I wonder if the content is included when you purchase the "This domain name (PHOTOSOCIETY.EU) and the associated developed website", when you buy a 'ready made business' you get the stock in a lot of cases.

David 

Hi Guys,
I have been creating WordPress themes as a way of learning new skills, I have created a services/showcase/portfolio theme for WordPress, this theme is not a typical blogging theme and is designed to promote yours or your customers professional skills or services, so it needs no sidebars and is not adSense enabled although there are many other themes and plugins that could deliver these.

If you have a WordPress blog and want to make it more like a cms then this theme might work, you can see it here and find out more here:

Best thing is it is free to use!

David

"Stop move away from the affiliate link!"

"Really move away now!"

"Don't press it!"

"To late!"

"I tried to warn you, so lets ban them!"

"Hmmm, or we could just ignore any that we are not interested in, as many of us only visit selected forums, one being this forum because other forums have become over moderated, so lets just keep things friendly, and if someone posts an affiliate link then just make a polite request that it states that the post or link is about a site they are affiliated with.

I have one affiliate link im my signature and it is clear as it says affiliate, I promoted the site with my affiliate link a few months ago and some have already had a return, and it is still early days.

David 

I still read the posts and contribute but not as much, I only have images now with The3dstudio.com and have been learning php and WordPress, but I still support microstock with images in mind as I use them from istock in my posts, and to show of my themes like here:, but I do not include them with the themes.


Here is a WordPress portfolio theme I am working on, pm me if you want a copy when it is finished, and I am looking at creating a microstock plugin to work with NextGen.

So i am being nice!

David   

Hi this function I wrote for a vb.net a couple of years ago application may help.

Pass in the image path and it will write all the IPTC data to an xml file  

I have stripped out the part that populates textboxes and splits the keywords but it should compile ok.

So I would pass img1001.jpj and img1001.xml

I am writing in PHP at the moment and WordPress, so maybe a plugin to turn nextgen into a stocksite.


Imports System.Xml
Imports System.Xml.Serialization
Imports System.Windows.Media
Imports System.Windows.Media.Imaging



 Public Function saveDataFromFile(ByVal FileName As String, ByVal toFileName As String) As Boolean
       ' Declare Variables
       Dim imageStream As Stream = New FileStream(FileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read)
       Dim decoder As BitmapDecoder = BitmapDecoder.Create(imageStream, BitmapCreateOptions.PreservePixelFormat, BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad)
       Dim Mdata As BitmapMetadata = DirectCast(decoder.Frames(0).Metadata, BitmapMetadata)
       Dim myXmlSettings As New XmlWriterSettings
       myXmlSettings.Indent = True
       myXmlSettings.NewLineOnAttributes = True
       If Mdata.Count = 0 Then
           MessageBox.Show("Error Saving Image " + System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(FileName))
           Return False
       End If
       ' this will say if we are good to go
       Dim goodToGo As Boolean = True
       ' Variables to use for calculating
       Dim AddStr As String = "", TempStr As String = ""
       ' Create a new file
        Using ImageWriter As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(toFileName, myXmlSettings)
           ImageWriter.WriteComment("www.photographerstripod.com ")
           ImageWriter.WriteStartElement("Image")
           ' File Information
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Path", FileName)
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("ThumbPath", imageThumbPath)
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Name", System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(FileName))
           'Caption
           TempStr = Trim(Replace(Mdata.Comment, Chr(0), ""))
           AddStr = Trim(Replace(TempStr, vbLf, ""))
           If AddStr.Length > 128 Then
               goodToGo = False
           End If
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Comment", AddStr)
           'Description
           TempStr = Trim(Replace(Mdata.Subject, Chr(0), ""))
           AddStr = Trim(Replace(TempStr, vbLf, ""))
           If AddStr.Length > 2000 Then
               goodToGo = False
           End If
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Subject", AddStr)
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Date", Trim(Replace(Mdata.DateTaken, Chr(0), "")))
           'Location
           TempStr = Trim(Replace(Mdata.Location, Chr(0), ""))
           AddStr = Trim(Replace(TempStr, vbLf, ""))
           If AddStr.Length > 100 Then
               goodToGo = False
           End If
           If AddStr <> "/" Then
               ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Location", AddStr)
           Else
               ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Location", "")
           End If
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("UniqueID", System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(FileName))
           ' Keyword Section
           Dim KeywordList As ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection(Of String) = Mdata.Keywords
           ImageWriter.WriteStartElement("Keywords")
           If Not KeywordList Is Nothing Then
               ' All Keywords from the Image
               ImageWriter.WriteStartElement("AllKeywords")
               For i = 0 To KeywordList.Count - 1
                   TempStr = Trim(Replace(KeywordList(i), Chr(0), ""))
                   AddStr = Trim(Replace(TempStr, vbLf, ""))
                   'None Quotes("") Brackets []
                   If InStr(AddStr, " ") <> 0 Then
                       If cmbSyntax.SelectedIndex = 1 Then
                           AddStr = """" + AddStr + """"
                       End If
                       If cmbSyntax.SelectedIndex = 2 Then
                           AddStr = "[" + AddStr + "]"
                       End If
                   End If
                   ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Word", AddStr)
               Next
               ImageWriter.WriteEndElement()
           Else
               ImageWriter.WriteStartElement("AllKeywords")
               ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Word", "")
               ImageWriter.WriteEndElement()
           End If
           ImageWriter.WriteEndElement()
           ImageWriter.WriteElementString("Validated", goodToGo.ToString)
           ImageWriter.WriteEndElement()
           ImageWriter.Close()
       End Using
       Return True
   End Function



