MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: kapsyl on March 17, 2009, 02:59
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Hi there!
A client of mine subscribe to a stocksite called Colourbox. (www.colourbox.com)
I've never heard about it before and haven't seen anything about it in this forum either. Does anybody here know anything about them? Is it a Micro or Macro-site? Is it worth the time and effort to try to be a contibutor there?
/P
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A client of mine subscribe to a stocksite called Colourbox. (www.colourbox.com) I've never heard about it before and haven't seen anything about it in this forum either.
Considering you are a new member and this is your very first post, would it be too bold to assume that you are connected with this Danish site? :P
It is out now by the way. Even Cubestat.com can't connect. Traceroute takes ages. Is it on a garage server or on a mainstream hoster?
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I think it's my fault. I clicked on "Best Collection" button. Now I'm getting about 5 boxes in the frontpage saying "Sorry, there was a problem for the server.
Please try again."
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I think it's my fault. I clicked on "Best Collection" button. Now I'm getting about 5 boxes in the frontpage saying "Sorry, there was a problem for the server.
I could access it after a very long wait for about 10 minutes. Now it's back on http://colourbox.com/Error.
What I saw on the home page is amazing marketing. 50 euro for one image, 250 euro for 10 images, and... 150 euro for unlimited download for a month. That's far below the subscription price of SS, while SS puts a limit of 25/day on its package.
For a sum of 150 euro (or 3 regular photos), anybody could leech the site dry in a month.
With unlimited download, there is also no way they can project a guaranteed income per photo for anybody.
The same flawed approach as Vivozoom.
Next!
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Why the hxxx every Nerdz on the planet are planning to open a new stock agency ? Somebody explain plz :)
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Why the hxxx every Nerdz on the planet are planning to open a new stock agency ? Somebody explain plz :)
Because there's enough suckers around that upload to these sites in the hope they'll make 10 dollars over the course of the year that it takes until the site goes bust.
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A client of mine subscribe to a stocksite called Colourbox. (www.colourbox.com) I've never heard about it before and haven't seen anything about it in this forum either.
Considering you are a new member and this is your very first post, would it be too bold to assume that you are connected with this Danish site? :P
It is out now by the way. Even Cubestat.com can't connect. Traceroute takes ages. Is it on a garage server or on a mainstream hoster?
No, no, not at all. I have no connection to them. But I work as a graphic designer and buy a lot of images for different clients. Mostly I buy from iStock. I also try to sell some images myself. I have a small small portfolio at a few sites. And I can't say I'm getting rich from sales yet ;-)
But the other day I was doing a job for a client and they asked me to get some images for them from Colourbox, where they had a subscription. So I just got curious about this and wondered if it was a site worth distributing to. I'm from Sweden and have mostly images from here, so I thought they might be interested in more Scandinavian pictures.
/P
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I've seen a lot of their pictures in norwegian magazines. Not impressed by the general quality, but it looks like they sell in Scandinavia.
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No, no, not at all. I have no connection to them. But I work as a graphic designer and buy a lot of images for different clients. Mostly I buy from iStock. I also try to sell some images myself. I have a small small portfolio at a few sites. And I can't say I'm getting rich from sales yet ;-)
OK, I'm sorry and I stand corrected. But the pricing scheme of ColourBox is crazy. Just 150 euro and you can download all for a month. It's one of the worst deals around for photographers. I had a look at their pictures and some are good but in very limited numbers. For 75 euro more per month, your friend can download the crême de la crême from ShutterStock: all the top artists are there. If it is just about a few photos now and then, Dreamstime has an equally good collection and it is much cheaper than iStockphoto.
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Has anyone else heard about or used this site?
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Wow, I'm quite surprised.
I live in Denmark, and have often seen images from this site used by major companies (print and web) here in Denmark. I always believed this was a macro agency without really having a look. It seems to me that subscription prices are nano (really! 1 license allows 1000 users to download images unlimited from their collection for three months) whereas single image products are at macro prices(? - approx. $120 for one image).
Also, on the "sign-up as a photographer"-page it says nothing about commissions and their terms of service-page seems to be broken. It's not anything like microstock though, their photographers are actually working in teams (and there is probably no way for them to earn money proportionally with their skills and efforts, as in microstock).
