Why would any agency punish your sales for the images they accepted?

Dreamstime reportedly does just that. And I agree that it's a bizarre approach (especially when they used to hand out rejections for including a model release - for things like partial profiles, body parts - which then count against you)

Except that we own our images and can walk whenever we see fit

Problem is walking cuts income in most cases, hence the willing participation in things that are less than ideal

unless you're a down hill skier this isn't a good graph   

And if you are a downhill skier, those are awfully spiky moguls

I'm just not interested in wasting time trying to get the jokers shut down.

We don't need to shut them down. We just need to remove a significant portion of the important (high sales) images. It can limp along with whatever images it can get without harming any of those of us who are opted out or not/no longer on Fotolia.

What we don't want is Shutterstock like growth out of a company with such a toxic business model - for contributors (I can see why buyers would love this)

Stock agencies haven't been hurt by those freebie sites with tons of images because there is a vast difference in the quality of the content they offer. As long as DPC looks more like the freebie sites and less like Shutterstock, I'd consider this effort a huge victory.

And I saw this morning that someone I contacted on Thursday has opted out of DPC - 14,000+ images gonzo

The key thing seems to be that so many contributors don't know about this. If they know and choose to opt in then that's their choice, however much I wish they wouldn't.

That's how we can make a difference - letting contributors know. I wouldn't waste time on buyers as I'd guess only a small portion would walk away from a great deal because it wasn't fair to suppliers.

I've removed this post about a list of names.

This is all getting way too complicated.

I'll try to help as I can, but I just don't have much time and can't think of any other quick and easy way to coordinate but still respect people's privacy.

And for what it's worth, I think the e-mails on the list were obtained from PhotoDune - in other words there was nothing in there that wasn't already on a web site.

Leaf - there are two posts that quote what used to be in this post. The link was still in the quotes (with your text saying you'd blocked it; something's not right with how that is working) but I have removed the file from my public folder so clicking on the link gets a 404 error.

See what you think of this:

(recipient's name),

You don't know me, but I'm a stock photographer too (give link or user name). I'm not sure if you're aware of Fotolia's new (started in January 2014) project, the Dollar Photo Club. It's a subscription-like, low price site where for $10 a month, a buyer gets 10 images (any size) or vectors and additional images are $1 each.

By default, all Fotolia content is opted in for sale at the Dollar Photo Club (DPC), and contributor receives a subscription royalty (according to level) on each sale even though the terms of these "image packs", chiefly that they roll over, make them more like incredibly cheap credit sales.

Why opt out? Contributors are concerned about converting existing buyers from credit purchases - which net the contributor much more - to DPC because of the incredibly low buy-in. To get subscription deals at Shutterstock or Fotolia, a buyer has to spend $249 a month, but at DPC it's just $10. On Fotolia you have to pay $14 for the smallest package of credits (10) which will get you just one XXL image, so even if a buyer needed just one image, it'd be cheaper to get it via DPC.

In summary, DPC gives huge volume discounts without a volume commitment.

In an interview Fotolia's CEO gave, he made it clear that he's looking to move buyers from Shutterstock and iStock to DPC, which for almost all contributors would result in a big drop in income.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/29/dollarphotoclub-expands-into-more-markets-hits-11000-users/

If you already know all about this, then there�s no need to read further - thank  you for your time.

If you were not aware of DPC, I'd like to strongly urge you to opt your portfolio out of DPC sales. Here's how to do that (as it's hard to find):

Go to your Contributor page.
Under My Account, select My Profile (https://us.fotolia.com/Member/Modify).
Select Contributor Parameters (https://us.fotolia.com/Member/Modify/Contributor).
Find Sell my files on DPC and click Modify.
Save parameters
Check that where you ticked actually says, "do not share on DPC" - it's a toggle and can easily get switched

Another thing to consider is suspending uploads to Fotolia until the terms of the sales via DPC are improved - where that would involve the contributor getting credit towards level from DPC sales and the minimum monthly and annual ($99 a year for 99 images) buy-ins be raised.

It's also worth pointing out that the opt out was not initially available - contributors were told by Fotolia support that they'd have to remove their portfolios from Fotolia to remove them from DPC. A group of contributors started a boycott and at the beginning of May close to 1 million images were removed from Fotolia portfolios, prompting Fotolia to offer an opt out choice.

