So I got today 2 sales of $3.09 each, on Alamy. Not Novel Use, I'm opted out of that. I couldn't believe my eyes and I emailed support, asking them if Alamy is going microstock way or what's up with those prices.

I got this reply:

"This image was billed for one of our key RF editorial clients. They usually do one bulk invoice per month, around 1000 images mostly RFs.

They do have agreed price agreement with us and these rates are irrespective of RF/RM. Also RF images are eligible for unlimited reuse and unlimited seat licenses.
 
Thanks for your understanding."

So the client payed $3.09 for the rights of a microstock Extended License. Good job.


See also this topic: http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9861

I got them too, looking at balance of account they are from a partner site so we only get 40% of $3.09

Quote from: madelaide on January 30, 2011, 18:00

I remember a discussion in the past about this, indeed BigStock puts this restriction - it would be much more edible this way - but it is actually impossible to enforce.

Like TS saying buyers can only use them during the duration of their subscription. How could that every be policed?
Added; ..."at micro prices"

the ones that make me laugh are uses such as in books and covers (seems like every publisher now only uses subs), 'ok ended our subcription we have to recall all the books we sold with pictures in them as we cant use them anymore'

Must admit I can't see how this is any different to the "Request New Content" forum on IS, other than it being much more complicated and not being addressed to a stock-shooting fraternity who understand the technical requirements, etc.

On the IS forum there is a magazine that every month gives out 3 recipes and requests vertical and horizontal shots of each. The 'lucky winner' gets to sell ... er, two images for their trouble. Oh, nearly forgot, they also get a 'credit' and a copy of the magazine too. Invariably the recipes are in tiny niche subjects which are unlikely to get many further sales (apart from the fact that the recipes themselves have all been done to death anyway). It always amazes me how many contributors beaver away in response to the request.

Here's one of the posts. Never in the field of stock photography have so many mushrooms been stuffed (with macadamia) by so many for so few potential sales. Makes me wonder who is getting the greater stuffing __ the mushrooms or the participants?

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=260401&page=1

thats phenomenal, if it wasn't for actually seeing peoples responses I wouldn't have believed anyone would respond. For at least one recipe what they are paying wouldnt cover the cost of ingredients and electricity for me (let alone my time), but oh I'd get a free magazine. Bragging rights of being taken for a ride.

seems very impressive to me.

I uploaded 10 images yesterday and told it to do a full submit to all sites (expect bigstock and cutcaster where it wont connect).

taken a while to get my head around it all but my thoughts and observations,

after about 24 hours, it is still processing (I think? - they are all still yellow) so some of this may be fixed by itself soon,

some sites like 123rf and deposit are all in the reviewing queue, done and happy,
DT and Canstock got all 10 in the unfinished but it hasnt pushed them through (as yet)?,
FT - 2 doubles - 8 are awaiting review (no category so see how that goes), 4 are uploaded and waiting to be submitted (dont know if it comes back and does this?)
Veer scored an one photo twice - 7 pending, 4 in the waiting
SS has only got 1 image as has Alamy which has an error (but it may be size or anything not sure yet).
IS (which I wasn't going to submit to, but I had created the channel and it got done got 5 out of 10

yesterday it showed my outstanding balances at each site, but today doesnt seem to? (I'm probably doing something wrong

model releases I see as a problem, personally it would be nice to have a button that toggles all channels between unfinished area and full submit, that way for people shots can go to unfinished to have a model release added and simple click back for non people shots.

the other problem I see is the speed, it's all just happening a bit to slow at this stage.

I think it may have been asked already but what will happen when another site is added? it would be nice to have a system like it storing the filename and just point to a folder and it mass reuploads for submitting to the site?? (or some good method

do you have / can you let us know an idea of costing for the service? Working faster and the quirks sorted (I accept it is beta) I think it will be brilliant but I have concerns about the cost, Isyndica seemed good, just to expensive.

Rgds
Phil

like istock, yay! a boom year so we have to cut commissions.... what crap
emerald and above stay the same

Dear Fotolia Contributor,
2010 was another record year for the Fotolia community. We set new all-time highs for the number images in our collection, the number of members, and photographer royalty payouts. For 2011, we're implementing some changes in efforts to continue this trend.

Competition in the market is increasing, both amongst the photographers in the community, and amongst stock photography agencies. We've been monitoring the situation carefully, and have continued to increase our marketing spend in the number and frequency of ad campaigns. In addition, Fotolia continued its international leadership in new markets, with the opening of the Russian and Chinese web sites. With the increase in sales, the velocity of the rank changes has also accelerated. In order to sustain our continued efforts in marketing, we are making some changes to the royalty structures at the mid and lower tiers next week.

Fotolia continues to maintain photographer commissions at a significantly higher than those of our major competitors, and our increased efforts in marketing will result in an even higher velocity towards increased rankings.

Please note also that our new recency filter gives some priority to newer and fresher content, which means that the best new photographers with fresh content will have a better chance of rising to the higher ranks.

