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Messages - dirkr
Pages: 1 ... 30 31 32 33 34 [35] 36 37 38 39 40 ... 56
851
« on: October 14, 2011, 16:22 »
Seems to work now, I uploaded a batch and all keywords and descriptions were there.
852
« on: October 13, 2011, 09:25 »
So for print sales of maybe hundreds of dollars, we get a standard DL price? I wonder what Fotolia gets paid for it. Anyone know that?
Then there is other stuff which doesn't involve print sales. For example, look at the prices on a normal microstock partner site they use is www.fotkyfoto.hu/
There are about $4.3 per 1,000 Hungarian forints and the prices here are
XS = 1,198ft (0.1MP) = $5 (roughly)
S = 3190ft (0.5MP) = $15
M = 4968ft (1MP) = $22
L = 6556ft (3MP) = $27
XL = 7350ft (9MP = $32
These prices are about three times Fotolia's rates (even for European buyers) so if the agent is taking 40% commission (as Alamy does), Fotolia will still be getting close to double the normal price per sale. So what are we getting credited with? Is it just going as credit sales at XS, small, medium etc., so we get, say $2 for an XL sale that netted $32 and probably gave Fotolia something like $20? Is it 25c for a $5 sale, where Fotolia took $3?
Obviously, you have to allow for the percentage that the partner takes before looking at how the remainder is split. But I don't see how you could reasonably convert a cash sale into a credit when no credits were involved.
If fotolia gets a $3 slice of another site's sale, how should it calculate that? Should it say "Well, that site called the sale XS, so we'll call $3 one credit, regardless of whether the XS is the same size as ours or not", or should it say "$3 is double to price of a euro credit, so we'll call it two credits", or should it say, "we call $1 one credit so this is three credits", or should it say "We say we pay 25% commission, so this is worth 75c to the photographer"?
I seem to notice plenty of room for smoke and mirrors in this one.
Not that I am a lot more trustful regarding Fotolia, but when I look up one of my pics on that site the prices shown seem to be roughly in line with the Euro-conversion of the regular FT prices. Maybe you looked at an example that has increased pricing on FT (either exclusive or emerald and up)? And as the prices are so weird in the local currency (instead of somewhat rounded) it may well be that they use some kind of automatic currency conversion... That obviously does not address the whole topic of missing transparency on FT's side.
853
« on: October 12, 2011, 10:25 »
Are you suggesting that people quit Fotolia based on a threat that they MIGHT lose earnings at some time in the future? That's ridiculous!
Personally, I don't think it is ridiculous. If they are asserting the right to cut commissions just because you supply an unnamed site that they don't like, then they have changed the rules and it is reasonable to say that by doing so they have created conditions that are unacceptable.
It's also quite reasonable to be pragmatic and say that until you are affected you are not going to respond. It's a personal decision.
So, in essence this thread is now really becoming warn out if no combined action can be achieved (which clearly it can not). All wait till it affects you and then one by one decide to quite or not.. End of story.
That's the simple truth. Just look at what has happened at Istock during the last year. They did not only threaten to do something, no, they actually did cut commissions for the big majority of contributors. What was the result? No combined action, just a lot of moaning and whining in the forums. Some (maybe a lot, we will never know exact numbers) contributors decided they are not willing to continue to sell via Istock under these changed conditions and quit. Others just stopped uploading. Others continued and are now selling at lower commission rates. But all that did not lead to any real reaction from Istock. Nothing that shows they feel it affects their business enough to re-think their action. And that is exactly why FT can announce (and possibly execute) such a change. Because we all (as the combined mass of contributors) have proven to them before: "We" in general accept the lowering of our commissions. What's left to do? Evaluate your personal situation and act accordingly. If the change affects you and you think it is unacceptable, then act.
