59 »

500px
Fotolibra
Photographer's Direct

Lots of places try to treat Photographers fairly - and these try for favorable prices for the photographer - but sadly they don't always license as many images or earn photographers as much as some of the agencies that don't care at all about the photographer's bottom line.

mlwp · « **Reply #8 on:** October 07, 2015, 12:54 »

I'll add Stocksy to the list.

r2d2 · « **Reply #9 on:** October 07, 2015, 13:44 »

We contributors can make a 50%er award. When we are united we can do somthing for our rights. There are so many agencies. Who says that the competion for an agencie is only on the buyers side.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #10 on:** October 07, 2015, 14:48 »

Quote from: mlwp on October 07, 2015, 12:54

I'll add Stocksy to the list.

And well you should

. Stocksy pays %50 royalties and %75 on ELs. As well, in the future, once requirements are met, we should be paying patronage awards to all contributors from the profits. Also, promotional fees come from the agency budget, which is really our budget, as contributors are stockholders of the co-op.

stockastic · « **Reply #11 on:** October 08, 2015, 10:13 »

As far as I know it's down to GL and Alamy, which is a pretty grim picture.

Stocksy, for most of us, is still just something we get to read about here on MSG.

Dave · « **Reply #12 on:** October 19, 2015, 20:08 »

Yes, the old percentage bogey and our precious images and along with that one has to think about which site to put ones images on and in.

Then you have to look at sites that sell and ALSO disclose to us image creators, lets face it if it was not for us, and our images they would not be multimillionaires.

Dreamstime has the information clear to see for everyone how many times an image has been viewed and license sold, then you come to the "Hipster" sites like Stocksy, ImageBrief, 500px etc, they do not disclose any information about the images that they represent, not even how many times an image has been viewed, let alone licensed. ImageBrief, you can at least see what briefs have NOT been filled.

Another think to take into account is the useful lifetime of ones image once online, I think the Hipster sites type of images will date very quickly, ie, reflections, sun flare, Instagram look etc., so unless one is happy to write off a percentage of ones images every year as fashion changes, then perhaps the trad sites are best.

Returns on our images, is it better to license an image once for 50% of the license fee, lets say the most expensive on Stocksy $500.00, YOU get $250.00 or submit your images to multiple sites and potentially license that image, if popular hundreds of times on multiple sites at $0.50c. In the end getting much more than $250.00.

It is up to the individual Image creator to decide for themself, just don't get attracted by the shine, as my old dad used to say, "son just because it shines, doesn't make it gold". Ask questions, you have nothing to loose except your precious creations and it is a lot harder to get them OFF a site than on. Remember they are OUR precious images they are getting rich on!!

Honestly now my last word, what we need is a REAL Image Creator owned site, that would be something worth looking forward too in 2016.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #13 on:** October 19, 2015, 21:23 »

"Returns on our images, is it better to license an image once for 50% of the license fee, lets say the most expensive on Stocksy $500.00, YOU get $250.00 or submit your images to multiple sites and potentially license that image, if popular hundreds of times on multiple sites at $0.50c. In the end getting much more than $250.00."

Ok, well, good luck with that.

Dave · « **Reply #14 on:** October 21, 2015, 23:08 »

50% sounds good but without the data to back it up it is just Marketing hype.

So why don't you tell us potential Stocksy image creators firstly, what your sales figures are and % of images that sell for the magic $500.00. so we can concentrate on getting SELECTED to be part of the Coop.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #15 on:** October 22, 2015, 05:43 »

"Stocksy is going better than we could have ever expected. We wanted to shake things up by showing the industry that quality matters and to finally give photographers a marketplace where their voices could be heard. I’d say we’re achieving all of those things. We have members making full time incomes, with a handful already doing six figures."

http://www.microstockdiaries.com/interview-with-stocksy-united-ceo-brianna-wettlaufer.html

Dave · « **Reply #16 on:** October 30, 2015, 02:21 »

Interesting link but the person said nothing except marketing hype and the graphs are a lovely bit of graphics but thats all they are, what does 50% more than before mean?

