Dissolve's broad TOS may give them the ability to hold contributors against their will but doing so will only lead to festering discontent and anger.  I don't see any upside to that strategy.  Surely they have plenty of material without resorting to questionable business tactics.  Letting unhappy contributors leave is a good business decision. 

I wanted to bump this post. I have been exchanging emails with one of the head guys at Dissolve, George Georgeadis.  My purpose for contacting him was mainly to re-request my account to be closed.  But we took up some very constructive dialog around the 5-year lock in, the inflexibility of contributors to manage their clips and the 30% commission/clip price blend. I have to say, George was very open and honest. I, too, spoke up about the key things that anger contributors, mainly around contributors not having a voice, nor being considered, when big decisions are made.

I have to say that regarding commissions and prices, I don't have any good news to share. That isn't changing.

On a more positive note:

1. George was clear that the 5-year lock in was not really a lock in and we contributors are not obligated to comply. If you want to close your account you need to email [email protected] and George will work with you.

2. If you want to simply deactivate your account while keeping your clips in idle in their collection and play the wait and see game, you can. If down the road you want to reactivate them (without having to re-upload) you can shoot them an email.

3. When the new user interface goes live we will be able to manage our clips, remove, go exclusive with clips, deactivate, etc. I didn't get a timeline on that. Our multiple email exchanges, while civil and constructive, were direct and no beating around the bush.

I suppose that the only thing I wished George would do is come here himself and clarify Dissolve's position. I asked him directly whether the deal he made with me was between us or whether I could share it here. He told me it was not a special deal and to share it here.  I sent him the links to the two discussions at MSG in case for whatever reason he didn't have them.

Hope to see him chime in here, but nonetheless I hope you all are a bit relieved.

They could solve the entire problem by letting Contributors set their own price.
But with only a 30% commission people would still upload to P5 first.

I no longer trust them. They're getting no more clips from me.

I would think it would help a lot if someone from management came here to reach out to people. this is a very small industry and they will eventually meet many of us in real life, if their agency is still around in a few years.

They'll be at the next mexpo, won't they?

If they offer a normal contract, a normal delete button on every file and a minimum of 30% for indie and more for exclusive content, I am sure more people would be ready to try dissolve.

But the ability to delete our own files is absolutely essential after all that happened in the industry.

I am sure contributors signed the five year deal with the prices and royalty returns in mind when they signed up.

They can't be that desperate to hold onto the content, can they?

It tells you a great deal about company intent moving forward, when they strategically write something like this into the agreement. To me it is fair warning they intend on cannibalizing their contributors in the future.

For now i will at least delete some of my best sellers plus whatever else get slushed to 49,if it gets slushed.
Uploads is a no go for me.
I've come close to becoming bipolar (not in the medical sense apparently) dealing with them,i've already halted my uploads twice there in the short time i've been a contributor
and it's time i put an end to all that.Im fed up honestly and i dont want to spent my time uploading and then regretting it.VB will be the last agency im dealing with in the foreseeable future,lets hope this will not go south.
Also need to print a Christian Bale style t-shirt now that i think about it "Dissolve and I are done professionally" or something like that.

I just checked the Dissolve site and noticed that they have 4K clips priced at $49 and $79

4,468 4K clips at $49
13,109 4K clips at $79

Who are they price matching at these low prices?
I wander if the contributors know?

To be fair with them i just checked and all 4k is still at 199.It's the way their page reports prices of HD-4k clips, showing only the downconverted clip's price.
This is how the prices have been shown since they started downconverting from 4K.
So 4K is still 199 and hd can be 49-79.

Quote from: gcrook on August 09, 2015, 15:30

Quote from: Daisy on August 09, 2015, 14:35

I just checked the Dissolve site and noticed that they have 4K clips priced at $49 and $79

4,468 4K clips at $49
13,109 4K clips at $79

Who are they price matching at these low prices?
I wander if the contributors know?

It is misleading.
To be fair with them i just checked and all 4k is still at 199.It's the way their page reports prices of HD-4k clips, showing only the downconverted clip's price.
This is how the prices have been shown since they started downconverting from 4K.
So 4K is still 199 and hd can be 49-79.

wow - you are correct!

After filtering '4K' in the leIt column the resulting page even says:

'4K clips results filtered by Price ($49) (1�100 of 4468 stock footage results)'

That's very confusing + misleading.

It is misleading. 

Just received an email from Dissolve telling me they are lowering my clip prices next week to $49.

There were a couple of options. One is I can send them a list of all the clips in my collection that aren't available for $49 elsewhere (you gotta be kidding me, I'm not spending my time doing that) and they will only change those prices.

The second option is I can request for them to deactivate all my clips so they can be easily reactivated at a later date.

Interestingly enough, at the exact same time I got Dissolve's email I also got a notification of a sale from VideoBlocks. I profited over $47 dollars from the single clip sold at VB! With Dissolve's new pricing I would have received just $14.70

It seems pretty clear to me who I would rather support.

Just received an email from Dissolve telling me they are lowering my clip prices next week to $49.

There were a couple of options. One is I can send them a list of all the clips in my collection that aren't available for $49 elsewhere (you gotta be kidding me, I'm not spending my time doing that) and they will only change those prices.

The second option is I can request for them to deactivate all my clips so they can be easily reactivated at a later date.

Interestingly enough, at the exact same time I got Dissolve's email I also got a notification of a sale from VideoBlocks. I profited over $47 dollars from the single clip sold at VB! With Dissolve's new pricing I would have received just $14.70

It seems pretty clear to me who I would rather support.

Let me get this straight.
They offered you a "take it or leave it" kind of deal where all of your clips will be 49 in the next few days unless you point out which of them aren't sold at videoblocks? (sorry i meant 49 "elsewhere")

Looks like VB is putting the fear in people! Bravo for fair pay to artist at VB! May the force be with you.