Thanks for your continued support, and we look forward to a great 2011 together.

Sincerely,
Fotolia.com

new rates (but I dont know the old)

Here is the price and royalty chart for non-exclusive files

Ranking    Contributor royalty (%)    
White    20    
Bronze    23    
Silver    25    
Gold         31
Emerald    37    
Sapphire    40    
Rubis    43    
Diamond    46    

never mind

A friend used to be a buyer for a supermarket chain in australia (although its international). Same deal, they set the price, the amount of shelf space etc. They work that way for their department store and other shops too (they arent all about passing it on to the customers though . She said that where possible they would specifically try and find smaller companies that would have to grow to keep up with supplying them, so that after a year or two the supplier couldnt operate without them and they could really screw them hard.

Quote from: holgs on October 15, 2010, 10:07

Quote from: traveler1116 on October 15, 2010, 07:49

I noticed you don't have many Vetta or Exclusive plus files, did you try to get any into Vetta?  and have you decided not to put a lot into Exclusive plus?

I'm still trying to get a better idea on how what I've nominated on E+ is selling before putting in more. I haven't nominated much for vetta yet - and what I have nominated has either been knocked back or is still waiting for review by the Vetta team (I think!).  

How are your E+ files going?

Honestly it's hard to tell, I do feel that since a lot of my images are of places that no so many people go there isn't a lot of competition on IS or any of the micros so it probably won't affect sales too much if I choose the right images.  But just looking at one of my "stock" images it appears to have sold more this year than last so putting it into E+ may not have hurt it.  We were also told that we would get a bump in the best match 6 months ago or whenever it was but nothing yet as far as I can see, the Admins recently said this was still going to happen but who knows when?

Uh oh.. I did just check the forums and JJRD said "E+ is doing superbly well. " and that was it, does this mean a Vetta style lowering of commissions soon?

With a lot of your images of less frequented places (and therefore lower demand?) wouldnt you do better doing macro rm/rf in a macro travel library like loney planet / robert harding / etc etc?

Quote from: a1bercik on October 15, 2010, 13:37

Thanks for the link, I know this thread.
Unfortunately, scouts and moderators (especially in istock) use similar excuse to reject everything containing word 'Auschwitz'.
So... sometimes not existing 'Nazi war memorabilia', sometimes 'elements protected by Intellectual or Industrial property laws'?
As I said before - people in Museum and lawyer don't see any problem, Fotolia and iStock do?
Pawel

Such sensitive subject matter belongs in the world of editorial-use-only photography IMO. It trivialises the issues (and any other equally significant issues) if these sorts of images are sold for commercial use in the same collections which also include handshakes and pretty models. There should be a layer of editorial or bureau interjection which takes a subjective opinion about these sorts of things.

I agree put in RM (and make more)

I havent looked around crestock in ages and was bored at work did find some interesting things

quote from changes for contributing artists

Pricing for vector images and subscriptions
By stevepigeon on Tuesday, 21 September 2010 4:41 PM
In response to the "guest" query on Sep 18, we are reviewing all the pricing on Crestock and, among other things, have determined to increase the price for vector files. This should take effect within a few weeks as we are making a number of changes to the website.

Additionally, we are looking at subscriptions both in terms of the prices charged to clients and the royalties paid to contributors.

Steve Pigeon, Chariman - Crestock Corporation, Toronto

a change in subs would be nice hopefully make it worthwhile to start uploading again and although it was rare that I got the mass rejections when I was uploading there

from their forum

As you probably already know but just in case you are unaware, Crestock was purchased by Masterfile Corporation on July 1, 2010.  Please review the following announcements from the Crestock blog.
The new management is currently reviewing the editing protocol and the rejection reasons that the previous owners were using.  The editing team was recently instructed to stop using the rejection reason you pointed out and others that we find unsuitable.  We hope to make many improvements to the editing process in the near future.  The images you have pointed out are images that were rejected in 2009.

Susan Morissette - Crestock Content Management

although Steve Pigeon does say at a couple of points 'our standards are high and we intend to keep them that way'.

mine is

import lightroom
grade images 1 = delete, 2 = keep for self, 3 = stock
get whole of image adjustments, levels etc + grad filter if reg'd done in lightroom
for self and micro export as jpeg (quality 97)
work through stock images in photoshop with local adjustments etc.
keyword stock images in bridge
upload & archive

basically when I changed from editing tifs to jpgs for micro their was no difference in rejection rates

I generally keyword in rough order of importance, and 99% of images go through fine for all sites with those keywords and captions. Alamy as you know requires more work, panther media is more work than alamy as is istock (basically I can get about 3-4 images through alamy's batch system or about 4-5 at DT or FT for each image on istock).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101012/bs_yblog_upshot/mcdonalds-happy-meal-resists-decomposition-for-six-months

Basically, this New York photographer bought a Happy Meal to prove to a friend that it would not mold or rot in 3 days. The meal is on Day 180. Too funny!

lol, thanks for that