My ISP is Red Fox Hosting in the UK, I have a resellers account, the entry level would be a shared hosting acoount which give two SQL 2005 databases, asp, mysql, php, ftp, email accounts etc:, enough for any photographers website, blog etc:, at £10.00 a month, £99.00 a year.

For some payment gateways you may need a dedicated SLL, you would buy this on top, it is not required for PayPal but it helps if your customers see the https, I have it installed on my cart, even though it is a free download website, at the moment.

https://www.digitalraindrops.net/ShoppingCart.aspx

Note: google checkout requires a full trust environment and will not work with most shared hosting plans that run in medium trust.

David 

@pixart,
If your hosting is asp and microsoft sql, then look at nopCommerce, demo store

The website is http://www.nopcommerce.com/

You have categories, variants, attributes, digital downloads, payment gateways, blog, latest news etc:

The best part is the price $0.00, all you need to be able to do is create a SQL database an upload the files.

I am playing with WordPress templates and the moment and using nopCommerce for the free downloads.

It is just my new hobby website and it is digital Raindrops:, a lot of functions for nothing.

You can even have options for a product, like add mount, add frame etc:

David 

Quote from: Pixart on January 13, 2010, 17:03
I have been looking into something like this but think I need to hire a programmer.

What type of site are you creating just for you or for a number of contributors, these tools are overkill for a single user, and not up to the job for a virtual agency?

I looked at loads of these last year and non were really was good enough, I have gone back to looking at ecommerce tools for a simple portfolio site with downloads. 

David

As you live in the 'United Kindom' are you sure there is a treaty, I know there is one with the 'United Kingdom' but I am not sure where in the world the United Kindom is maybe close to the United Stats.

David 

Quote from: donding on January 10, 2010, 01:30
this may be a stupid question, but is this a stock site or just 3d or both??? I got stock but no 3d

Both and feel free to use my refferal link to sign up!

http://www.the3dstudio.com/?id_affiliate=464733

David  

Hi Lisa & Matt,
Add another look at the withholding tax for treaty countries to the wish list, if you have been following the other threads here you will see a lot of talk about other US sites not requiring the ITIN.

I filled out the W-8BEN but have not applied for the ITIN as for me the tax at source and off setting is not a problem, but if you read the other threads many from treaty countries do not like the withholding tax so may not sign up, and the other sites have an arrangement with the IRS that requires the W-8BEN but not the ITIN to get the treaty tax %.


