Quote from: cthoman on September 23, 2016, 09:51

Quote from: LDV81 on September 23, 2016, 09:01

Quote from: Hannafate on September 23, 2016, 08:47

I would like to have my business contact information widely available.   It's my business, after all.

Some people have also businesses in other fields and might not want to be associated with the micros.

Just to play devil's advocate here... Does an agency have more responsibility to help someone maintain some sort of subterfuge or to be more transparent about the people/businesses that provide artwork to their company?

This is absolute nonsense. The agency knows exactly who the image supplier is, they can request a copy of the ID, whatever. If the buyer has important reasons to know who the copyright holder is, they can contact the agency and ask for this info. They buyers enter a contractual agreement with the agency, not with the contributors.

That's what transparency is though. It's letting buyers know without having to ask because they can already see it.

A lot of agency list my name under the copyright. It doesn't seem like anything new. It would be annoying if they showed my address or phone number, but name and location seems like good basic info to have.

It doesn't really matter. Most of them are the same or interchangeable now.

Other than kicking people out of agencies and making them more artist rep based, the only thing that really matters is pricing.

" think this is a good move by GL. Pricing based on size is an old notion, one that should definitely go away. Ultimately people are buying a license. The number of pixels they get with that license shouldn't matter. "

Well, as I've already said, pixel size does matter a bit and it's a way of tailoring a product to what the buyer wants.  For instance, I license/rent a movie from iTunes.  I don't need the HD version, so I'm glad they offer a SD version at a lower price.  It fits my needs.

It probably comes down to at some point vectors and photos should split. Some of the differences will probably never be agreed upon.

Doesn't really matter how it happened, the fact is many sites have tried one price for all sizes and have then changed to different prices for different sizes.  They must of done that because buyers have demanded it and I really don't see how GL can go against that tide when they are selling the same images.

The comparison with music doesn't work because that's not being used for business purposes, like most of out images are.  I doubt someone making a 5 second music clip for an advert would charge the same as a 1 minute clip.

The sites that I can think of off the top of my head have gone on to do worse after they made the switch (GL, iStock and Veer). Also, sites that added it like Shutterstock have tended to improve. From my experience, buyers will buy things that they want and aren't hugely concerned about prices. I'm sure some are, but there seem to be enough out there that aren't to not have to chase the bargain hunters. Those people have a home at pretty much every other agency anyway.

@Stockastic - We do not have any plans to lower pricing.  In fact, we have plans to give more freedom over the pricing of your images.  There are a lot of things in the pipeline, and we will listen to all of our members for suggestions as to how to best serve them.  The previous owners felt that what the current prices are set to was the sweet spot for both sellers and buyers alike.  However, with any business, things change over time.  We will evaluate the pricing, and will adjust accordingly as needed to ensure that buyers are happy with the pricing, but sellers are happy with their earnings.  It's obviously paramount for us to find the sweet spot, and rest assured, we will be working on this.

That's good to hear. I wouldn't mind seeing the $20 price point come back at GL. With smaller sites, higher price points and lower volumes seem to be a better success strategy (at least, from a contributor perspective). It seems to make more sense from a long term sustainable strategy too. Cramming massive volume through a site and expecting every contributor to get a piece doesn't seem like it will work forever for some of these larger sites.

I guess it all works because they paid both of them today. I just missed the change which I assume happened last month judging by the forum post.

It could be a sign of things to come, or it could just be the market adjusting itself. I've definitely had concerns about the long term sustainability this year, but things will probably just shift again like they've done before. Who knows? I guess, in the end, I'll still have all the images, so I can just sell them out of the back of a van. Time to look at the classifieds to find a van. 

A big portfolio with high quality images is surely better than a little portfolio with low quality images.
So the portfolio size can have a lot to do with the number of sales�

That only works when new or more images continue to make you more money. I'm not convinced that is the case anymore.

Quote from: Ariene on April 05, 2016, 01:24

Another reason to focus on and support only trusted and fair place(s)...

Which are ... ?

LOL. Yeah, really.

Thanks for the info Mike. I was wondering how they managed to screw up 40 bucks or whatever paltry sum I earned there, but this explains it. Between these things and 1099-K's, I may need to just write a long letter to the IRS each year explaining that it's complicated.

I hope that Stocksy inspires other people. There are many flavours of stock and there is plenty of room for other co-ops serving different customers and different markets.
Right now many "traditional" agencies serving only the interests of the owners, shareholders etc. resemble parasites. But Stocksy shows that it doesn't have to be this way.

For the life of me, I can't understand all those "pros" with full-time income feeding the parasites with thousands and thousands of great images in this unsustainable model, instead of getting together and creating a better model, other co-ops, serving different customers with different images. If every agency had different images (image-exclusivity) there would be no need to compete on the price only. Non-exclusivity is the root of our problems.

Some of us have tried. It's not easy running things, getting everybody to cooperate and making it all work.