Lobo also said PP will be going on until Saturday mid-day.

Instead of uselessly clicking their ad links the entire evening, which is a drop in the ocean, why not spend that time creating new images?

I thought I'd let you know what I decided - I am closing with Fotolia.
Looking forward to payday...


Dear Fotolia

I found the one and only image that I left in my account with you on this (Chinese) page
http://www.artgalore.ca/PhotosByArtist.php?ArtistID=202540410&ArtistName=artesiawells

Since I am engaged with other agencies with much of my portfolio I need to know where my copyrighted work is being published and for sale. This new find together with the insecurities of the past month, I consider it to be of the utmost urgency that I close my account with Fotolia.

I look forward to your confirmation and a payout of the equivalent of 3.3 credits as soon as possible.


Sincerely,
xxArtesiaWells


On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Fotolia.com <[email protected]> wrote:
    
Fotolia   View in your browser
 
       
    

"Hello,
 
We're sorry to see you have recently removed some files from your portfolio.
If you change your mind please remember that you can just send us a ticket and we'll put all your files back online. However, this must be done within the next 30 days.
Also, we would like to remind you that you can choose to opt in or opt out your images from DPC in your photographers' parameters.
We hope to see you back soon and will be doing all to grow your income.

Kind Regards,

The Fotolia Team"

Chinese page? It's Canadian.

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.

Your logic is wrong.

Let me get this straight
DT = the ice cream supplier
Walmart food buyer = the big fish partner

Now, you're forgetting that we contributors are the factory that supplies the spoons for the ice cream supplier's taster spoons. Would an ice cream supplier ask for free spoons from the factory to pitch his ice cream to the food buyer? With a vague promise of spending more on spoons once the food buyers agrees to a big deal? Of course not. However DT is. The ice cream supplier should invest the money for spoons because he's the only who should bear this financial risk.

At least it isn't as shady and behind-your-back as the Google deal, but this is unethical either way. Here's some proper feedback and tips for DT:

1) You can't expect contributors to willingly hand over images for testing purposes without any form of direct compensation; the 'promise' of retroactively paying contributors is too vague and unprofessional. Usually this is a 'red flag' in the freelance designer world: "we pay you when we like it or once we're making money on this". Freelance designers get that crap all the time. You wouldn't ask a plumber to work for free, now would you?
2) In order to get contributors along, give them a fair compensation.
3) If you can't cough up the dough beforehand, get better financial backing. Or, if this is promising to be 'the biggest partnership a stock company could hope for', negotiate a better payment plan with your partners. If they aren't willing to invest in this plan, it isn't a promising plan to begin with.
4) The notice is too late. Only 5 days to opt out of some vague test plan? That should've been 30 days.
5) Give us more information: how long will this test run, how will the images be used/sold, what's in it for contributors? We want hard facts, not vague promises that sound too good to be true. Contributors are no fools.

I had a Getty360 sale, which appeared as a green bar. Looking at my PP stats, I noticed a sale of $28 for one file on the 24th. It said "(Getty Images)" instead of "(Partner Program)".

For me, subs have not yet begun.

It looks like an initiative from an angry buyer who feels duped by DepositPhotos, and tries to unmask their phoniness with this Google+ page. For instance, he shows how fake their support desk is, as they (DP) are using stock photos to represent their helpdesk employees. Not sure if every claim on that page is verified, but any enemy of DP is a friend of mine

Oh for exclusive only ! haha ! of course ...
No way they can do a 50% royalty day for non exclusive !

Of course not, that's unsustainable. Plus, money doesn't make us happy.

only 4 weeks. The Food for Thought was a thread in this forum. this is about: Do you reduce your images for Shutterstock? Many do so for reasons of acceptability, or even the fact that you will receive the same amount for a smaller image anyway.

You have to understand that most buyers buy lots of images simply BECAUSE they can download 25 images / day. That doesn't mean every downloaded image will be used. It could end up as 'one of many choices' and may eventually not be used at all. With the more expensive credit downloads, buyers will make more conscious decisions and then you image may not be downloaded at all. So in that respect, subscription royalties can be beneficial. They may be low, but these tiny royalties add up.

Then there is the occasional Extended License and multiple single downloads and On Demand sales that get us (decent) money.

The people to contact and inform about what Oleg Tsheltzoff and his DPC site are doing, are the Advertising and Design Agency's, who use the content.

Deleting and Opting out is not enough the people who buy the content should be informed, they are creatives like us, they wont be happy about exploiting other creatives.

The quickest way to inform them, is through the Advertising and Design Press.

This would stop Oleg Tsheltzoff and his DPC site selling the content.

I don't think you'll be able to convince ad agencies to stop buying there. It's a cheap deal for customers, so why should they care about our commissions? You need to inform contributors. Without contributors, there will be no (or less) content, and then customers will stay away as well.

Quote

GDUSA
Graphic Design USA Magazine


The Next Step in Simple
http://blog.gdusa.com/the-next-step-in-simple/

I've added a comment to that blog article. Perhaps some of their readers will see it

Steve

I couldn't see your comment, but I've added mine:

"Most of the images found on DPC are included in the database WITHOUT the consent of Fotolia�s contributors, who were never informed or given the choice to opt-out of this deal.

As it turns out, this new venture is intended to gain market share at the expense of its contributors and the microstock industry as a whole.
Using an aggressive pricing strategy and a low commission structure, contributors are being treated as third-country workers who only get paid a couple of pennies for each image sale.

Microstock supscriptions are already pretty cheap for customers, but this move by Oleg Tscheltzoff devaluates images even further and is destroying the market as we know it, making it harder for contributors to deliver high quality images.

Anyone who contributes to Fotolia, please read more at :
http://boycottfotolia.org/en/petition.html#.U2PTAVdBl8E

You can opt-out of DPC by going to My Account > My Profile > Contributor Parameters and click on Modify."

-Noticed a small error, "third-country" should say "third-world country", but I hope people understand what I meant-

@ Axel Lauer:  Any news?

OT:
My images now seem to have been removed from all reseller sites, including the previews. I will check back regularly, but for now it seems okay.

Aaaaand....it's back up.