854
« on: October 10, 2011, 07:30 »
Because with credit packs, special offers, weird conversions between credits and different currencies, credits bought in one currency and redeemed in another one, different rate in buying or redeeming credits, it's easier to pay contributors even less than official - already low - percentages. Injecting noise in the system is everything to win unnoticed.
That's one part of the story. The other part is that sites don't want the overhead of massive amounts of small payment transactions (one dollar each...). And customers, who need more pictures may not want that as well. And: Credit packages are a good way to make customers spend money they otherwise wouldn't spend. I'd like to know what amount of credits bought is not used over the long term. At best this is additional profit for the agency, at least is it an interest-free loan.
855
« on: October 06, 2011, 17:12 »
Nice tool. Would be cool if published collections were searchable for buyers (maybe need to add a few keywords to a collection, then it would automatically show in a search for those).
856
« on: October 06, 2011, 13:10 »
I just now got my opt-in confirmation so check your email to see if you've gotten yours too.
Thanks Veer!
Me too.
857
« on: October 06, 2011, 10:20 »
Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals just 20 cents per download payment.
Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do. Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated. Tough question, Just curious.
It depends a lot. If the agencies start paying only 20 cents but charge only 21 cents to their customers, it might be a really great scenario. On the other hand, if they maintain the current pricing, it would be an absolute killer. The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually
Put aside whether the number is correct or not, but one very important question is: What is the main driver behind that number? Is it the number of pictures needed by the buyers multiplied with the market price (which would mean rasining prices would increase this number)? Or is it fixed budgets by buyers (so changing image prices changes only the number of licences sold, since the money will be spent anyway)? It surely is somewhere between these extremes, the main question is where? I tend to believe that a big part of this market is driven not by the individual image price, but rather by restricted budgets of buyers. That means (within certain limits) the price charged to end users will have a bigger influence on the number of images sold than on the total money spent on images. If that assumption is correct, than for the contributors (as a group) it is a lot more important what royalty percentage we receive from the agencies than what RPD we receive. So as a conclusion: If prices are lower, but royalties higher, that might be a positive case. While at the same time the argumentation of agencies that lowering royalties is offset by increased prices is flawed - it would only work out if budgets would grow linearly with price increases.
858
« on: October 04, 2011, 04:56 »
Folks,
After carefully considering your feedback, we've decided to focus on retail pricing rather than commissions. Most of the photographers that we have spoken to agree that destructive retail pricing is not good for the industry. We have worked with industry leaders such as Yuri Arcurs and Mark Butler (Monkey Business) to convince agencies like deposit photos to sell at sustainable prices reflected by the current online market leaders. We applaud their recent success and hope the trend will continue. We encourage all photographers with portfolios on this and similar sites to do the same.
Based on your feedback, we've modified our rule to allow Fotolia to decrease retail pricing to the lowest tier, if a photographer's images are being sold on other sites for significantly less, **without** modifying the royalty levels.
Please note that this rule only applies to Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, and Diamond ranked images that are non-exclusive, and selling at prices above the standard XS price. No changes will occur without prior communications with the artist.
Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com
Chad, if retail pricing is such an issue to Fotolia, then please explain following of Fotolia's own pricing policies: - PhotoXpress is a site launched by Fotolia. Looking at their pricing they do sell monthly subs, from as low as 5 monthly downloads for $9,99. No daily limits, unused downloads roll over to the next month if you renew your subscription. Looks like severely undercutting other subscription sites and at the same time moving customers from PPD to subs (I assume these are credited as subs to photographers, no other way it would work). Which customer in his right mind will buy a XXL for 10 Credits when he can get 5 for $9,99? Maybe this is one reason why Fotolia sells more and more subs and less credit sales... - EL prices: why don't you allow lower levels to set competitive EL prices (maximum prices for white are 20 Credits, for bronze 50 credits)? Why not set everything to 100 Credits? - Why does your regular licence include unlimited reproduction rights? This requires an EL at other sites. These are all examples of Fotolia trying to undercut the market. Did you discuss these things with Yuri and others as well? And did you promise to change, to keep up a reasonable pricing level for the entire industry?