All in all, it actually seems to me as a threat to microstock.
http://ekstrabladet.dk/kup/sundhed/article1249957.ece (http://ekstrabladet.dk/kup/sundhed/article1249957.ece)
This is a link to an article of the danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet, which is one of the biggest in Denmark. The image credits Colourbox.com
http://kvinder.bt.dk/menu/sundhed/vis/laes/10-slags-mad-der-forbraender-fedt-kopi-1/ (http://kvinder.bt.dk/menu/sundhed/vis/laes/10-slags-mad-der-forbraender-fedt-kopi-1/)
This is a link to an article of the biggest competitor to Ekstra Bladet - B.T. - also using images from Colourbox.com
http://jp.dk/indland/krimi/article1874757.ece (http://jp.dk/indland/krimi/article1874757.ece)
...And Jyllandsposten (known for publishing images of Muhammed)
http://www.dr.dk/sundhed/Ditsundevalg/Artikler/2009/1105142908.htm (http://www.dr.dk/sundhed/Ditsundevalg/Artikler/2009/1105142908.htm)
And DR (Denmarks Radio)
Seems that everyone is using them
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Shutterstock also had an 'all you can eat' subscription service before too. Colourbox's collection size isn't so large so perhaps that is why they can afford to offer unlimited downloads.
I have signed up for an account so hopefully I can find out some more info.
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I have seen these pictures in a lot of magazines and online news papers. Usually there is a large quality difference between colourbox-pictures and pictures from e.g. istock.
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Wow, I'm quite surprised.
I live in Denmark, and have often seen images from this site used by major companies (print and web) here in Denmark. I always believed this was a macro agency without really having a look. It seems to me that subscription prices are nano (really! 1 license allows 1000 users to download images unlimited from their collection for three months) whereas single image products are at macro prices(? - approx. $120 for one image).
Yeah, they seem to have a pretty strong presence in Scandinavia. They must have done something right.
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WE EXPECT:
That you own a semi-professional digital camera with at least 12 megapixel.
That you deliver pictures of highest JPEG quality at max. ISO 800.
That you have the rights to sell the pictures.
That you can accept our general terms.
That first "we expect" eliminated me. :'(
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They’re down to "You must use SLR camera with minimum 10 megapixel resolution".
I know they actually have a sales force in each Scandinavian country. If you sign up with a customer account, they will call you. Direct contact will always beat advertising, I suppose.
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So, I just checked with them. Subscription downloads is € 0.20 to the photographer. That counts them out on my part.
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Erm..
From Photographer's Guideline:
Exclusive?
We do not have any exclusive agreements, so you can
upload to whatever other stockagent-site you would
like. It benefits your goal of making the most of your
images.
From Photographer Agreement:
1.2 Within 30 days from receipt of the images, Colourbox informs the Photographer of
which images Colourbox has selected. The non-selected images are returned to the Photographer,
who is free to use these images. The selected images may not be distributed,
licensed, sold or in any way used by the Photographer.
2.1 The Photographer assigns to Colourbox all rights to the images submitted to Colourbox
pursuant to this Agreement, including but not limited to all property rights and copyrights.
Colourbox and Colourbox’ licensees are therefore free to use, reproduce, publish,
exhibit, perform, publicly display and transmit the images, to crop, modify, alter and manipulate
the images and to create derivate works of the images. The assignment of rights
is worldwide.
I'm gonna stay away from this one
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Great for bloggers! The handy-dandy zoom feature allows you to download a 320x250 or so unwatermarked image. Nice.
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Why the hxxx every Nerdz on the planet are planning to open a new stock agency ? Somebody explain plz :)
Because there's enough suckers around that upload to these sites in the hope they'll make 10 dollars over the course of the year that it takes until the site goes bust.
I looked at the usual for me, searched "race car" found a nice logo loaded overhead shot of a F1 car which must be editorial, or loaded with a stack of property, design, model, and other releases, but it can't be RF? Many other protected designs.
Did I read it right, single photo download £49 and for that I'd get £0.20?
I hope someone from the site comes through and explains the commissions, which I couldn't locate.
Yes, this is a pass.
