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Messages - BaldricksTrousers
Pages: 1 ... 43 44 45 46 47 [48] 49 50 51 52 53 ... 206
1176
« on: May 30, 2014, 17:37 »
I am probably being thick, but I still do not understand. You seem to be saying that only a fully released image can be offered as RM exclusive. ??
That seemed to be how it worked when I tried to submit one. When you choose the license types if there is material that would need a release in it and you don't have one then it defaults to non-exclusive RM and the exclusive-RM button is greyed out.
1177
« on: May 30, 2014, 14:29 »
The only images it can offer exclusivity guarantees for are RM-Exclusive (and it seems to demand that all those are fully released, so they are not really editorial).
1. Not disagreeing but what makes you say that - the bit I bolded ? I have not heard that before.
The one time I tried to put one into RF-exclusive it wouldn't allow the licensing for "release required/no release". The only option for that was non-exclusive RM. Of course, any image can be used in an editorial context but for normal news shots of an event taking place - a Press conference, a sporting event, an accident etc. - it's highly unlikely you are going to be able to get releases for every face or piece of property in the frame - indeed, it would generally be bizarre to ask for signatures.
1178
« on: May 30, 2014, 13:50 »
next time I go to my favourite sushi restaurant I won't pay for the meal and no tip as well 
they won't call the police because I will say it is a test and that I will potentially bring tons of friends later!
Well, OK, but let's be fair. To make it a perfect match you do have to ask the restaurant before you start the meal if they mind you not paying for it since it might create a wonderful opportunity for them later on, and give them the right to refuse your business. There's no need to crucify DT over this, I just wish they would/could let us know what they want us to get involved with. If they can come back later and tell us what they are doing l will be happy to consider the deal on its merits and join in if it makes sense for me to do so.
1179
« on: May 30, 2014, 09:50 »
That's interesting, Sue. I think it takes six months to deactivate a file on Alamy, so if you have the same file on the same deactivation terms at another RM site there would always be the danger of it selling there after it had been sold with exclusive rights on Alamy.
That's why I thought they wouldn't be able to do exclusive rights deals on ordinary RM.
1180
« on: May 30, 2014, 08:53 »
True, but furthermore, surely the reason for the rule is that RM licenses may specify exclusive use of that image for some period of time - and if an image has ever been licensed as RF, anywhere, you can't guarantee that.
No. .... well, that may have been the original idea but Alamy cannot sell standard RM images for exclusive use because it doesn't know where else they may be on sale. The only images it can offer exclusivity guarantees for are RM-Exclusive (and it seems to demand that all those are fully released, so they are not really editorial). @ Photostockad - it is written somewhere, someone showed it to me when I was making the same query as you, but I can't recall exactly where they put it.
1181
« on: May 30, 2014, 08:25 »
There is nothing more to be said in public about the possible deal. That's how business works, that's how negotiations are made in the real world.
In the real world, a business doesn't expect other businesses to sign blank sheets of paper so that it can write a contract without the signatories knowing the terms they are agreeing to. That is what you are asking us to do. It's somewhat insulting to be lectured on "real world business" as if we're all just playing games with our images.
1182
« on: May 30, 2014, 06:10 »
Viorel, thanks for coming here and trying to clarify things. My problem remains the complete lack of information about what the deal represents (the beta test is, of itself, a deal, you know, otherwise you wouldn't have both parties' lawyers preparing the emails).
All we know is that it involves embedding images in online adverts, apparently hotlinking from DT as they won't be permanently available. We don't know how that would be paid for or what the rate of pay would be. My guess is that this "limited" access would be at prices lower than the ordinary RF price - after all, they are getting less in return aren't they? - but adverts are only expected to run for a limited time, so it might involve selling usage rights for a three-month ad campaign at one tenth the price of a standard RF sale which would have been bought for the full price normally. That would lead to further industry-wide devaluation of the value of our work.
Or maybe payment is per click on the advert ..... same devaluation effect.
Right now, I can't think of any temporary hotlink online advertising usage that won't involve a drop in the sales value of our files.
