Guess I missed that one, Donna.... 
      I'm quite happy here.  Occassionally someone will come on and flame someone or everyone... but those people dont tend to stick around...
   All in all, I think the vast majority of the folks here are civil, friendly, helpful and supportive of each other. This is THE ONLY forum I belong to and for just this reason...  nice people here.  =tom

My conclusion is:

-will stay same number of buyers, with or without some of sites,they migrate to another sites...
- cca 600$ of my money is still on many different accounts, because of payout limits, with less sites we will have our money in our pocket sooner...
-struggle for market forced me to upload on many agencies, that mean much more effort for same money, also sometimes it is "Sizif's job" (Zymm,StockXpert,LO etc.)
-also many agencies mean more documents, more W-8EN, sometimes more fees because of different types of payments...
-more upload, bigger Internet traffic, with flat rate also mean more steering in monitor,lees shooting...
-different prices level and new sites for searching cheaper versions also can harm my earnings...
-some part of my money probably will never come on my bank account, Cres, etc.
-"Don't put all eggs in the same basket" doesn't bring me any big benefit, only losses of some money and time...

Probably I never go on Exclusive, I like different types of market, but less agencies is better...

Quote

As laudable as your efforts are they are a mere drop in the ocean compared to images available the file sharing sites, which have been going since the 90s one way or another.

I'm sure most folks here will have their work freely distributed on them, I know I have, for example there are 5619 pages and counting on just one site, heroturko.org , and nothing seems to have been able to be done about them.

Have you found a best-selling image of yours on one of these sites? Maybe that's the difference. Once it happens to you, the threads that show on the board have a little more interest.

It's not that I never cared before...with having to work a full-time job to pay a mortgage, I don't usually have all day to sit and cruise the boards and play detective, even for my own work. Sometimes the threads float to the bottom before I even have a chance to see them. You can believe the Image Sleuth section is going to be noticed by me a little more now.

In the past couple of days I have spent hours on this, hours that could have been used to make real money. But this is costing all of us money, too. If someone needs help, you can be sure I will do my best to help and I would hope others would help me, as they have just done.

Maybe it just takes everyone looking out and helping everyone else on this matter.

OK off my high horse now. 

Not sure where you are from Kone but you should also look into the legal side of things. Photographing children can be a sensitive subject.

You can either price it acccording to what you think 'the market', presumably the kids' parents, will be happy to pay for their photos (are they to be in presentation wallets, etc?).

Alternatively work out how long you expect the entire job to take, determine an hourly rate that you would be satisfied with, then add on the cost of materials plus an allowance for the overhead of your equipment.

How much you want to do the job and whether there might be further opportunities for similar work will also help you come to a figure. You may well find that this sort of work is much more hassle, takes far longer and is less enjoyable than you anticipate __ but then again you might be a natural and really enjoy it.

Quote from: cclapper on January 20, 2010, 18:12

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This one too, same photo, just another Flickr thief.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44787562@N02/4178115893/#

I just posted a comment at the bottom of this thief's page.

I left a comment as well

I know Flickr very well, been registered with them since 4 years, and I can testify that they really do not check what people upload because the community is too huge to execute a quality or copyright control on every member... as deviantart or other photosharing network, included stock agencies I'd say.

Anyway I dealt with them regarding some copyright (CR) infringement and I have to say that they are very open and understanding in blocking people and closing accounts of those who are committing a CR crime.

At the bottom of the Flickr site, in every page, you can find a link "Copyright/IP Policy" where you can report your problem. Be sure they will act the soonest they can, since they're very sensitive in that field.

Ok, the guy can start another account and do it all over again but if his/her IP is blacklisted he won't be able to do that again on Flickr at least.

However, IMO it's the combo of camera/lens/photographer/model/composition that gives the end result.
Patrick H.

Not a member. Just doing a free trial to evaluate it.

I'm guessing you're asking about selling anything there because you think it's a stock agency. It used to be. Now it's just a backend system to enable photographers to sell their own stock. You need to do the marketing because Photoshelter doesn't market to buyers. The PS Virtual Agency allows multiple photographers to create their own agency which is what I think the OP is suggesting.

I got myself a Nikon D3X as a Christmas present.... did some test shots today, WOW!... This IS a nice piece of equipment! I don't even want to look at my backlog images shot with D300 now... which is a pretty good camera, but D3X is just amazing!  I am so excited, just had to share:)