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No, the commission is 50% for single downloads. Even the subs don't sound so bad (about 0.30$) considering the buyer can download really a crapload of images. However read my above post. From what I understand you'll be giving them the full copyright of the images.
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For a sum of 150 euro (or 3 regular photos), anybody could leech the site dry in a month.
With unlimited download, there is also no way they can project a guaranteed income per photo for anybody.
The same flawed approach as Vivozoom.
Next!
Next ?
Next is iStock i'm afraid.
What else can be the next step for Thinkstock ?
"all you can eat for xxx $/month, unlimited this and that " ... just give them some time...
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no thanks......... 8)=tom
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Yes Colourbox seems to be quite well used in Scandinavian media. From the Photographer Terms and Condition i read that:
The Images must be "royalty-free photos". Colourbox and Colourbox' licensees are therefore free to use, reproduce,
publish, exhibit, perform, publicly display and transmit the Images, to crop, modify, alter and manipulate
the Images and to create derivate works of the Images. Accordingly there are no restrictions on the use of the
Images unless explicitly agreed to in writing with Colourbox.
The Photographer shall upload the Images directly to Colourbox'
As per definition, no-one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he or she wants). I could not find the giving away right condition as stated by Klautz but maybe i missed it.
Reading the material currently online i dont think any rights are signed away, what do you guys think?
Cheers
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anyone had experiences with this site? just registered as 'supplier' (contributor in colourbox term), it seems the portfolio interface is not user friendly at all.
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Yes Colourbox seems to be quite well used in Scandinavian media. From the Photographer Terms and Condition i read that:
The Images must be "royalty-free photos". Colourbox and Colourbox' licensees are therefore free to use, reproduce,
publish, exhibit, perform, publicly display and transmit the Images, to crop, modify, alter and manipulate
the Images and to create derivate works of the Images. Accordingly there are no restrictions on the use of the
Images unless explicitly agreed to in writing with Colourbox.
The Photographer shall upload the Images directly to Colourbox'
As per definition, no-one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he or she wants). I could not find the giving away right condition as stated by Klautz but maybe i missed it.
Reading the material currently online i dont think any rights are signed away, what do you guys think?
Cheers
so it is EL sale? and you get euro0.20 / US$0.26 think I'll pass on that one
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I imagine calculating photographers' commissions from unlimited monthly downloads is extremely complex. Therefore toss the contributors a few cents when you feel like it and they'll beg for more. A big NO THANKS to this turkey.
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i think i have accepted as their 'supplier', but the photos had been in pending for many weeks.
and it seems there is no option to get paid by paypal?
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anyone? it seems a 'dead' site.. images are 'in process' for long time and hard to understand what to do next..
i think i have accepted as their 'supplier', but the photos had been in pending for many weeks.
and it seems there is no option to get paid by paypal?
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A complete and utter waste of time. They review images every blue moon and one they are up no one sees them!
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They are slow to review thats for sure.
For my part, I see that they accept a lot of images I get rejected else where and reject images the I have on 123rf, SS, Veer, Fotolia Etc. :) Its a bit strange.
I sell ok at Colourbox, when taken into account that I only have 350 images online there. I am not even on 50% acceptence rate where as I normally are around 80% elsewhere.
I will hang in there for a few more month and see how it develops.
//dotweb
http://www.shutterstock.com/g/dotweb (http://www.shutterstock.com/g/dotweb)
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Why the hxxx every Nerdz on the planet are planning to open a new stock agency ? Somebody explain plz :)
Because there's enough suckers around that upload to these sites in the hope they'll make 10 dollars over the course of the year that it takes until the site goes bust.
Thank you. I was getting tired of being Mr. Negative and pointing out that you don't get on any bus that comes along, just because "it may be going somewhere". ;D
Same as people who keep supporting low earning, loser sites, because, maybe some day they might make some sales.
A donkey will never win the Kentucky Derby!
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so anyone think getting good sales in this website, and it seems there is no option to get paid through internet except a using a german bank account?
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Thank you. I was getting tired of being Mr. Negative and pointing out that you don't get on any bus that comes along, just because "it may be going somewhere". ;D
Same as people who keep supporting low earning, loser sites, because, maybe some day they might make some sales.