If it's a bigger company than DT you are trying to link up with, it could mean flooding the internet with cut-price temporary image licensing. Maybe it's better for me if you never make the hoped-for deal. I have no way of knowing.
As an independent, it is not in my interests to support schemes that may strip 38c sales from other sites and turn them into 5c sales on DT. What's good for DT may or may not be good for me. When you refuse to tell me what you want to do, except for outlining a temporary advertising usage, how can I have any expectation that it will be beneficial for independents and not just another plunge towards the bottom in pricing?
You know the treatment we've had to put up with from site owners over recent years, you can't be surprised that many people are very suspicious about being invited to "trust the management" and head, blindfolded, into a new deal.
1183
« on: May 30, 2014, 00:30 »
There is NO risk in this beta test. The ACTUAL risk is in it not going well and the partner not wanting to proceed.
You read that right... there is NO risk to you! This is for an online advertising platform. Testers of this program would NOT be buying your images elsewhere if they didn't have access to them through this test. They just wouldn't be running ANY images in their ad if it weren't for this test. You are out NOTHING. And DT says they will actually try to compensate you for images used in the test! What have they done to you to earn your mistrust?
Everyone is fixating on these few weeks of POSSIBLY unpaid image usage during the beta test!!! Don't you see the forest for the trees?!! Do you really want this to fail? Imagine who this big player could be and what this could mean!
STockmarketer, are you a DT employee? I guess you must be because you are the only one on this board who knows that there is no risk, that it is a "big fish" they have "hooked", that it will mean a lot more money for all of us if we are in it and it is a success, etc. etc., that it won't be something that sucks lots of other agencies into "great deals" where we might get paid a lot if it succeeds. You clearly know the sort of sums of money involved, that it isn't a click-through scheme, that we will get a good commission percentage etc. etc. ... in fact, all the things that DT refuses to tell us about. Therefore, I presume you are informed about details of the deal. Either that, or you are building castles in the air.
1184
« on: May 29, 2014, 11:54 »
It seems that he's ok, I got this reply: Hello,
Its possible to download photo with licence for use
by this link:
http://www.shutterstock.com/g/markmirror?rid=70518
regards MarkSo he's trawling for referrals, not reselling illegally.
1185
« on: May 29, 2014, 07:40 »
I'm not in NU, since iS said exclusives couldn't be in it - but didn't Alamy say a while ago that they were stopping it?
Yes, a couple of years ago they said it would expire and not be renewed - but then they seemed to forget that. The sales became more infrequent but didn't stop.
1186
« on: May 29, 2014, 07:33 »
Do you mean that in USA someone signs a contract allowing another one to be his master and to have him as a slave is legal? (it's an example)
I'm pretty sure there would be laws trumping any such contract - maybe even something in their Constitution - but a contract that says both parties have the right to terminate it at any time for any reason is perfectly normal. Indeed, having one side banned from terminating it would be closer to a master-slave relationship.
1187
« on: May 29, 2014, 07:19 »
Is DPC really so much more important than Fotolia???
It may well be. The business model seems to indicate that they are willing to sacrifice Fotolia's sales by transferring them to DPC at a loss. That only makes sense if they are calculating on taking a huge number of customers off other agencies.
Shutterstock is much larger than Fotolia but it still has only a surprisingly small share of the overall market - a few percent, I think, I can't remember exactly what they reported - so Fotolia might have only 1% or 2% of the overall market. If DPC could trawl in 10% of the market it might give a huge boost to its earnings, making the loss of Fotolia insignificant.
That's why it is so important to try to stop them. I've long since left Fotolia but they could well take away my earnings from Shutterstock and iSTock if this works.
Anyone getting booted out of Fotolia for fighting this can console themselves with the thought that, with luck, the loss from that will be less than they would have suffered if they had just gone along with DPC and allowed it to turn iStock and SS sales into DPC sales.
Has this been documented?
Well, they haven't stated the reason, but Ron and Anyka have suddenly found themselves with their marching orders http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/fotolia-still-at-it-they-closed-my-account/msg381858/
1188
« on: May 29, 2014, 07:17 »
I got one, too. More interestingly, I've got a spate of decent sales since they brought in the new console and I'm also able to see sales on the day in the sales tab, rather than waiting for the update the following morning.
