Actually I think to offer public domain clips in addition to all the regular content is useful for buyers, you become the one stop shop for everything.

It might also help balance a raise for HD video

But the best news is that downsizing for 4k is coming. The sooner the better.

I have to agree, public domain are already free out there, pond5 does not make them free, they just collect them in one place for producers. Public domain clips are NO competition to our clips, they are of much lower quality but of historical value. They are in fact complement to our clips. This makes pond5 one-stop shop for producers who need both historical clips and modern clips.

And, from my own experience, many people looking for free stuffs actually end up buying. I have buyers who came to my site searching for "free illustrations"  (my site turned up because of the "royalty free") and ended up paying hundreds dollars. I also have many buyers coming from my free site where i give a small collection at small size for free. Some others wrote to ask for free images and after i said no they bought the images.

It's a business decision of Pond5 , and it does not involve undercutting contributors, i dont see any reason to be so negative. And personally, i think it's a smart move. Pond 5 is solidly my second earner and they have been fair. I will continue to support them.

I can see the old retail loss leader sales hook at work here with OLD being the operative word. This is the equivalent of my local supermarket proffering free bits of cheese and pineapple on a stick or slices of stale pork pie on a plate as a means of drumming up more business. Rubbish.

+10

I know english, but I don't understand anything about this public domain thing announcement.
Anybody french here can explain me ?

- 4K video auto down conversion is coming.
 - The current minimum price for HD video is $10. Recently, we raised the minimum price for music from $5 to $15. We'll be paying attention to how this affects our market, and if it makes sense to apply the same type of change to other formats, like video, we'll certainly consider it. It's in Pond5's interests to help everyone sell more.
 - We're always working on new designs for the site. We launched V2 just two or so years ago, and there will eventually be a V3 (and hopefully a V4, and a V5...) We're always happy to hear your feedback on the site's design so we can take that into account.

Thanks for clarifying Jonathan! Especially the 4K conversion bit is good news. As well as any open communication to us. Many of us just love pond5, so please pardon us if we get emotional when we see delays or missing features on the site which are critical to attract buyers or maintain good business.

BS Metrics video to watch - http://vooza.com/videos/crap-metrics/
:-)

I think your link may be broken, I get a 404 error when I try to access it. I'd love to see the video if you have a working link.

There is certainly something to be said for trust, yeah? I totally get that. There's not anything I can do to like, make you trust us. And that's okay, trust is something that should only be given freely, never coerced or bought. Kind of like public domain media!

Try this one - www.facebook.com/govooza/posts/581698011961783

or go to vooza.com and find "Bull*hit metrics" video

Ah! That did the trick, thank you

Hah! That was great! I'll have to check out more of their videos.

I am so glad you like it, Jonathan. 

Have a question for VP of finance, even though I know this is not really our business, but curious to know how does he justifies spending on such a huge swanky space in Soho when only 20 employees sit in 30,000 square feet office, considering rest of P5 staff actually live out of NY? If we do the math right, that's like 1500 square feet per person, no!!!

I'm not sure where you're getting your number from, but we have many more than 20 employees in either of our offices these days. Pond5 only had about 30 or so employees when I started here a few years ago, and we were in a smaller space then, but we're well over 100 employees today, and we're still growing. That's why we moved into a larger space.

Quote from: SSContributor on January 21, 2015, 17:23

I am so glad you like it, Jonathan. 

Have a question for VP of finance, even though I know this is not really our business, but curious to know how does he justifies spending on such a huge swanky space in Soho when only 20 employees sit in 30,000 square feet office, considering rest of P5 staff actually live out of NY? If we do the math right, that's like 1500 square feet per person, no!!!

I'm not sure where you're getting your number from, but we have many more than 20 employees in either of our offices these days. Pond5 only had about 30 or so employees when I started here a few years ago, and we were in a smaller space then, but we're well over 100 employees today, and we're still growing. That's why we moved into a larger space.

You mean 81 employees scattered around the world, no?
I was talking about NY based employees only that occupy 30,000 square feet.
How many folks are NY based then?

I just read this via PRNewsWire - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pond5-launches-the-public-domain-project-with-80000-free-media-clips-300022538.html

"Based in New York, with offices in Geneva(?), Switzerland, and Prague, Czech Republic, Pond5 recently raised $61 million from Accel Partners and Stripes Group. It currently employs a global team of 81 people."
CONTACT:  J.J. Colao, 646-820-1708, [email protected]
SOURCE Pond5

Well...about 30,000 square feet....here is the source
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/pond5-issues-80000-free-media-assets-with-the-launch-of-its-public-domain-project/

"By all accounts, Pond5 has been doing quite well recently. The New York-based company saw revenues of $19 million in 2014, up from $12 million in 2013, and has relocated to 30,000 square feet of swanky new office space in Manhattan�s posh SoHo neighborhood. It�s also been on a bit of a hiring push, adding a VP of finance in October and looking for marketing and operations executives."

You say office is 5000 sq ft only? ... wow, TechCrunch made you 6 times bigger.
Swanky PR! 

What a ton of whiny rudeness in this thread. A person comes on to share news that will have NO negative effect on our business (despite irrational comments to the contrary) and half the crowd starts throwing poo. Would you phrase things so rudely if you met face to face? If the answer is yes, your parents didn't raise you right - and I would say that to your face. A few people stated legitimate complaints and questions without being a jerk, but a lot of people posting are just hiding behind a computer to fling insults and talk trash. Threads are a lot better when we raise our conduct above the lowest standard of the internet.

I don't see the Public Domain project as having much effect either way on sales. Historical PD content is so different from modern content they simply don't cover the same needs. And because it's so clearly different and of limited potential, it's irrational to think customers are going to suddenly expect everything to be free. On the plus side, if customers get used to using Pond5 for historical footage, then they'll very likely start using Pond5 for other stock needs, in which case our sales go up. Again, I don't expect a big bleed-over for a sizable uptick in sales, but it's something Pond5 is doing all the work on and it might help sales a bit, so fine.

And +1 to the need for Pond5 to automatically down-size files - please. Glad to hear they're starting that with 4K soon, I need that feature.

Uh Oh ... 

CEO Tom Bennett:
"I think the public domain launch helps to underscore the differences," he said. "We're focused on the long term, and focused on providing value to the artists, both the buyers and sellers who are active in the marketplace, and helping empower them as media producers. I think the other guys, pretty much across the board, are focused on short-term profit."

"Employees spent six months preparing the public domain sites, including several trips to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the long, tedious work of breaking up the clips into searchable segments. Bennett said the initial installment of 80,000 assets is just the first phase, and they'll continue to add to the public domain project."

http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/blog/techflash/2015/01/pond5-bets-free-willbolster-the-fees.html

*Some good points here on how PD free stuff is already killing the search of RF stuff on P5 and mislead the best selling files with free stuff - https://www.pond5.com/community?forum=629&thread=39986639&lp=1

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_lengths

Very interesting... regarding Public domain

I do lot of PD but I upload  ONLY after lots of documentation and ONLY when I'm 100% that the work is in Public Domain. Most times it's a very tricky job 

How about the "our contributor console doesn't strip out capital letters" project? How's that coming along?

O. M. G.

They fixed it.