I plead guilty for doing this in my early days of microstock. But after uploading an entire portfolio to a couple of losers, one is forced to understand: some sites are not even worth checking for sales once a year.
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Thank you. I was getting tired of being Mr. Negative and pointing out that you don't get on any bus that comes along, just because "it may be going somewhere". ;D
Same as people who keep supporting low earning, loser sites, because, maybe some day they might make some sales.
I plead guilty for doing this in my early days of microstock. But after uploading an entire portfolio to a couple of losers, one is forced to understand: some sites are not even worth checking for sales once a year.
How come that you are calling this cite a loser?
It is doing very well. Have a strong representation in the media in all the scandinavia countries, so what makes them a loser site??
And since we are in microstock forum, why make so much noice about low earnings - the whole business is about low earnings!!
Get real, 90% of all contributers ear less than 100 dollar pr month on microstock.
//dotweb
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How come that you are calling this cite a loser?
What are your experiences there? How much they earn for you as a percentage of (for instance) your SS portfolio?
Update: We are temporarily closed for new suppliers.
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How come that you are calling this cite a loser?
What are your experiences there? How much they earn for you as a percentage of (for instance) your SS portfolio?
Update: We are temporarily closed for new suppliers.
As I mentined earlier - I do not have experience with Colourbox, since I have only been online there for 3 month. So far I have around 110 sales pr month with around 300 images online.
Not something to write home about, but its a start.
I could not from this short experience make negative/positive statements or call it a loser site.
Its a new place, so give them time to develop their business - so far their service to me has been ok, they pick up the phone when you call to then. There is nothing that should indicate that the site is a "loser" site.
I do not have any interest in "defending" colourbox, but I do find statements that has been use now, rather bad, specially for new people here. Please use some qualified information when judging the sites.
I will give the site atleast 6 month more before I would be able to say weather its good or bad :-X
//dotweb
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I have only been online there for 3 month. So far I have around 110 sales pr month with around 300 images online.
Not something to write home about, but its a start.
So, how much money did you earn from those 110 sales?
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So far I have made 100 Euro on the total sales.
Based on prox. 300 images. I have a few month in the beginning where I onle had 70 images online, so I do not count them in.
//dotweb
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Its a new place
Their domain is 8 years old. Perhaps they were a conventional stock agency before? Anyways, thanks for the info and keep reporting. Make sure to post your referral link (if they have any) when the time is there.
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so there are people who got sales in colourbox?
I guess most people are ''allergic" to new microstock website that will disappear too fast and wasted their efforts.
Even it is ''microstock", it doesn't mean it is low earning job.
But how can one contributor get paid by colourbox if there is no paypal option?
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Thank you. I was getting tired of being Mr. Negative and pointing out that you don't get on any bus that comes along, just because "it may be going somewhere". ;D
Same as people who keep supporting low earning, loser sites, because, maybe some day they might make some sales.
I plead guilty for doing this in my early days of microstock. But after uploading an entire portfolio to a couple of losers, one is forced to understand: some sites are not even worth checking for sales once a year.
How come that you are calling this cite a loser?
It is doing very well. Have a strong representation in the media in all the scandinavia countries, so what makes them a loser site??
And since we are in microstock forum, why make so much noice about low earnings - the whole business is about low earnings!!
Get real, 90% of all contributers ear less than 100 dollar pr month on microstock.
//dotweb
Sorry, I was not talking about this site (ColourBox) - I never tried it and cannot tell: it may well be a good site as you say.
I was thinking about those I have a direct and less than optimal experience with:
- (un)lucky oliver which I joined just a few weeks before closure (timing is everything!)
- FP which earned me $1.00 in 2 years with thousands of pics;
- CC which earned me $0.00 (that is, zero, null, niente, nihil ....) with thousands of pics - absolute record.
May I call 'em losers (at least for me)? Nothing against these sites, I'm just being realistic. I will not delete my port once uploaded and still hope they can have success but I'm not losing my time anymore uploading.
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Original post was « on: March 17, 2009, 02:59 » since then people have found it down, non-responsive, vague about commissions and payment methods. Maybe I'm jumping to a conclusion but after a year and a half and it's been around for eight years, I'd say there are some strong indications that it's not going to be a player any time soon. :D That's a loser in terms of wasting time and effort in my opinion.
