Back in the film days there used to be the High-end agencies and the middle of the road agencies. Today there isnt one single agency (among say the top 6) that can offer anything above the other, basically they are all the same, a mixed pot of identical shots.
hence a few promote they got exclusive photographers and what not but in reallity the buyers dont give a hoot.

Quality thinking hardly exist anymore and the only type of buyer that do consider quality are the AD-Agency creatives who are prepared to pay, They are also the ones commisioning photographers.

Fact still is, your average Micro and even RF buyer cant really recongnize quality anymore then the next guy so micro shooters, will create accordingly and the Agencies will ofcourse accept it into their files, as long as its technically correct.

Its pathetic to read the boast and bragging of an agency, proclaiming 10million shots, 100K contributors, etc.  who in . wants all that?

Quote from: lagereek on June 21, 2010, 02:46

Its pathetic to read the boast and bragging of an agency, proclaiming 10million shots, 100K contributors, etc.  who in . wants all that?

I guess it means a lot to people who can't read the subtext, 10 million images = less then million quality images.  100K contributors = less than 1000 producting anything of quality.

Hi Thomas!

Yep,  I quess you worded it better then me.  Good to hear from you!  well we have to keep it up, dont we?

We can keep it up, but sometime it feel like we're just pissing up a rope. 

Thats a bloody good saying, like that one!!  well, how do we bend this rope downwards?  we can piss downhill!  ha, ha.

all the best.  Chris

Hey Rahul,

Good catch. Looks like Melcher reads MSG 

I'm not really sure this will affect Getty contributors much... for now. This new deal just seems like more image cherry picking and a way for Getty to quickly get their tentacles around Flickr.

The big shakeup will come in the next phases. Getty will either buy Flickr, really open the floodgate to ametuers at Getty, or, and this is my guess, Getty will take this request feature one step further by jointly developing an agency-style shopping back-end for Flickr.

Yahoo has been bleeding money from Flickr because they never figured out a way to make money from it. Here's way to make some money back. 

Why would a flickr user want to lose 80% of the profit when without this, people just contact them by email and work it out?

It's possible to get buyers that don't want to deal with amateurs. It's possible to get amateurs that don't want to deal with buyers. From forums I see lots of folks who agree with you and will not opt in.

Quote from: sjlocke on June 21, 2010, 22:02

Why would a flickr user want to lose 80% of the profit when without this, people just contact them by email and work it out?

Agreeing!  I was about to ask the same thing.

Speaking for myself, I prefer to have someone with the experience and means to get the money from the buyer if it plans on not paying than doing it myself. How can I get the money from an Indonesian, Argentinian, Alaskan or even from a European dishonest buyer? It's simply impossible to me. Even in my country I would have difficulties and the royalties probably wouldn't cover the expense.

Despite the 80/70% cut is huge and I dislike it profoundly, especially compared to the 40% from Alamy, Getty offers the insurance to get 20/30% of the sale and not a big 0% and the frustration of being ripped off.

http://blog.melchersystem.com/2010/06/21/blowing-a-candle/
got some points....