Nail on head.


I didn't even try to understand that email.  What's the point?  The goal is just to make pricing and commissions so complicated and confusing that contributors just give up and take whatever token payments they receive.

What I understand is that I am earning 17% this year and 16% next year. Nice 6% reduction - not to mention falling sales. But I already knew this, even without their email.

Lisa; appreciate your generosity.  I have no special concerns, just that I finally started making a few dollars and don't want it left in the agency kitty.  I'll sit down with my wife and talk her through the procedures for accessing any money.  She is a note taker and tries to get too involved in details.  I'll certainly let her know of your offer.

Also, I had not thought of the Co-Owner idea.  Have you managed to do that with all your accounts?  Does that give your spouse claim to the copyright as well?

It is all very confusing and I don't want to even try explaining all the complexities at each site.  I was just being silly about contacting Sean.  But, glad that it generated such a generous response from you.  I may be asking more questions about the Co-owner concept.

BTW:  hope you are well.  Must have been fairly serious for you to resort to such drastic planning?

Lisa; appreciate your generosity.  I have no special concerns, just that I finally started making a few dollars and don't want it left in the agency kitty.  I'll sit down with my wife and talk her through the procedures for accessing any money.  She is a note taker and tries to get too involved in details.  I'll certainly let her know of your offer.

Also, I had not thought of the Co-Owner idea.  Have you managed to do that with all your accounts?  Does that give your spouse claim to the copyright as well?

It is all very confusing and I don't want to even try explaining all the complexities at each site.  I was just being silly about contacting Sean.  But, glad that it generated such a generous response from you.  I may be asking more questions about the Co-owner concept.

BTW:  hope you are well.  Must have been fairly serious for you to resort to such drastic planning?

I haven't gotten around to the co-owner thing yet.  Until recently, I was incorporated and my hubby was VP, director, shareholder, etc. so he would have had an automatic right to the income.  But having recently dropped my S-corp status I am back to needing another option.  I thought of co-ownership because I know some couples that do micro together using the same account.

My health issue wasn't really serious at all, but until they went in we didn't know that for sure.  Happy to report I will most likely outlive my portfolio's earning power by a couple of decades at least

I had a very close call in September, it took an emergency surgery to pull me through.  That definitely changes your point of view.   Like many of you I have a document for my wife, explaining my online accounts, with instructions for shutting down services.  For most things, like my web site or Amazon S3 storage, just closing out the credit card and stopping payment should be enough, I don't think they'd go to collection over a few dollars.    However I'm not going to burden her with instructions for emailing all these little microstock companies and harassing them until they close the accounts.

She can spend the money in my PayPal account and close it,  but I seriously wonder if that in itself would be enough to stop companies like IS from continuing to sell my photos and just keeping the money.  

I'm surprised sites don't have a FAQ and a stated policy covering these matters.

Most sites probably don't have a clue about their own future.
And if they have, the prospect of keeping dead photographers' earnings indefinitely is very "sustainable" for them - except a few sites which pay without asking.