Regards

David

Anyone in a non treaty country will have the withholding tax of 28% of revenue on US Sales only if they submit the W8BEN, if not the 28% on all sales, most countries tax authorities will allow them to off-set this against thier own tax liability under double taxation rules, so it should not be a problem for most.

If the photographer is not declaring the revenue from microstock, then they will just have to accept the situation or register the income, at some point online companies like ebay will be forced to share revenue information with governments.

Quote from: International Double Taxation Agreements
It is not unusual for a business or individual who is resident in one country to make a taxable gain (earnings, profits) in another.
This person may find that he is obliged by domestic laws to pay tax on that gain locally and pay again in the country in which the gain was made.
Since this is inequitable, many nations make bilateral Double taxation agreements with each other.
In some cases, this requires that tax be paid in the country of residence and be exempt in the country in which it arises.
In the remaining cases, the country where the gain arises deducts taxation at source ("withholding tax") and the taxpayer receives a compensating foreign tax credit in the country of residence to reflect the fact that tax has already been paid.
To do this, the taxpayer must declare himself (in the foreign country) to be non-resident there. So the second aspect of the agreement is that the two taxation authorities exchange information about such declarations, and so may investigate any anomalies that might indicate tax evasion.

So when you submit the W8BEN for treaty countries even if you do not pay withholding tax, it means that your earning details will be sent to your countries tax authority by the US revenue services, so the international tax treaties does not mean tax free revenue, just less paperwork for the IRS.

In the UK with other freelance trades like agency workers, construction workers and IT consultants like me, as sole traders we are not employees but we are often taxed at source, if you pay to much tax you get a rebate, and if you pay to little you get a bill for the balance, but revenue should be declared and tax has to be paid.

David  

Anyone thinking of starting a stocksite might want a nostalgic PSC reality check !

Quote from: PSCWe believed that we could create a more democratic system - a marketplace for stock photography where virtually any one could participate. And a few months later, The PhotoShelter Collection was born. Upload your images, keyword & price, attach the appropriate releases, and voila! You were now a stock photographer.

Just remembering the shattered dreams of many photographers?

David  

Quote from: WorkingTitleImages on January 07, 2010, 14:48
Unfortunately no million$ to spare, just a love of what we do and a belief that life is too short ~ regrets are worthless.

To bring a stock site to market you will need $100k - $350k just to get started, and love will not pay for the development, storage, bandwith, inspectors, legal advice, marketing, marketing and did I say marketing?

Unless you have something unique you will not attract any venture capital, or get any foothold in the current market, you are about 9 years to late joining the party, good luck anyway, but you will need more than good luck though.

david

As the tattoo is secondary and not the primary subject I would say that no property release is required, if the image was of the tattoo then the artist would have a case and a property release would be required.

The artist may be able to identify the work because of the model, but is there enough of the tattoo in shot and is it that unique that the artist would be know by the style of work.

David

Quote from: Alatriste on January 06, 2010, 12:25
But there is something that I can understand. You said sales are growing but we see not only revenue decreasing but number of downloads to.
This forum has a lot of members and averge say so. Something must be wrong

It is great to see that sales are growing on any site, but that does not mean that contributor revenue is up and quite often it falls, or does it mean that the site is doing well, there is a cost for each upload and that cost comes from sales revenue and not from the number of uploads, if the sales are up by x% but the number of images submitted are up by xx% the operating costs are higher for the site and the RPI overall will be down.

As a contributor to any site, and for me to be up with the game I would need to be maintaining my share of the revenue pool, to do this I would need to increase my portfolio with good images at a rate that maintains my overall percentages of online images, I did do some general calculations last year that concluded I would need to double my portfolio year on year just to stay at a low level of return.

If the website revenue and number of downloads increase but is well below the number of new images and contributors then most will see a fall in thier revenue due to revenue dilution.

It is likely that the RPI on the sites is down year on year dispite any sales revenue increases, due to the increase in the number of images online growing faster than the number of increased sales, many complain about IS limiting the number of uploads but this has enabled them to manage costs and grow at a controlled rate.

