I only refer artists to places where I feel they will be treated with respect. Since we cannot keep adding new contributors, and I have heard nothing but good comments in regards to ToonVectors and I know the master mind of SymbioStock and respect what he is doing.

Many years ago we more than doubled our contributors, which cost our first batch of contributors about half of their earnings due to more competition.

I wish I could open the doors for everyone, but it just does not work out well for us and our contributors, as we have previously discovered.

We aren't in this to get rich. We started ClipartOf for a reason and that was to represent artists that I had known for a long time that had been treated horribly by other agencies. Since we are in it for a different reason than most agencies/libraries/whatever you want to call us, we don't have a need to keep accepting new contributors. As long as we have a steady stream of images, we are content.

Hi RacePhoto,

Thanks for sharing this, however things have changed since then. We have a full house with artists that contribute on a regular basis. As of about 6 months ago, we are no longer accepting new contributors at all. We simply have our hands full!

I'm now referring people over to symbiostock, and toonvectors.

You are very welcome.

Tinny's was awesome!

Here is the Editorial Template

YOUR WEBSITE HERE Editorial Royalty-Free End User License Agreement

Images listed for Editorial license are available for personal, educational and editorial use only.

Copyright or Trademark is not transferred with the license of an image. YOUR WEBSITE HERE always retains copyrights and trademarks.

Images are non-exclusive.

Licenses are for the End User only. Licenses are non-transferable. Anyone working on a project for the End User may have access to the image only for projects for the End User.

Once an image has been licensed, the End User can use it forever, worldwide, for multiple purposes, within the image's Terms of Use, without having to pay any additional fees.

Some permitted uses are: blogs, books, e-books, magazine articles, news articles, personal facebook pages, personal web sites, screen savers, etc.

TIP: List uses you are ok with. Remove those that you are not willing to permit. If you offer an Editorial license, you will want to limit the permissions to non-promotional type uses.

Print-on-demand websites are prohibited. This restriction includes websites such as cafepress.com, polyvore.com, zazzle.com, redbubble.com, etsy.com, teacherspayteachers.com or other sites that may not be listed.

Images may not be distributed to other users via templates such as e-cards, web design templates, scrapbooking templates, customizable invitation templates, digitized embroidery files, personalized products, business card design templates, etc.

Conversion of raster images to vector is prohibited.
TIP: You may not mind, however we had customers asking if they could purchase the thumbnail size and vectorize it. To make it simple, I added this restriction. However, if you do not have vector files, you may want to remove this.

YOUR WEBSITE HERE holds no responsibility from any legal issues that may arise from any use of the End User. The End User is responsible for any legal issues or costs resulting in their use.

The End User is responsible for all liabilities regarding privacy issues, trademarks, slander, libel, etc., that may arise from the use of the image(s). The End User is responsible for the end-use and any legal and/or any financial liability that may arise from such use.

The End User may not use any image found on this site for any illegal or fraudulent purpose.

The End User shall indemnify and defend YOUR WEBSITE HERE against all claims, liability, damages, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees and expenses, arising out of or related to a breach of this Agreement, the use or modification of any Image or combination of any Image with any other material, the End User's failure to abide by any restriction regarding the use of an Image, or any claim by a third party related to the use of an Image, alone or in combination with any other material.

Images may contain copyrighted material or trademarks. The End User is responsible for seeking legal counsel for use of the image(s). The End User accepts responsibility for all liabilities that may arise from use of the image(s).

I guess this will be easier than I thought.

Here is a template for a Commercial License Agreement. Look for "YOUR WEBSITE HERE" and tips along the way. Replace "YOUR WEBSITE HERE" with your own domain or business name. These are simple templates that, in my opinion, cover the basics of an Agreement. Feel free to take these and do what you wish to customize your own.

Please note that we have 2 licenses: Commercial and Editorial. There are some images that cannot be used for commercial usage, such as personalities. For example an image of Paris Hilton could not be used for marketing materials. You would want to categorize these somehow and give them different permissions than commercial images.

Many sites now also offer an extended license, which permits other uses that we do not at ClipartOf. This will all be up to you.

Start of Commercial License Template:

YOUR WEBSITE HERE Commerical Royalty-Free End User License Agreement

Images listed for Commercial license are available for commercial, editorial and personal use.

Copyright or Trademark is not transferred with the license of an image. YOUR WEBSITE HERE always retains copyrights and trademarks.

Images are non-exclusive.

