Quote from: warren0909 on February 05, 2010, 00:14
Ok what i was saying was this and now I know it wouldnt work thats fine (dont whant to be involved in any fruad case !!)

I can buy credits yeah, so I pay £2000 for 3200 credits @ £0.63, they go into my credit balance so I cash them in as a contributor @ £0.75 ........ £400 instant Profit
I know this wouldnt work but it does give you an idea of how much we are getting scewed for !!

For your info Baldricks

Gosh, I hope there are no Wall Street types reading your post Warren........they'll all want to join as a contributor and do what you describe. 
Nothing better than arbitrage for sitting on your bottom all day in front of a monitor and raking in the cash for no productive work!

Seriously though, i wonder if FT's raised rates for buyers will actually result in a loss of business if other competing sites appear cheaper than FT. Now that would be a double whammy for contributors.........less buyers due to a price hike and less commissions for contributors because FT has 'made it so' by order of the captain.

Quote from: jsnover on February 03, 2010, 22:57

Quote from: gostwyck on February 03, 2010, 22:46

Quote from: arquiplay77 on February 03, 2010, 22:35
I´m a contributor from Spain, and i get paid in dollars from fotolia and from anyother site. I wish 1 credit would be 1 euro though that is not true.

If you live in Spain how come you're not paid in Euros? I see they've got an office/website in your country.

The plot thickens!

I seem to remember some old discussions about this. Depending on when someone signed up - and I think in some cases where from (IP address) - FT assigned each contributor a 'home'. In the early days FT had fewer sites.

People had asked in the past to get moved to somewhere more appropriate - generally to get a more favorable exchange rate. AFAIK the answer was always "no". I can see why they wouldn't want someone switching weekly trying to play currency trading games, but if someone moves from the US to Spain, or UK to US, it would seem reasonable to let them switch. Then they get paid in local currency.

Of course, when the Euro was less than the US Dollar, people were happy to be paid in dollars, but these days, not so much

When I joined 2 years ago, there were a few options: Join US and get paid in USD, join UK and get paid in GBP with 60 pence credits,
join Germany or France sites and be paid in Euro but have to complete registration in either German or French. Now, I live in a eurozone country and if it hadn't been for the language barrier, I would have gladly signed up for Germany to be paid in euros (also missing preypal's 4% commission on currency conversions). So, I chose UK and even at 60 pence credits the currency cross rates at that time meant that there wasn't much difference between payment in € or GBP.
About 8 months after joining UK, FT introduced the EU site for anyone preferring payment in euro but registration in English. At that time the cross rate GBP/euro had gone from 70% to almost parity, making payment in 60 pences to be converted to spendable euro, a very bad deal. FT would not allow transfer of a UK account to a EU account and the only way to achieve that would be to start from scratch: delete the UK portfolio and resubmit images as an EU contributor. I considered this to be too risky, having already suffered the whims of the 'rejectors' in the past!

The only advice I would give to recent members who deem themselves in a disadvantageous position with regard to country/currency is to start afresh. Pull everything from the present location (especially if you don't have too many uploads/sales) and re-submit to the country/site of your choosing.

Actually i should have twigged long ago that something about Fotolia was not quite as it should be........ it was when Chad Bridewell started posting in forums under THE CHAD.  

Anyway, his latest pseudo-apologetic epistle just can't be taken seriously. He advises every contributor to get in touch with support; individually no less. I think that he imagines that UK actually has 'support'. Well take it from me, THE CHAD, it doesn't. When they give advice, it's usually written so that it is incomprehensible even to native speakers and if it can be understood, the advice is probably erroneous anyway. Advice about US ITIN tax was incorrect. Despite repeated emails requesting a hard copy letter on FT notepaper (W7 or something), all anyone got was a worthless email and then stonewalled. The email reply to Warren0909:

"it will have been a technical issue on the £1 - it must have been, while updating our website.
I have no answers for you as far as the other why why why's. We update our website sometimes, we change prices sometimes. We create new products sometimes. Why? Because we decide to Smiley
Kind regards,
Fotolia Team U.K."

is utterly disdainful and unprofessional. Seems like they may have George Bush working for them probably from behind a monitor somewhere in Bengal.

For starters, I'll take advice offered earlier (reversible actions). Stop uploading and cancellation of subs participation. Then I'll wait and see if more drastic action is required.

Quote from: gostwyck on February 03, 2010, 18:18

Quote from: photoshow on February 03, 2010, 18:03
Anyone expecting fair and honest business practices in thier dealings with Fotolia has not been paying attention the past four years. They have a long history of self serving business practices that have shown little to no regard to the wlefare of their greatest asset (the contributor) and have always paid full service to their greatest concern (their greed)

Fotolia has always been known to bait and switch at the contributors expense.

