Help needed on this corbis/getty thing:

I've been on Corbis for 14 months (and ONLY corbis), using my dad's old photojournalism work (editorial content), with some modest success.

This takeover has me very nervous, since I've heard so much about Getty paying pennies to contributors (using their subscription approach, partners, etc.). I'm trying to sort out whether it is really that bad. Trying to decide whether to delete the portfolio from Corbis (and how does one do that anyway?) and try to use other stock companies (slim pickins for editorial content of this type), or move to Getty (assuming I am asked) and hope for the best.

I know that only I can decide this, but any other viewpoints or insights are really needed here. This is causing me much turmoil.

Why not join with one image and order it yourself. Then you can see what a customer would receive if they placed a similar order.

I'll certainly order myself a print if I join (probably a few times if I'm selling various images, as a continual check on quality).

So far, in my research across various blogs and reviews I've turned up:

* a general consensus that their customer service is horrible, but they WILL refund orders if item is return (they won't exchange items because they do everything through different third-party venders).

* Overall approval of quality of prints

* Various concerns about some contributors submitting photographs that they do not own copyright for (I actually found one of my photos being sold by someone else as theirs, and I filed a complaint showing the same image listed on my Corbis account; their legal person is looking into it). I actually saw a contributor on FFA saying he found a photo of Jackie Kennedy at a Goodwill store, went home and scanned it and uploaded it to FFA and is trying to resell prints of it. The FFA site seems to be rife with copyright violation by similar people.

* Artists are generally satisfied with the platform, and are making some money, though the artists also complain that they have to drive viewers to the site because FFA doesn't do enough to advertise (I don't anticipate this as a problem in my case)

* Artists are generally dissatisfied with the control over size options for prints (this may in turn be reliant on their actual cropping in photoshop, not sure until I go in and try it)

* I have not seen any complaints about the actual frames, but I get the impression that the artists/photographers have generally not ordered frames for themselves. The lack of customer complaints (on the internet) about framing probably says something to the effect of good quality.

* The $30 annual fee is automatically withdrawn from your CC, which many members find irritating.

What I have NOT seen anywhere is any discussion about my #2 question regarding licensing and the contract. I suspect that the vast majority of contributors on FFA do not read the contract carefully. The inclusion of the word "license" in the general contract is worrisome because it appears to grant FFA the unlimited right to license images regardless of contributors' wishes.

... the print was held to a wooden backing by double-sided tape, the backing warped and the tape let go...

That's pretty bad. Presumably, however, if the print is decent and the customer was reimbursed for the framing, the customer could go to a frame shop for real framing.

But that's one of the things I've been looking for: customer satisfaction.