Licenses are for the End User only. Licenses are non-transferable. Anyone working on a project for the End User may have access to the image only for projects for the End User.

Once an image has been licensed, the End User can use it forever, worldwide, for multiple purposes, within the image's Terms of Use, without having to pay any additional fees.

Some permitted uses are: apps, bags and other items (some restrictions apply and are listed within this License Agreement), blogs, books, branding, brochures, business cards, cd covers, e-books, flyers, games, hats, logos (non-copyrighted/trademarked), magazine articles, marketing, movie props, news articles, presentations, retail products such as t shirts, screen savers, social media, tv and movie props, web sites, etc.

TIP: List uses you are ok with. Remove those that you are not willing to permit.

Print-on-demand websites are prohibited. This restriction includes websites such as cafepress.com, polyvore.com, zazzle.com, redbubble.com, etsy.com, teacherspayteachers.com or other sites that may not be listed.

Images may not be distributed to other users via templates such as e-cards, web design templates, scrapbooking templates, customizable invitation templates, digitized embroidery files, personalized products, business card design templates, etc.

Conversion of raster images to vector is prohibited.
TIP: You may not mind, however we had customers asking if they could purchase the thumbnail size and vectorize it. To make it simple, I added this restriction. However, if you do not have vector files, you may want to remove this.

YOUR WEBSITE HERE holds no responsibility from any legal issues that may arise from any use of the End User. The End User is responsible for any legal issues or costs resulting in their use.

The End User is responsible for all liabilities regarding privacy issues, trademarks, slander, libel, etc., that may arise from the use of the image(s). The End User is responsible for the end-use and any legal and/or any financial liability that may arise from such use.

The End User may not use any image found on this site for any illegal or fraudulent purpose.

The End User shall indemnify and defend YOUR WEBSITE HERE against all claims, liability, damages, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees and expenses, arising out of or related to a breach of this Agreement, the use or modification of any Image or combination of any Image with any other material, the End User's failure to abide by any restriction regarding the use of an Image, or any claim by a third party related to the use of an Image, alone or in combination with any other material.

Images may contain copyrighted material or trademarks. The End User is responsible for seeking legal counsel for use of the image(s). The End User accepts responsibility for all liabilities that may arise from use of the image(s).

I would be happy to provide Commercial and Editorial License Agreements here. Of course, each artist will want to edit it to their own liking, however I can give you the basics.

Give me up to a day or two to simplify ours and I will post here.

I am hoping this really works out for everyone! It will be good for artists and for the industry, whether you do it or someone else. If we did not already have our hands full, I surely would jump right in.

As for the image you are looking for. Are you looking for something like this? http://clipartof.com/1161280

I know you want the different layers. Perhaps KJ Pargeter would be interested. I can ask her for you if no one else has something. Just let me know.

Technically, as requested by the IRS, no matter how tedious and unnecessary, libraries are supposed to obtain new tax forms, W-9s or W-8BENs every year. This is to make sure information is correct or updated.

Are they giving you a heads up and asking you to turn it in by January, or are they demanding it now?

Quote from: Microbius on June 29, 2011, 07:29
I think that the value of Clipart as a search term has more than proved itself. I think that CAO relies quite heavily on SEO for traffic as opposed to ads in mags etc. (Jamie, chime in if this is incorrect) and they seem to be doing very well for their contributors in terms of downloads, no?

Correct on that Microbius.

Quote from: caspixel on June 27, 2011, 15:16

Well, that would be great, but none of my clients can afford RM prices. They are all just small businesses. They don't "expect" anything, but I do what I can for them by trying to find them images that have low download numbers to decrease the chance for duplication, for my own piece of mind. There is enough selection in microstock that this is usually possible. And sometimes I do work directly with artists and photographers.

However, the issue I was addressing was the limitations of ClipartOf's library to the same downloads for all their customers by excluding fresh work from new contributors. I'm not trying to rip anyone. I'm just stating a fact. Without new content in the genres, it would only be the same stuff constantly being offered to all customers, right? Or am I missing something? Also, wouldn't some of the stuff become dated after a while?

I look for artists who contribute on a regular basis, not just offer their existing portfolio and then that's it. Most of our artists send us fresh content weekly, if not daily. I also love it when artists are available to offer alterations upon request so clients get what they need.

Good for you helix! I hope more artists start representing themselves and moving to their privately owned websites.

Regarding our name, ClipartOf is just one of our hundreds of sites that completely took off that attracted customers. We focused mainly on other sites and for some reason, ClipartOf was the one that ended up taking 200% of our focus. It wasnt what we expected.