True enough Bobby but this one really does take the biscuit. In particular it's the sleight of hand (or 'cut by stealth' as another poster put it) that really grates. When is a 'percentage' not actually a percentage? When it's at Fotolia.

Maybe they're are already gearing up to sell the company and both the slow payments and these further erosions of commissions are intended to boost cash and profitability.

You might just have something there. Standard practice at corporations getting ready to sell.

Quote from: WarrenPrice on February 01, 2010, 19:19

Quote from: warren0909 on February 01, 2010, 19:06
OM,

I havent taken all my images off Fotolia ( I need the income !) just took them from exclusive images so I can sell the same images elsewhere. 

Not sure which Warren he's talking about, mate; there are two of us.
WarrenP

Oh no, not 2!  Sorry hadn't seen that. I'll go with Warren0909's strategy.

Quote from: warren0909 on February 01, 2010, 19:06
OM,

I havent taken all my images off Fotolia ( I need the income !) just took them from exclusive images so I can sell the same images elsewhere. 

I understood what you wrote, Warren. I think that is a sensible course for me to follow too. I'm too old to cut off my nose to spite their face.

With the deplorable reputation that Fotolia has for communication with its contributors, I'll wait awhile to see what really is happening. If it is a bad as it appears today then I'll be forced to follow in Warren's footsteps.

Thanks for posting Warren. I find that last reply showing total disdain for you as contributor/writer of the email and for Fotolia contributors in general. Really rather shocking.

Why do I get the impression that at FT the contributor is the enemy. If you look at one of the later posts on their forum by FT UK office, it basically says that they do whatever they want and contributors can like it or lump it.

They also insisted that everyone must submit an ITIN for US tax authorities just a few weeks ago.

Cashed out yesterday too............I think for GBP0.75/credit. One small sale today and the credit is indeed now increased GBP 1.00/credit. Ooh, that's nice.

Quote from: sjlocke on January 30, 2010, 22:20

Quote from: OM on January 30, 2010, 22:06If a buyer with subscription buys a 10 credit image of yours, how much do you get as contributor?

You get your percentage of 10 $.96 credits, at the minimum.

Thanks. That seems a decent system for the contributor.

Quote from: lisafx on January 30, 2010, 19:31

Quote from: gbcimages on January 30, 2010, 18:54
sub sites will always be here and growing,that's where all the buyer  do most of their shopping. The economy is down and will be for awhile.

You wouldn't know it from my sales.  40% of my sales still come from IS, which doesn't have an "all you can eat" type subscription model at all.

Thanks. I just looked at the IS credits subs system and it it much less generous to the buyer than the 'all you can eat system' of FT. Effectively, you buy credits in bulk and 3 months in advance at a discount of 70% but you have to use your number of credits each day or they turn into pumpkins at midnight. If a buyer with subscription buys a 10 credit image of yours, how much do you get as contributor?

Quote from: Perry on January 30, 2010, 14:29
I just can't understand why the subscription sites can't have different prices for different sizes?
Instead of "25 images a day" they could have "50 credits a day". 50 credits could for example mean 50 tiny web images or 5 XL images.
The current situation where a thumbnail costs the same as 20 megapixel image is just insane.

Agree. I just checked at FT to see what you get for the basic subs package: $199 buys you 750 downloads/month, single user and max 'L'
format. If used fully, that $199 buys you (depending on the contributor level) a minimum of $5,250 worth of 'L' files at $7 PPD. Should contributor be slightly higher in the pecking order then your advantage as subs buyer becomes a multiple, 2x or 3x of that amount.
Dunno if it works in the same way with other RF sites but where else in the world can you get 5K, 10K or 15K worth of goods/services for 200 bucks?
What I also haven't figured out is why FT in particular would sell subs to a buyer at $0.27/download and give the contributor a minimum of $0.30 for that same download. Obviously, not all subs buyers extract to the max otherwise subs would be a real loss leader even at the present low rates paid to the contributor. For the present, though, it is no doubt profitable but always at the expense of the contributor.

It seems to me that the only way to get better prices for subs would be for many major contributors to opt out of subs at every agency they are at (don't know whether that is possible). Only when subs buyers were faced with a such a depleted stock of the most popular images, the agencies could have their hand forced and have to recognise their contributors for what they are really worth and get a deal which would be less lob sided than the present one.

Must be the only industry where the wholesale price is so absurdly out of whack with the retail price.
Especially considering  that the buyer can download those L files for the same price(effectively) as XS, M etc.
I'm most surprised that whoever started the subsclub, started with such an exceptionally good deal for the buyers and such a rotten one for the contributors (although contributor rewards have never figured much in the calculations of some sites). Offering an immediate discount of 90%+ for forward payment is not exactly common practice in industry generally.