859
« on: October 03, 2011, 17:54 »
Hey guys, Thanks for the feedback!
I was very impressed with how Veer handled things, and the post that Aaron put up was great! Really well written. Certainly they went up in my estimation too 
Then why don't you act like them? You are obviously seeing the issues many contributors have, but it looks like you're trying to make the smallest possible steps towards them. You are defining "industry standard" as "a little better than the worst sites out there". That's not enough. Move your commission up to 50% and EL prices to 100$. That would be a bold move and get you massive support.
860
« on: September 28, 2011, 03:59 »
We need an easy way to opt out.
It's relatively easy. You can remove a partner in your management section (or whatever that is called on the English version of the site) per indvidual image, but that works as well if you mark any number of images. So to opt out all of your portfolio you can set it to 100 images per site and then remove photolibrary for all those 100 with a few clicks. In a German forum Michael Krabs offered help for those with bigger portfolios, just shoot them an e-mail.
861
« on: September 28, 2011, 03:01 »
I'd love to be able to just click on today's date, on the earnings page, and immediately see the downloads for that day.
+1 And on top of that: There is no easy way to see how often any file has sold / what royalty amount it has accumulated. A simple list of my portfolio (sortable by upload date, downloads, royalties) indicating these values for each file would easily accomplish that. All the data is there, it can't really be hard.
862
« on: September 28, 2011, 02:12 »
This issue is more about destructive retail pricing than it is about
commissions.
Chad
You can't completely separate the two topics. A site that charges half your prices has no difficulty matching the payout I receive from you - because your commission percentages are so low.
863
« on: September 27, 2011, 16:25 »
Folks,
It has come to our attention that some new agencies are selling the same contributor content at prices far less than most other microstock agencies. We feel that this is bad for both photographers and stock agencies. We do understand photographers are free to choose their own destiny in a free market economy, and our intention in these actions is to encourage everyone to support fair pricing for customers and commissions for contributors. Only a handful of sites and contributors have been identified thus far, and we will communicate with them before taking any action.
By sponsoring and uploading to sites that undercut prices, photographers put the whole industry in jeopardy - and we feel our duty is to take action. If the community agrees with our approach, the status quo remains. If the community wants to place down pressure on pricing, we'll adjust accordingly, as a measure to be fair and respectful to our costumers and stay competitive. Keep in mind that when rankings drop, the ability to charge more for images goes away - and that hurts everyone's bottom line, including ours.
Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com
When I started with Fotolia years ago, I received a commission of 33% as a complete Newbie, and was upgraded to 35% when I became bronze. Now I receive 23% as bronze, close to silver. If you really want to ... encourage everyone to support fair pricing for customers and commissions for contributors. then start thinking about your own commission schedule first. Fotolia has been leading commission cuts across the microstock industry. You should not be the one talking about "fair commissions" before implementing changes (upwards) on your own site.
864
« on: September 27, 2011, 15:46 »
Veer appreciates your feedback and we are listening. We are working through some new scenarios for our subscription model and will announce an adjustment within the next day or so. Stay tuned. And meantime, keep the ideas flowing.
Aaron
That sounds good. Changes needed from my point of view: - don't offer ELs as subscription at all. If somebody needs an EL, he needs to pay the full price. - introduce a competitive minimum amount per download (around the competition: DT $0,35, SS $0,38, 123RF $0,36). If you can top that, much better. - don't undercut other (better paying) sites with your pricing. If you offer the top commission (why not do something like $0,50), than fine, let's drag customers over. - finally: if you do these changes, allow those of us who already opted out back in again 
865
« on: September 27, 2011, 15:41 »
"Fotolias royalty-free license allows you to use images in your projects without limitations on time, the number of copies printed, or geographical location of use."
http://us.fotolia.com/Info/SizesAndUses
At Fotolia all pictures are sold with the Extended License of Unlimited Production for the price of a royalty-free license, also for 0,25$ subscription (white ranking).