Quote from: Kenny on June 27, 2011, 07:22
   

Quote from: caspixel on June 27, 2011, 03:47
   I tend to look for images that have fewer downloads, because I don't want one of my customers to open up a magazine or find an ad online that has the exact same stock images as a competitor (it has happened to me and to other designers I know).
   

If you are working with clients and they are expecting images that wont be used in their same industry, Royalty-Free is not the proper license type. You should be licensing Rights-Managed images for such clients. For rights managed images I recommend working directly with the artist or the following sites.

I agree with that. I have customers coming to me wondering why images are still available on our site when their designer failed to mention that the images were Royalty-Free. The customers thought they owned the copyright to the images and their designer failed to give them a receipt and copy of the license from the site it was licensed from. I've worked with a customer regarding this issue last week. They had to buy another license because their designer (who went out of business and could not be reached) licensed the image for them, failed to mention which site it came from and did not provide a copy of the receipt for the customer. After looking through all of the extended licenses at other sites, they decided to license through us due to our simple license. Off topic but worth mentioning.

Wow Kenny, that's quite a difference in price.

Quote from: cthoman on June 27, 2011, 05:42
I can't speak to everyone's opinions about the name, their thoughts on policies, general views on the site or other thoughts. As a contributor though to Clipartof, I can say I'm pretty pleased. If there were more sites like it, there would be a lot less complaining on this forum. When I look at the chart to the right, there are only a couple sites that top it in earnings and probably none that top it in contributor satisfaction. This may sound cheesy, but I hold it as a shining beacon of what an agency should be. I'm sad to see this forum turn against a site that I respect.

Thanks cthoman. I feel like I'm getting ripped to shreds in here because I have the verified clipartof seal under my avatar. However, I know its probably because customers and artists cant fathom what ClipartOf stands for because I dont know if it exists anywhere else. If you know of any other libraries that take the same stand as us, please let me know so I can refer artists to them...

Quote from: caspixel on June 27, 2011, 03:47

Quote from: jvoetsch on June 27, 2011, 02:58

I'm very curious from the customer's point of view, but I do understand it both ways; from our customer's (that have reported to me on this issue) and from an artist's point of view.

Well, I'm strictly a buyer. While I appreciate your business model and limiting your library for your contributors sake, I think it limits your business. By excluding new artists, your library will eventually lack variety in genres and you will only be offering the same art to all your customers. I don't want that for my clients. I like a lot of variety, even within genres. I tend to look for images that have fewer downloads, because I don't want one of my customers to open up a magazine or find an ad online that has the exact same stock images as a competitor (it has happened to me and to other designers I know). So when I know that those are all the illustrations that will ever be offered on your site in any particular genre by the same artists, I will go somewhere where I know there is fresher content.

The other thing I notice is that I can get helix7's illustrations right off his own site for considerably less than you would be offering them on yours. Interesting.

The thing about our site is that the artists price their own work. We have no control over that. The cheaper the images, the higher the chances of them being downloaded more often.

The other issue is that contributors usually supply their images to many many different sites, often under different usernames. Unless you know what sites the artist sells each image at, you really dont know how many times those images have been downloaded unless you have tracked the image sales from all of the sites and only if if the site displays the number of sales per image.

The new google image search tool will be really helpful for clients in finding them the best deals on images. http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/google-images-drag-and-drop/

Quote from: VB inc on June 27, 2011, 02:45

Quote from: jvoetsch on June 27, 2011, 02:15

Clipart is a term that was coined in Word programs before the internet even became available to civilians and is well known and used by customers. Clipart is a term that even if you think is not being used to identify your images, it probably is. While an artist may not like the term, a lot of customers dont think of "clipart" any differently than they do "illustrations."

While you as the artist are thinking of creative terms, the customer is not. The customer is looking for "clipart" or "pics" when using search engines and may not understand how artists feel about the term.

Not to mention that this entire post got completely off topic...

Maybe i  think differently than you do but clipart has a cheap ring to it because the artwork i saw back in the days werent as good as illustrations. A company with money hires an artist to illustrate their idea or product. A company on the budget goes through a book full of thousands of generic cliparts. Times have changed and some amazing artists are producing stock imagery.

I understand that completely. However, what do customers think of the term? As strictly a customer (not a customer who is also an artist), you would think differently than an artist would about the term. While using the term illustration, a customer may expect an elaborate illustration like an etching or painting. I'm very curious of what the majority of customers would say on this subject.