As to whether contributors can do much about it, I don't know. Sometimes after getting a subs sale from a new image, I get some downloads of the same image for regular rates (XL) which dissuades me from removing my contributions to subs. Do subs act as badly paid advertising for an image? Don't know that either. I agree that the minimum reward for a subs sale should be more in the region of $1, rather than the 30 cents it is now. On the other hand, if the buyer were only able to download to "M" as a maximum size in subs, I think that this may encourage more PPD's for the larger sizes from the same subs buyers.

Ideally, subs would disappear overnight but lacking that option (which is unrealistic), I could live with a system in which subs were limited to M max and, that should the subscription customer require a larger file for download, they could do this at a not too substantial discount to the PPD rate.
But as I'm fairly new to all this WTHDIK.

My acceptance rate on FT is pretty good these days and better than 6 months ago.
Rejection reason "quality of image" at FT does not mean what photographers think that it means. It means they don't think the image is "commercial" enough ie they doubt it will sell.

I'm not sure but I think that rejection on the grounds of technical quality actually states that they found the 'technical quality' insufficient for FT.......usually followed with a whole list of things that could be wrong with the image eg blurry, out of focus etc.

Quote from: simsi on January 15, 2010, 17:02
I just wrote a more detailed procedure how to solve this problem.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/site-related/isp-can't-find-site-since-changeover/
Hope it helps! :-)

Many thanks, simsi. Works a treat.

The only occasions on which I've had images rejected during uploading was due to the images' non-compliance with the Fotolia format. The shots were JPEG's but below 4 megapixels. The computer rejects these automatically by not uploading them at all..

Thanks leaf. Stoopid of me to post that...works the same if a US buyer buys an image through FT.com.

Posted a query about PhotoClubs on the FTeu message board last night but it's vanished this morning.
No trace of  the message.

Quote from: a.k.a.-tom on July 30, 2009, 00:35
Up late, surfing the web as I do occassionaly to see what pops up under my name or company... and I come across this.

Photo Club RF stock photo.  Has my pix for sale. At the bottom of the page there is this;
this product uses the Fotolia API, but it is not certified, endorsed or sponsored by Fotolia and Photo Clubs is not affiliated or related to Fotolia.

http://photo-clubs.net/getMediaData.php?id=3488891

And at the top there is a shortcut to Fotolia.  What gives? What am I missing? How do I know I'm getting paid?
Hope I haven't missed a thread on this somewhere...=tom

Thanks for that tip. I went to their site and searched for one of my very few images on my Fotolia Europe site. I found it complete with a pricing in USD. One problem.........all my images are priced in Euro on the Fotolia site. So.......how does someone buy one of my images there (on Photo Club) in USD credits when my pricing is in Euro credits.The credits on Photo Club go 1,2,4,5 in USD and my credits on FT are the same but in Euro. So, that means, as an exclusive FT contributor, I get paid 60 Eurocents when a buyer pays $1 = 69 Eurocents. I didn't think that microstock agencies worked for such a small margin........maybe that's the reason the file sold like hot cakes for the first month and then abruptly halted. Dunno..........maybe I'll risk getting banned and broach the subject on FT.

Most people starting out in photography as a profession need to get some cash flow going and stock/micro can take a long time to build up before the payments arrive on a regular basis. Do something else first to guarantee a regular income and see if you have the time/desire and innate ability to do it once you are earning money some other way. Stock is essentially a medium-term investment in your future and not an immediate  cash flow generator.

Quote from: Perry on August 10, 2009, 16:44
I couldn't find out how much a "premium" account costs?

I don't think a premium account  costs anything. I got a 'merchant'/premium account when I was doing some trading on eBay. I didn't bother to change the account but that has always charged me 3-4% on incoming payments and 3-4% on exchange of currency. It is a lot and it is probably the reason that Eurozone people use bank transfer because that is free between Euro countries. It's not much help but id on't know if there are any much cheaper alternatives between non-common currency areas.

Someone doing something already. Price of a credit on UK goes from 60p to 75p per 1st July.
Oh, maybe that message was only intended for buyers and not subscribers but since I'm both............

Get old scanner, Win 98, old printer and PS 5LE.no probs!

Get a lightly-used Canon 5D and 50mm f1.8 lens + adapter for old Olympus OM/or Leica R lenses. Those lenses now cost buttons on feebay (stay away from the real exotica) and as long as you don't mind manual, stop-down operation, you're init2winit for optical quality.IMHO.

Quote from: OM on May 09, 2009, 01:56

Quote from: m@m on May 09, 2009, 00:32

Quote from: OM on May 08, 2009, 23:31
Dunno if already mentioned:

http://www.snapixel.com/

Own site, their bandwidth, 60/40 split...60 to contributor and basic credit is one Euro/$1.34US.

Anyone know about them?

Yes we have!...do a search on a previous thread on them.
"Please don't bring them back, unles they've something new to show and offer" 

Oh well.