I may be wrong. Check back in another year for the next "wait and see, there may be hope" message from someone else who thinks that every new agency might some day make it, when the fact is, no new agency in four years has made it past promises and hopes.
It's really basic sales and marketing to take your product to where the customers are, not to spend time and effort trying to sell someplace that isn't suitable and lacks in buyers. A small microstock site, that doesn't market and has a small customer base, is battling uphill against the established agencies of the world. It's not impossible, it is high unlikely to ever be a success. Highly unlikely that artists will make enough sales to make the site viable and profitable. That's ANY new site or small agency in some small market area.
Thank you. I was getting tired of being Mr. Negative and pointing out that you don't get on any bus that comes along, just because "it may be going somewhere". ;D
Same as people who keep supporting low earning, loser sites, because, maybe some day they might make some sales.
I plead guilty for doing this in my early days of microstock. But after uploading an entire portfolio to a couple of losers, one is forced to understand: some sites are not even worth checking for sales once a year.
How come that you are calling this cite a loser?
It is doing very well. Have a strong representation in the media in all the scandinavia countries, so what makes them a loser site??
And since we are in microstock forum, why make so much noice about low earnings - the whole business is about low earnings!!
Get real, 90% of all contributers ear less than 100 dollar pr month on microstock.
//dotweb
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Hi the payment option is too choose your country, Bank account, IBAN, and SWIFT.. does it mean it can direct wire transfer to bank account in any countries?
It pays 0.20 EURO for a photo, 0.35EURO for a illustration vector, and more for a video..
I am not sure will you get paid more when buyers paid other plan..
so far i had 1 sale for a vector.
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Original post was « on: March 17, 2009, 02:59 » since then people have found it down, non-responsive, vague about commissions and payment methods. Maybe I'm jumping to a conclusion but after a year and a half and it's been around for eight years, I'd say there are some strong indications that it's not going to be a player any time soon. :D That's a loser in terms of wasting time and effort in my opinion.
I may be wrong. Check back in another year for the next "wait and see, there may be hope" message from someone else who thinks that every new agency might some day make it, when the fact is, no new agency in four years has made it past promises and hopes.
It's really basic sales and marketing to take your product to where the customers are, not to spend time and effort trying to sell someplace that isn't suitable and lacks in buyers. A small microstock site, that doesn't market and has a small customer base, is battling uphill against the established agencies of the world. It's not impossible, it is high unlikely to ever be a success. Highly unlikely that artists will make enough sales to make the site viable and profitable. That's ANY new site or small agency in some small market area.
You might be right in general but I have had success with the smaller sites like Rodeo and yaymicro. They do make a significant amount of money for me in the long tern for near zero effort. Uploading a portfolio doesn't take time or effort for me, I just do it in the background while I am editing images. People with a small portfolio that don't make regular payouts on the big sites should concentrate on the big 4 but those that are doing well might be better off putting their portfolio on lots of sites. The big contributors do it and I think they have good business sense. I will look in to Colourbox when they are asking for contributors again.
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I have no idea how they would make sure the customers stick to the rules, but I likes this part of their terms from the FAQ:
"License: The price for free download of all images is EURO 149 per month. As long as you have a license, you can download as many images as you like. If you stop the license, you can use the downloaded material for 12 months.
Prepaid Card: You can also buy a prepaid card with 100 credits for EURO 249,- (100 credits = 10 stock images). A prepaid card is valid for 1 (one) year. Afterwards the User Rights exceeds after 5 years.
Single Image: If your need for images is low you can buy single images for EURO 49,- a piece. The User Rights exceeds after 5 years."
This has been suggested in several other threads in this forum; that the rights to use the pictures should have a time limit. I wonder how well it works in real life.
I see a lot of colourbox-images in magazines in Norway. It looks like most of the major printing houses have contracts with colourbox and Istock, and that istock is only for the pictures they can't find in colourbox. High quality illustrations e.g.
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photos 0.20 euro, vector 0.35 euro, and i think you may get pay 50% less in some case that the buyers will get 50% discount, so the minimum may get is 0.10 euro and 0.175 euro.. and it is free download for educational or some kind of usage.
