If deposit pays out the normal commission instead of a subs sale, I really don�t see how people can complain. After all deposit is just trying to sell the content with their own price system in other countries. And because they offer files cheap they can probably close these deals. I am sure many agencies offer reseller deals and getting in is also a competitive challenge.

If you are sending files to deposit you accept their price system. Which again shows how important it is to divide ones work by price point and quality and feed the agencies selectively with your content.

They should provide a list of partners that sell through their API and allow opt out per partner. The same way that Yay does it. That would allow contributors to choose where they want their files to be sold, and would allow to exclude those outlets we already deliver to directly.
If they did this (and of course pay credit royalties instead of sub royalties) it would be ok with me.

No matter what you upload, there are several factors that won't go away.

1. pricing/commissions will continue to be squeezed
2. Supply will be way higher than in 2013
3. demand will probably be similar to 2013

The way I see it is that the same number of buyers are going after a larger and larger pool of content, which spreads those sales to a broader range of contributors. You can take it from here.

Well, at least for the only microstock company that does publish such data (shutterstock) the situation does not look exactly like that.
While supply has been growing steeply in the recent years, demand has kept the pace. The number of downloads per image in the library has not changed too much although the library size has been growing rapidly.

Take a look at shutterstock's investor presentation, page 21 shows the comparison from 2009 to 2012 (to be found here).

What that means for each of us individually is a different question. I don't see the same pattern, my downloads are going down, but I have not uploaded really much in recent years. And if that would be the reason (old files lose search position and don't sell as well as they used to) then new files must get an over-proportional boost - somewhere these rising numbers of downloads must go.

It's not all doom and gloom, but maybe it is getting more difficult to be amongst those who are successful in this business...

My bestseller was taken 10 years ago with a Canon 300D on a vacation trip to New Zealand. It lay around on my harddrive until I entered microstock about three years later. It is still selling....



I'm not too afraid that somebody will now copy it due to this post.... 

I've had my equipment checked, especially when I travel with big lenses, but never anybody took a closer look at batteries. But I never carried more than three.

I said this 8 years ago. We are the fault of where we are. Our Work is "Our" assets. NOT THERES. thats the issue and until we understand that fact...We are screwed. But I think it's way to late now, We got lazy and did nothing about it when we could have and the majority were so happy with 25 cents and "Someone Liked my work" attitude and wanted to keep quiet. We can have the power, But we don't.  Now, 20,000 can quit and be replaced in 30 Days. We had a chance and we didn't take it. 2005/2006. The owners saw this and said...Hmmmm , they don't care. So they took it.

I agree that "we" are to blame for where we are and how much we get for our images - just because "we" are all still uploading to these terms.

I disagree that "we" ever had a chance to change that - because there really is no "we" that could stand up and fight for something. It's a huge number of individual contributors, and they will never all have the same incentives to take a stand, there will always be a big enough number for who the current deal looks good enough.

Hi all,
 
I looked into Dollar Photo Club.  It is an affiliate site that is using the Fotolia api program.  The database on Fotolia is mirrored on this site as it is on many other partner sites.  The difference is that Dollar Photo Club isn�t available to everyone.  It is an exclusive club (not exclusive content) that is going to be made available to heavy buyers. 
 
The sales from Dollar Photo Club take place through Fotolia (as do all api sales) so your commission remains the same.  It is essentially a giant subscription.  You will receive the same subscription commission you would if the image were purchased directly from a Fotolia member with a subscription. 
 
This is another way to drive traffic to your portfolios and should result in an increase in overall sales for each of us.

All the best,

Mat Hayward

Sorry, but do you really believe what you write here?

So the "heavy buyers" that move over there are those who had a subscription before? And now want to pay 1$ per image instead of the advertised 0,16$ before?
Completely irrational.

Or the "heavy buyers" were credit buyers before, so now we get subscription royalties instead of the royalties for credit sales.
Great deal. Not.

Subscription programs (and the attached low royalties) only make sense with big volume - and thus the minimum investment for the buyer must be big enough to warrant that volume.
This scheme (along with Fotolia's current "subscription" schemes with monthly download volumes) are nothing but a way to shift the FT payout from the credit-based payouts to the subs payout.

Quote from: sharpshot on January 16, 2013, 19:04

Yes, I've had the most sales there.  I think it's not quite as good as it used to be but that's probably because there's a lot of people doing video clips now.  I've not uploaded much in the last year either but I plan to do more this summer, if we have one this year

Hey sharpshot,

What kind of videos are you uploading? Fancy techno created productions or more basic stuff? Not asking for subject matter just two broad categories as described above.

He links to it in his signature...

Submitting needs to be efficient, adding more work is not going to help you get people to sign up. Assigning categories is a nuisance. You are are new starter, with no proven track record, no sales. The more time it cost to submit images, the more likely people will not bother.

I have to agree. Once you have a significant number of images having categories ("galleries") will not provide any additional value to a client.
I'd suggest you drop them completely. That will ease uploading for contributors and will reduce design complexity for your site developers at the same time.
For clients it does not make a difference, because anything that can be accomplished by categories can (even better) be accomplished by keyword searches.

One more proposal (as we already had discussions re your acceptance criteria): add a notice giving a reason when you reject a file, so contributors can more easily learn what you want.

I think he is talking about the shutterstock (SSTK) share price, not his earnings.

Quote from: dirkr on December 09, 2013, 14:52

Maybe it's time to leave...

It was time to leave Fotolia many years ago.

You may be right there.

Everyone likes the SS deal because it's "transparent".     

They tell you exactly how you're going to get 35 cents for a sale to an buyer who's running an ad in the world's biggest social media site, that might reach millions of users.  Wow, sounds great.  Of course if it were "print" everything would be different.  But it's the web, so we know that buyer is on a shoestring budget, and that Facebook is only charging him $5 total to run the ad, so no one in this deal is making any money.    Oh wait, just found out it's Ford Motor Co, they probably could have paid as much as 75 cents.   Not to worry, we have transparency here.

But what's the difference to the standard Shutterstock licence? That already allows to use the images in almost every conceivable way in advertising, if a multi-billion dollar company would use a Shutterstock image on huge billboards across the world for many years, it would still be within the limits of the licence. And it would not pay more than 25 to 38 cents.

What's so much worse with the FB deal?

Quote from: dirkr on September 30, 2013, 11:25

Quote from: sharpshot on September 30, 2013, 07:11

But if he doesn't hold the majority of shares, can't someone else buy them and remove him as CEO?  Just trying to bring back the insomnia

Theoretically yes. But in reality they would need to buy almost all other shares - which means they would have to convince all other existing shareholders and would have to pay a huge premium.
With Oringer still holding above 45% that is very unlikely to happen.

There's still a risk though and the way Getty has been bought twice, I'm finding it hard to understand why he would risk losing SS when he could of sold some shares, made millions and kept 51%?

Maybe he is just taking out part of the money he has in the company to hedge his position. He may be a billionaire by the current share price of Shutterstock, but that's paper money. Unless Shutterstock pays out part of their earnings as dividend (I don't know, haven't really followed the stock) he can't buy anything with his billion.
So now he has the opportunity to sell a (small) part of his total shares and have 140+ million in the bank - real cash, not "just" shares.
If the stock moves further up - he still has close to 16 million of it.
If it goes down - with 140 million in the bank, he still will not have to ask for social welfare.
Sounds like a wise decision to me.

According to this the number of outstanding shares is 35 million.

And according to this Mr. Oringer still holds close to 16 million, which is not a majority anymore (but he is still the biggest shareholder).