Fotolia has since also raised the contributor royalties on monthly subscriptions (but not for sales through DPC) hoping to stem the tide of images opted out - close to 6 million images are now opted out from DPC, disproportionately among the best selling selections. Buyers have taken notice!

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, or provide you with more links to where you can read about this. Check out this set of links for a start.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/how-to-opt-out-of-dollar-photo-club/msg379729/#msg379729

regards,

(your name)

admin edit: removed quote as requested by quotee

I just did a spot check on the work of someone who I had notified about opting out - to make sure they were still opted out. It occurred to me that fotolia might have a software "oops" that opted people back in. The files were still gone from DPC, but I noticed something interesting.

In the search that I did, 12 of the first 20 images in the search results (by downloads) on fotolia were missing from DPC.

60% gone.

I know overall numbers are important too, but it's about buyers giving up on DPC because they can't find what they want. Even if there are large chunks of images for a given search, there's a reason the ones up front are there and when a large chunk of those are missing, it matters.

Another interesting observation about this search. I did the same search on fotolia, DPC and Shutterstock. It made it clear how much more (and to a large extent how much better) Shutterstock's selection was than what fotolia had.

fotolia - 470
DPC - 343
SS - 3,216

Shutterstock has nearly 10 times what DPC has. And on the first page of SS results (by popularity; can't do downloads there) - 100 - very few of the images there were on DPC's first page of results.

I think the goal is to make DPC look as unattractive to buyers as possible and it will just go away or become irrelevant. Numbers don't tell the full story, although it's definitely part of it, in the impact that has been had so far.

I happened upon this blog post today - a year old, but from a presentation designer who switched from iStock to Shutterstock

http://www.brightcarbon.com/blog/shutterstock-vs-istock-for-presentation-photos/

Clearly SS isn't perfect (and I worry that they are getting so dominant) but take a look at their site if you haven't lately and see how really amazing their presentation of the work they host is. Even if iStock had better content (which I'm not sure it does any more), their presentation is so much less inviting, IMO. Combine that with some of the most frustrating pricing...

I posted an example of Shutterstock's great presentation for a search result here.

The tweet about "greedy photogs" - if I have the one Liz was referring to - is more an anti-iStock/Getty rant (I think the poster assumes all that extra money is going to the photographer...

https://twitter.com/jordankettner/status/466655532812877824

Looking at the URL I worked backwards to a website design company

http://www.toolkitwebsites.co.uk/

I did a search on the business name and it appears they are a real company:

http://www.checkatrade.com/AndrewJamesDriveways/

Perhaps this was a pitch to that company to get them to use Toolkit to make a website and they didn't get the business? It probably shouldn't be visible to google if so, but I think that comps are OK on a mockup if that's what this is

Willful ignorance isn't the same thing as an honest mistake.

Deliberate underfunding of necessary internal accounting and bug fixing to improve the profit picture isn't dishonest, but it isn't ethical either.

Every one of the current accounting or site function problems has been known about for a very long time - and has been repeatedly brought to their attention by contributors and buyers. They are not giving addressing these issues their best effort. Not even close.

Volume discounts shouldn't start at a $10 level - at a bare minimum, that's what must change.

The fact that her posts have gone dark because of too many [-1]s is the same as stifling her, gagging her.  You took away the one thing she has to offer you; sound advice.

I know you aren't familiar with the forums, but anyone can see posts that have been hidden because of minus votes - it's not a gag and the post is there for everyone to read if they wish.

I'd also agree with other people that the + and - votes are about agreement or disagreement with a point of view, not a popularity contest or referendum on a person's value. Lisa has been a very valuable voice here and I'm sorry she chose to leave. I hope she decides to come back - that does happen, including with me. I left after a series of dust-ups with Gostwyck and later decided the value here was worth returning (this was several years ago now).

I strongly disagree with the point of view Lisa took over Fotolia's Dollar Photo Club, but there's no ill will - beyond a lot of ill will directed at the slimeballs that gave us anything about which to disagree. There's a very dark place waiting for those wretches, I hope.

I'm guessing I speak for more than just me when I ask Lisa to reconsider her departure. We don't have to agree with you to want you around here