David  

With just 140 images online I have two sales this month 'Royalties this month: $12.00'

Here's to a good 2010 

David

Quote from: lagereek on January 04, 2010, 17:39
Well at IS,  Ive managed to become a Diamond member, non-exclusive and I would say 99% of all my stuff with them is non-generic. Generic stuff will tend to just disappear.
To put images up for RM, is today a hell of a gamble, Gettys RM is not at all what it used to be and Alamys is a joke.
The entire RM business is very, very unstable.
Ive been with the Getty-RM since 93 and boy! have I seen it plunge down or what.

best.

Hi lagereek,
I was coming more from an exclusive point, if a contributor goes IS exclusive then they are limited to RF at IS, if I am right they cannot put images as RF anywhere else, if you have any image that might not suit microstock or you think they may only get an odd download then taking a chance with RM might be better for them images, by being selective in where you place your images instead of uploading them to IS just to make up the numbers for the next canister.

When I say generic I was not thinking just about handshakes more on suitable microstock content, my thinking had come from a post I read yesterday where a photographer had seen one of thier images in a travel mag which was downloaded at $0.30, as it is a niche image it may only get a couple of downloads, where had they thought about the potential and limited market it may have been better uploading it as RM, at least if they had a sale it may be worth it.

David   (Off-Topic Sorry)

Quote from: lagereek on January 04, 2010, 15:34
StockXpert,  sad story actually, used to be brillant and now?  a gonner.
Future scenario is as follows:  Getty/IS,  will either buy-out or force-out any competition. Others dont stand a chance.
Now is the time to really consider IS exclusivity, including myself. >...

Off-Topic, but I would say now is the time to value your assets more and consider which images you put with which agencies, go IS exclusive if it floats your boat, exclusive does not mean that everything goes to IS, be selective if you have images that are not really suited to generic microstock then don't put these with IS or other micro's to get your image count up, but put these as RM with a Macrostock site.

David  

Happy New Year to all at The3DStudio, as someone that is firmly behind The3DStudio and the business model that gives a 60% commission, and where the website is new to Stock Photography but it does have an existing customer base, and allows contributors to set their own prices.

After the push in 2009 to get more images on the website I saw my sales fall away, but today I am pleased to see 2 sales in 2010, my royalties from 2 sales is $12.00.

So here's to a good 2010 at The3dStudio.com, my affiliate link is in my signature below if you are thinking of joining up

David  

Quote from: madelaide on January 02, 2010, 17:16

Quote from: Adeptris on January 02, 2010, 12:36
You are correct withholding Tax should only affect the sales made to US Customers,

US customers or US Fotolia site?

I just tested from the UK, and I typed in www.fotolio.com and the link changed to the US, http://us.fotolia.com/ I do not know how the withholding gets the buyers country code, I would think from the buyers login details, it is only something they can answer, with Istock it knows from my IP and information that I am in the UK as prices are in GBP but Fotolio prices are shown in USD.

http://us.fotolia.com/ = USD
http://uk.fotolia.com/ is not showing any images or price data.
http://de.fotolia.com/ = EUR

Checked the website UK link and it is now http://en.fotolia.com/ and GBP

From the US site I have opened a new account and can purchase credits in USD, also the EN website offers credits in USD, so I would hope that it would be the buyers country that would set the witholding tax rate.

David

Quote from: cclapper on October 24, 2009, 15:59
Regarding my ex-employer, I took action the only place I could and that was on the internet, in public. Of course they threatened legal action, but that would mean they would have to prove their side of the matter, ...>

Not quite true, in the case of libel it is up to the person making the statement to prove that what they have written is true, so you would have to prove without doubt your statement in court, most actions are satisfied with a removal after a cease and desist, the fact that no action is taken in a libel case does not mean the libel statement is true, as often actions are not taken up for financial reasons!

David

Hi Tomas,
You are correct withholding Tax should only affect the sales made to US Customers, but it is on a per sale basis and not total payment, if you are correct about all sales being subject to WHT then Fotolia have it wrong.

