This thread/poll is for August 2008, go here for September.

Quote from: windmill on September 28, 2008, 00:18

I posted a question about this at fotolias leagal board.

The answer I got was that yes, fotolia know and has approved this business.

They argued that since the photo ordered from a private person they don't have to pay an EL license and there is no option to opt out from this.

For Me thats unacceptable. My photos are not free to use for a company to market a service that i have not given approval to. My posting of photos at fotolia would newer have happened if i knew this in advance.

I have no problem with one private person enlarging one of my photos. But i DO have a problem if a business makes profit from marketing pictures for free. They don't take any risk and get their business to profit from products they never intend to pay for.

Unethical is the least i can call it.

So i seriously consider deleting my portfolio.

Why do you want to discourage people from buying your image to have printed and decorate their home?  If someone like Bilderking is not available to make it easy to do this - mostly they are able to easily buy your image from FT for a customer that does not have an account - you will be missing a lot of perfectly legitimate sales.

Bilderking is taking a big risk.  They put capital at risk to invest in a web site and web designers, in staff to manage and maintain the website, in materials, staff and equipment to print, frame and ship images and staff and computers to handle their accounting.  From their pricing the margins look very reasonable to me. 

Making money with Rights Free (RF) stock images is all about a flexible business model.  If some company wants to put their money at risk to deliver services that require RF images it can only be to FT and the contributors advantage to interpret the license requirements as flexibly as possible to accommodate them if the effective license terms are adhered to.  This arrangement seems to satisfy those requirements.  If it complies with the spirit - if not the letter - of the license it can only benefit contributors.

fred

fred

Are people here unaware of the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of online businesses that sell products they never touch?

Setting up a web site to sell all manner of products and having a distributor or manufacturer drop ship for you is not uncommon.  Such a business has ZERO inventory and does not pay for any merchandise unless they sell it first.  They do have overhead from marketing and their web site, however.

If the guy is legit (he purchases an image every time he sells a print), I don't see what the issue is.  He's not selling the same image hundreds or thousands of times.

Well, I most certainly have much more from 123 than from BigStock or from Istock. This month e.g. I have about 45% of my earning from SS, 10% from SX, 8% FT, 8% DT, 7% 123, 2% BigStock and about the same (2%) from IS, the rest is from CR, SV, CAN and SCAN together. I think this will differ according to the type of folio everyone has. I believe for many people 123 belongs to the Big 6.

Quote from: dirkr on September 11, 2008, 18:38

...
Any FT customer now could buy a regular (L, XL) license and use that picture to buy a print from Bilderking. I believe that is fully within the license terms of Fotolia.

...

Am I missing something?

What you're missing is that to buy images from FT directly, the customer has to open an account and buy a package of credits or a subscription - multiple sales come from that. This deal allows the customer to buy one image at the regular price as if they bought credits. Back when DT allowed guest sales, they paid twice the price for buying a one off.

And there's still the issue regarding what happens if Bilderking gets a second order for the same picture - will they buy a second license or just use the image they have. And can the customer get the image in electronic form from them too?

I've been using Nikons since 1972 and I've never had problems with any of them. started with a Nikkormat and I'm now using a D3. The Nikkormat still takes photos except the built-in exposure meter is dodgy (they had a strange carbon resistor ring system which wears out). The F801s I got after it works absolutely perfectly and I still use it for film photography.

Any brand, even the best, can throw up dud specimens. Doesn't matter if it's cameras, cars, washing machines, TVs, whatever. No manufacturing process is 100% sure.

Sounds like a significant part of your problem lies in not returning the obviously faulty camera immediately ...

My idea also, why working with a defective camera at all.
Things would have been much easier if at first the camera would have been returned.

I work with Nikon equipment exclusively in the studio and outside.. never had any complain, except for that blinking green light on the D 70.  Returned it and got a replacement immediately.

Regards,

Patrick H.

I decided to keep it and deal with the issue. I noticed when I turned the camera off and then on the issue sometimes went away. After a couple months, I finally had some time to send the camera in