- and 36 hours later the sales get cancelled ... seems to have been duplicate reporting.
1189
« on: May 29, 2014, 07:12 »
Is DPC really so much more important than Fotolia???
It may well be. The business model seems to indicate that they are willing to sacrifice Fotolia's sales by transferring them to DPC at a loss. That only makes sense if they are calculating on taking a huge number of customers off other agencies. Shutterstock is much larger than Fotolia but it still has only a surprisingly small share of the overall market - a few percent, I think, I can't remember exactly what they reported - so Fotolia might have only 1% or 2% of the overall market. If DPC could trawl in 10% of the market it might give a huge boost to its earnings, making the loss of Fotolia insignificant. That's why it is so important to try to stop them. I've long since left Fotolia but they could well take away my earnings from Shutterstock and iSTock if this works. Anyone getting booted out of Fotolia for fighting this can console themselves with the thought that, with luck, the loss from that will be less than they would have suffered if they had just gone along with DPC and allowed it to turn iStock and SS sales into DPC sales.
1190
« on: May 29, 2014, 07:02 »
With low sales volume you get far too much randomness to be able to work out patterns except in a very broad way (i.e. if you have a significant niche to yourself you may see that subject tends to outsell other material ... but that doesn't really tell you much).
1191
« on: May 29, 2014, 06:39 »
No matter how terms and conditions are, it is legal to close an account in this way? I think not.
What are the terms and conditions for, then? There may be some terms that are so biased they don't count but I doubt if the right to end a business relationship is among them. Elsewhere, we have Axel looking for lawyers to sue DT because he feels that they have not closed his account the way he wanted. Sometimes it seems that people here think we should have the right to close our accounts any time we like but those we have the agreement with shouldn't have the right to close the account from their side. It doesn't make sense to me. And hiring a lawyer sounds a very expensive way of finding that contracts can be terminated.
1192
« on: May 29, 2014, 06:13 »
Business isn't really about right or wrong, is it?
You could ask - is it good to take care of reputation?
I think you will find there are two points of view on that .... one is the Fotolia type of view, the other is the view of companies that you respect.
1193
« on: May 29, 2014, 06:08 »
What I can't understand: Fotolia is a strong brand name, at least in Europe and
especially in the German-speaking countries. Why this strong brand is devalued to such activities like founding the dpc?
Money. Simply. They want (or maybe need) more. Look at Getty, it's the market leader but is so heavily mortgaged that rating agencies have expressed doubts about its ability to repay its debts. Every business is under pressure to deliver double-digit earnings growth (and to fund that, we are expected to be happy with ever-shrinking returns). DPC is an attempt to corner the market, boosting profits by slashing prices and thereby taking customers en-masse from the bigger agencies.
1194
« on: May 29, 2014, 05:57 »
I think it does show that they are really feeling the effects of the opt-out campaign, which is good. I'm not really surprised that they acted like this...
No? And I'm surprised. If FT (any other agency) feels that is doing something wrong, why not stop it (and say sorry, our mistake)? It just doesn't make sens  They are very hard to learn, no conclusions...
Business isn't really about right or wrong, is it? It's about money. Greed is Good! DPC is designed to make them more money at the expense of everyone else. They have decided to follow a path that pits their interests against ours, so they aren't going to say they are wrong because we are causing them problems. In their eyes, we are wrong if we do anything that hurts a money-making scheme. The Google Drive deal iStock set up was for their benefit, not ours. DT is being coy about the latest "great deal" it's trying to involve us all in.
1195
« on: May 29, 2014, 05:43 »
@Achilles:
Surely you can at least tell us what % of the income you would pass on to us if this went through? That isn't something that would concern your partners.
You might also be able to say whether payments per use would be for sums of money similar to the current payments from DT, or would they be for fractions of a cent?
If I had assurances on these things I might give you the benefit of the doubt. If I'm left thinking that it might be some click-through system, where people get to use my image for as long as they like and I get thousandths of a cent in return, then I really can't contemplate reactivating my associate option.