There exist only an Extended License for Products for Resale.
Is this new or not ?
No, not new, it has always been this way. No reason to follow their example though.
866
« on: September 27, 2011, 15:34 »
I'm jealous. I've got one EL this month, which is already above average.
867
« on: September 26, 2011, 13:59 »
Most people stand to lose a lot more by giving up IS than by dropping to white level or leaving fotolia and the PTB at fotolia know this so my guess is that they are going after places like photodune not IS. Most people would drop photodune with no problem to save themselves from dropping levels in fotolia but anybody that would consider dropping IS probably already has done.
...snip...
almost nobody is going to drop Istock in favour of keeping their FT ranking. The only thing FT are likely to achieve is the loss of many valuable portfolios if they do actually take action.
I don't know if that is right. Maybe they are not counting on anybody leaving IS, but simply hoping that most affected contributors will whine a lot in the forums but keep their port up at FT. That's the lesson we taught them with IS.
868
« on: September 23, 2011, 18:08 »
I don't think it is a direct reaction to Photodune - they are too small (though I still won't support them with their current setup).
I think they followed the developments at Istock closely. After a year they decided that the majority of independents took Istock's kick between the legs with a simple reaction - whine a lot but continue to upload. The few that stopped uploading or pulled their port are insignificant.
So they decided that lowering commissions for those who accept lower commissions elsewhere (and Istock's commission is the lowest) would work. The part about prices is only there to confuse the masses and make it look at least a bit logical.
869
« on: September 23, 2011, 17:02 »
Last one was disappointingly low and this one is even lower. 
870
« on: September 23, 2011, 16:54 »
Does it say anywhere how much they will be charging for the subscriptions and then what our % of the sales will be (not $ amount)?
It doesn't say it, but as an assumption let's say they price it similar to the competition, so maybe around the $250 per month base. Out of that they will pay out $3 each day the customer downloads anything - and nothing on each day the customer doesn't download. Hard to calculate a percentage, but it clearly means that they will not be taking any risk - maximum payout will be $90, which (assuming a price of $250) comes down to 36%. Taking out weekends we'll end up around 20 "download days", that would mean 24% payout. Anyway, the whole idea is crap. Yes, introduce subs, that's fine with me. But then make it competitive (for the contributor), e.g. a minimum payout per download of at least 35 cents (equals DT, better than first two levels on SS). And ELs as subs is a no-go. ETA: I didn't get the e-mail. And I would love to hear from Veer's representatives here what they have to say about the feedback here.
871
« on: September 08, 2011, 02:35 »
I don't think you need any active images to keep the account open. My account still works, but no images there... Maybe they will close it after a while though.
872
« on: September 07, 2011, 03:43 »
Good to know that you are acting on those things. I detected a similar case (watermarked image in use) yesterday and contacted 123RF with all details.
873
« on: September 05, 2011, 08:35 »
Write a short script to use exiftool to dump the IPTC data from all your files into a .txt file, load that into Word and use the spellchecker from Word.
874
« on: September 05, 2011, 06:03 »
'decease and desist' action.
I love this one Anyway, good to hear that 123RF takes these things seriously. I'll have to do some searching (and e-mailing) when I find time, because I did already find some images with 123RF watermark on them but until now didn't bother to contact 123RF. Google's new image search does a great job in finding those things.
875
« on: September 05, 2011, 04:45 »
Very well put.
PD (Collis) even stated that they may review their prices and commissions.
But the clear statement they are getting (especially by many of the "big shots" joining and uploading) is: "No, please don't change, we like those low commissions".
And any of the more established microstocks will read this and clearly think about their own strategy. Because - as has been proven before - most people will do nothing but complain when they cut commissions (again). Because "we cannot afford to lose the income".
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