Still NO real information.

MxR · « **Reply #17 on:** October 30, 2015, 03:12 »

Stocksy have only one a bad thng: i am not inside and today is very hard be in

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #18 on:** October 30, 2015, 04:44 »

Love Stocksy, what a great idea. It is a coop owned by the photographers who are members, bear in mind they don't owe us anything. I am sure if they need more people to join they will reach out, there's no reason for them to publish any data they don't need to for their own business plans. The difference is that the beneficiaries are the people actually creating the work, no us and them. It sucks to not be on the inside, but maybe the solution is to get together some other great creatives set up your own coop too?

wordplanet · « **Reply #19 on:** October 30, 2015, 11:57 »

It's not always easy to figure out where an image will do better. I've put non-similar images from the same location on the micros and on trads such as Alamy and sometimes will earn more from the 50% split I get from Alamy for a few $200-400 licenses but other times I'll earn 4 figures from multiple downloads (obviously with some SOD and ELs thrown in) on the micros. I spend a lot of time - probably too much time - trying to decide where to place my images but I have enough experience now to have a pretty good sense of what will work best where though it certainly slows down my uploading - it'd be easy to just put everything on all the sites, but I don't think that works to my advantage.

So many sites and publications these days use a mixture of higher priced and micro or even free content in the same book, magazine or website slideshow, so it's clear there's still a market for higher prices for certain kinds of content, but the steady daily downloads from the micros certainly add to my bottom line. If I can make four figures with a micro portfolio of 60-300 images on the "Big 4" micros, then there's certainly still potential there for someone doing micro full time with thousands of images.

My preference these days is to look toward directly licensing myself, which takes a lot of work including sending out a lot of queries and making phone calls, but is proving more profitable as I'm now on the go-to list for some major publishers - Photographer's Market is still a worthwhile resource - as well as looking to move toward higher end traditional agencies.

I didn't get into Stocksy this year which was disappointing but I'm glad places like Stocksy are out there and I'll try again next year. I'm seeing more Stocksy credits these days so I'm assuming that it's worth the effort to get in. I love their style and if I was a photo buyer I'd certainly look there for content.

I've also been doing a lot more fine art and have been in several juried shows in NY this past year, so that has cut into my time for processing and uploading stock photography but it has helped me grow as a photographer. Just shooting stock can be creative, but trying to shoot commercially viable images all the time can also be limiting.

cobalt · « **Reply #20 on:** October 30, 2015, 16:17 »

I think it would be great if there were more coops like stocksy. Does anyone know if blendimages, tetra images, stockfood etc...are being held by a group of artists or other owners?

Adobe and Shutterstock are both traded on the stock market, so we can all become co owners if we want to. Are there enough artists willing to invest, follow up on the business and show up at investor meetings to bring our voice there?

The artists are also buyers, so I think our voice will have some credit. SS has always avoided scandals and Adobe is certainly doing a great job of cleaning up Fotolia´s reputation.

Having your stock shares under public scrutiny will at least bring an effort to keep the community vibe of artists and buyers positive if possible.

I do believe there is still room in the market for a larger high end community coop. A lot of good artists are looking for a more permanent home and stocksy can never take thousands of people.

A place with longterm vision based on a crowd sourced model. It´s a pity pond5 is not doing well selling photos. They have a good community and have been around for quite a while.

Or we explore the virtual agencies on photoshelter and build a stock hive there. But you do need good leadership to coordinate crowd based efforts, it isn´t easy.

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Author Topic: Fair Trade? (Read 6501 times)

Artist

dirkr

bunhill

ShadySue

Artist

ShadySue

bunhill

wordplanet

mlwp

r2d2

Sean Locke Photography

stockastic

Dave

Sean Locke Photography

Dave

Sean Locke Photography

Dave

MxR

Justanotherphotographer

wordplanet

cobalt

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