I am not sure whether seller will get 50% for a 49 euro download..
anyone know is it possible to get paid by oversea contributors?
thank you.
I have no idea how they would make sure the customers stick to the rules, but I likes this part of their terms from the FAQ:
"License: The price for free download of all images is EURO 149 per month. As long as you have a license, you can download as many images as you like. If you stop the license, you can use the downloaded material for 12 months.
Prepaid Card: You can also buy a prepaid card with 100 credits for EURO 249,- (100 credits = 10 stock images). A prepaid card is valid for 1 (one) year. Afterwards the User Rights exceeds after 5 years.
Single Image: If your need for images is low you can buy single images for EURO 49,- a piece. The User Rights exceeds after 5 years."
This has been suggested in several other threads in this forum; that the rights to use the pictures should have a time limit. I wonder how well it works in real life.
I see a lot of colourbox-images in magazines in Norway. It looks like most of the major printing houses have contracts with colourbox and Istock, and that istock is only for the pictures they can't find in colourbox. High quality illustrations e.g.
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From Colourbox' Photographers Terms and Conditions:
Colourbox shall pay to the Photographer a royalty of e0,20 per download of stock photos, e0,35 per download of illustrations and e0,70 per download of videos. For downloads made by non-profit organisations the Photographer receives 50 % less per download as non-profit organisations are given a 50 % discount on all Colourbox Images. For downloads made by schools and students the Photographer does not receive a royalty as the Images are used for educational purposes and not commercially. The royalty is paid out to the Photographer at the end of each month.
The way I read it (for photos):
Photographer receives €0,20 for all regular downloads (subs and Pay per download, which costs €47 per image).
Photographer receives €0,10 if the client is a non-profit organisation
Photographer receives €0,00 if the client is a student or image use is educational and not commercial
Beware!
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We are not distributing through them. Their entire collection of Danish Images are "non-modelreleased" and they still sell them for commercial use. I find that very strange. Unlimited subscription.... I find that very strange too.
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This just in:
(For order’s sake, I’m not not contributing to Colourbox, as I did not like their business model. And I shure never will.)
Dear supplier,
In the process of adding more computer power to the import mechanism a mistake has happened. The disk carrying all of the already uploaded images were lost, and the data is thus gone. We're terrible sorry about this, and the responsible person are facing the consequences of such an error.
This means that if your images are not present in your supplier section on the site, they have to be uploaded again. This is terribly annoying, and I understand the frustration this might have caused.
Should we look at the positive side, the following has now happened as well:
- A lot more computerpower has been added, making the import A LOT faster.
- When material is gone from the ftp directory it means it's imported. No more wondering whether the material is gone or not.
And furthermore:
There's now a slightly different structure in the upload directories. Going forward the following directories are for stock material
stock/images
stock/vector
stock/video
And the following structure is for editorial material:
editorial/images
editorial/vector
editorial/video
We're launching editorial images support very soon, and can thus start accepting your material via ftp as well. If in doubt about editorial, just upload to stock/images, stock/videos and stock/vector as you did to stock, vector and video before.
With sincere apologies,
Mads Martin
--
Mads Martin Jørgensen - COO
Colourbox, Hammergyden 75 Stige, DK-5270 Odense N, Denmark
Phone: +45 70 20 33 15 - Mobile: +45 53 53 97 91
http://www.colourbox.com (http://www.colourbox.com)
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"The disk carrying all of the already uploaded images were lost,"
Mom hit the server that was running in the garage when she was parking. Or the sump pump failed in the basement and the computer was ruined. ;D
These people never heard of Back Up?
Maybe Dotweb will come back and tell us how things are going there now that there's been a fair trial period?
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ja, make fun of it.
Those guys made me 2500 Euros.
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I recently had someone copying one of my vector designs, not 100% exact but 95% copy and 100% copy of my keywords. I found the copy doing a google image search and it turned up on Shutterstock and Colourbox. I emailed both, and Shutterstock responded by removing the image almost immediately. Colourbox, on the other hand, wrote me a polite but curt email saying that the image was not close enough to my image so 'tough luck'.
It put me off completely and, coupled with the terrible commission they pay, they are now well and truly bottom of the Microstock heap, in my opinion.