Looking at Alexa the majority of users are from Germany, maybe there is some confusion with the Fotolia software developers as there should be no withholding tax on non US sales and with only 12.7% of traffic being from the US the percentages should be small, even after making allowances for contributor vs buyer location.

Fotolia.com users come from these countries:
30.1% Germany
12.7% United States
8.5% India
5.7% France
4.5% Italy
3.8% United Kingdom
2.3% Austria
2.0% Japan
1.7% Spain
1.5% Pakistan
1.5% Indonesia
1.4% China
1.4% Russia
1.4% Canada
1.0% Switzerland
1.0% Poland
0.9% Turkey
0.8% Greece
0.8% Australia
0.8% Mexico
0.7% Ukraine
0.7% Brazil
0.6% South Africa
0.5% Netherlands
0.5% Iran
0.5% Romania
0.5% Thailand
12.2% others


Where people go on Fotolia.com:
63.4% de.fotolia.com
12.7% fotolia.com
6.3% fr.fotolia.com
3.8% us.fotolia.com
3.6% eu.fotolia.com
2.0% es.fotolia.com 1.9%
it.fotolia.com 1.5%
en.fotolia.com 1.4%
admin.fotolia.com 1.0%
pl.fotolia.com 0.6%
jp.fotolia.com 0.5%
static-p3.fotolia.com 0.4%
static-p4.fotolia.com 0.3%
pt.fotolia.com 0.2%
download.fotolia.com 0.2%
blog.fotolia.com 0.1%

Regards

David

As said Photoshelter have the VA option, the structure is already in place and tested, they have a monthly or yearly charge and take 10% of any transaction.

First question is content, a general stocksite with generic content is a non-starter and will end up a dead duck, so you will need a common interest for a specialist agency, this limits the number of artist as you do not want to be competing within the co-op, maybe a travel image agency.

Thinking 'out the box' if you are self promoting and marketing with specialist content then the buyers will be wanting to request images that are not in the library, how about an old fashioned agency concept where buyers are approved and invoiced month end, then you can look at a free package called resourcespace, another opensource ecommerce with digital downloads is a product called nopCommerce, these cut out PhotoShelter but require webspace and some skills in setting up etc:

The biggest problem will be sharing the workload between the co-op members and finance, the only way I could see this working would be by a percentage of any sale being taken by the co-op, and a form of co-op share issue, where the more you put in the more you get out.

What would be the royalty rates would really depend on software choices, an agency could run on as little as 10%-15%, and if self promotion is to work, then affiliates would be needed so another 10% - 15%, if we are then talking about 70% for the photographer we are back at the starting point with a Photoshelter VA.

Looking at other sites where you can self promote, then you can look at the social networking tools at The3DStudio.com, but linking back there will also expose your potential customers to the general collection and they become a customer of the site and not your customer, that will be the same on any co-op where other artist may benefit from your hard networking.

Having asked several times about these type of solutions the feedback has been so small that it has not been worth starting, I can have a stock imaging site up and running in a few hours, I have spare domains and capacity on my reseller account, but there is not the real interest other than in the topics here, turning topics into action is a lot harder.

David

Quote from: Konstantin Sutyagin on January 02, 2010, 01:07

Quote from: FD-amateur on January 02, 2010, 00:11

Quote from: Eireann on January 02, 2010, 00:00Does that mean both buyers were Americans?

Not. You'll have to trust them. 

oh, how can we not trust them? 

I must agree with Konstantin, as you already trust them enough to upload your full sized assets to them, and allow them to represent you as an agent in the sale of licenses, you trust them to report sales, sizes and license types, why would you doubt that the sales are in the US?

Looking at it from another perspective, they are an established business which will have audits on the accounts and are not going to risk the damage of legal actions for fruad, if you doubt that the buyers were from the US, then what about doubting the number of sales, or the sizes that was sold, the license type, was it really an EL but put through as a normal sale, collecting withholding tax under a false pretence would be fraud, not passsing this on could mean going to prison.

If you do not trust them on one thing then the only action is to close your account with them!

David