(AND what Arquiplay77 says above - surely these things are independent of your partner's concerns and are simply matters of internal DT policy, which you should be free to tell us about).
1196
« on: May 29, 2014, 05:31 »
They are probably scared that under American law if they give you a reason then they might provide you with ammunition for a court case. I believe it is quite standard in US businesses not to get specific.
I think it does show that they are really feeling the effects of the opt-out campaign, which is good. I'm not really surprised that they acted like this, if you look at the real (non-Internet) world, most companies would not continue their relationship with a product supplier who was actively campaigning to undermine their business strategy. After what happened to Sean I'm a little surprised that people are surprised by this, especially with Fotolia's past record of responding nastily to critisim on MSG.
Certainly, if you want to keep your Fotolia account active and you want to campaign here you would be wise to be anonymous - I don't know if it is possible to open a second account to overcome this.
1197
« on: May 28, 2014, 15:34 »
:(I was beginning to have doubts about DT when they abolished the default option for deleting old files with no sales.
They altered my pre-set default without even informing me so now I have to manually delete them individually or pay to have them re-keyworded.
It will be interesting to see how opting out of their alliances affects my meagre sales.
Really? I have the option to leave online with out rekeywording.
Yes, I just looked and I see that my default, which was "delete" has now changed to "keep online", delete is no longer an option - which makes rather a farce of the whole notification process. I was unaware that they had changed the options. I assume everybody is offered the same choices. As for talk about them going behind your back and secretly keeping you in the programme .... well, each and every agency could pull stunts like that. Either you trust them and keep working with them or you pull out as quickly as you can.
1198
« on: May 28, 2014, 14:17 »
Let's all take a breath...
The email said "small scale beta test program."
When anything in the IT world is being rolled out it gets beta tested to a small group before it goes to the masses. And typically the people beta testing the software do not pay for it.
This is an evaluation period. Picture an ice cream supplier giving one of those tiny taster spoons to the food buyer at Wal-Mart. The supplier isn't going to ask Mr. Purchasing Executive to pony up a quarter before he gets his taste. The supplier knows that if Wal-Mart likes what it tastes, it could result in an enormous, game-changing order.
I believe in DT. They have been good to me over the years (and of course, I have been good to them.) If this came from an agency I believe is shady, I would take a skeptical view of this.
DT has a BIG fish on the line, trying to reel it in and create an potentially enormous payday for all of us. Think for a moment before you try to cut that line.
As for me, DT selected a HUGE amount of my images to run in this test, and I'm ALL IN.
The rest of you can demand your quarter for the taster spoon.
Usually, I love to complain about whatever any agency does, but in this case you might be right. It can be a good deal for us too. If it is not, we still can opt out.
It's not clear you can opt out once it begins - if you want to opt out you have to do it within the next few days, after that, what? And how will you know whether or not it has been a good deal for you? You don't even know when the trial period is. How can you know that "it can be a good deal for us too", when you don't know what the customer is, what the nature of usage is, what the method of earning is (could it be click-through advertising?), what the percentage payout would bea, what the earnings potential per usage is, whether the main benefit is financial or "exposure"? That's my problem. If Serban could present the facts then I could make an informed decision. Right now, there is no way of making an informed decision because he won't tell us what he is asking us to do.
1199
« on: May 28, 2014, 12:53 »
"Curve" "Connect" and "BBC Motion Gallery" are what they are advertising over here.
1200
« on: May 28, 2014, 11:42 »
I've always liked DT. I'd like to think this would be a good deal for us - but how can anybody enter into a business deal on the basis:
1) We won't tell you what the deal is
2) You have a few days to reject the offer, otherwise you are automatically (locked?) in.
3) This commits you to acceptance of the unknown deal for an unspecified time.
4) At the end of the unspecified time maybe you will or will not get paid something - unspecified - for the way your work has been used.
Would Serban sign up his own company (DT) for something on those conditions? If so, I think I can make him an offer here and now!
Maybe he has come up with a great deal but I can't walk into it with a blindfold on.
(Thank you, at least, for informing us in advance and providing the opt-out)
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