Things have changed so fast in this industry. 5 years ago an artist would have been extremely offended to be offered a spot on a microstock site or even post in a microstock forum, now its common. How many RM artists are left? Maybe thats why clipart became more accepted as most images are being offered in a lower price bracket now. So many sites are even offering photos and calling them clipart.

I'm very curious from the customer's point of view, but I do understand it both ways; from our customer's (that have reported to me on this issue) and from an artist's point of view.

Quote from: michaeldb on June 27, 2011, 02:31
IMO the input of an agency owner should be very, very welcome here. What does it matter whether or not I 'agree' with the agency? It's information which I find both interesting and useful.

'...since we do all of the key wording and descriptions over here...' That explains a lot. Clipartof is not looking forward to keywording and describing 1000 new images. So be it. They want a different kind of relationship with their submitters than other agencies have and want only new submitters who fill certain niches in their collection. So I won't be applying there, and some of my time is saved. Best of luck to them.

I appreciate your post michaeldb. If I took it correctly. Hard to tell on this forum.

I just keyworded a 4,000+ portfolio covering many different topics. That's not a problem for me at all. I actually love key wording (strange, I know). However, I like to see that an artist has done this long enough to find what niche they favor the most so I can represent their best and what THEY are passionate about creating.

I do like to have a different relationship with our contributors. I am not an outsourced corporate robot. I am a human being and I like to have personable relationships with our contributors who also like to feel like they are human and not "just another contributor." I represent a library that I opened for a reason. Most of our contributors are aware of why I'm here and followed me from where I worked before, where they were harshly abused by the library owner. Those artists knew me very well and asked me to start my own site.

I am also not programmed to speak corporate bs, so I speak me.

Quote from: john_woodcock on June 26, 2011, 09:19
I personally think 'clipart' does not have good connotations from a creative point of view, although that is just my personal opinion.
I also think to base an image collection on whoever showed the organiser their work first in a particular category, rather than who can create the best work in a particular category, could result in a collection of images that possibly wasn't of the highest quality.

So you are saying that I should delete an artist's portfolio, who possibly has been with us for years, just to add a new artist? That doesn't make sense, especially since we do all of the key wording and descriptions over here. That would be a waste of our time. Would you like all agencies to work that way, kicking contributors off because they found a new artist that has "better quality" (all in opinion of what is better) images to offer?

Clipart is a term that was coined in Word programs before the internet even became available to civilians and is well known and used by customers. Clipart is a term that even if you think is not being used to identify your images, it probably is. While an artist may not like the term, a lot of customers dont think of "clipart" any differently than they do "illustrations."

While you as the artist are thinking of creative terms, the customer is not. The customer is looking for "clipart" or "pics" when using search engines and may not understand how artists feel about the term.

Not to mention that this entire post got completely off topic...

Quote from: caspixel on June 26, 2011, 22:17

Quote from: VB inc on June 24, 2011, 06:32

If you actually had any eye for talent, you would be able to clearly tell that helix7's stuff that you posted is far superior than the shown items in your library. 8 years as a reviewer and you still cant tell quality?

I liked helix7's stuff better too. Much nicer quality, IMO. I'd love to see more on his site.

Again it wasnt about who was better (which the term "better" was never used on my behalf). It was about subject that we already have.

A lot of artists wont ever understand that because we do not add artist after artist, like all other sites out there that keep adding artists then refusing good images because they have too many. helix7 is a great artist, there's no question about that, however in order to get onto ClipartOf (since there are only 2 more spots remaining) I need niche artists such as medical, fantasy or retro. Someone with a large portfolio covering their specific niche.

They all look amazing to me. Great job! I especially liked inthepool, owlman and inthearch. If you have model releases for inthepool and owlman, I would be surprised if those two alone dont get you through.

I am new to this forum stuff so I'm learning 

Quote from: helix7 on June 24, 2011, 20:31

Quote from: jvoetsch on June 24, 2011, 18:35
We aren't interested in adding more than a couple hundred artists, and I dont kick off artists to add new artists that offer similar content. That's how we work. I guess artists do like being bullied and abused and apparently expect it. helix7, I did not say anyone was better than you I was clearly saying you dont have anything different to offer us from what our existing artists already contribute. That is all. Take it how you want to but I didn't say so and so was better than you.

I never suggested you made such a claim. I understood what you said, that my work wasn't unique and you already have the sort of work I do on your site. And you could have just left it at that, but instead felt the need to compare images one-by-one. Which I'm sure you understand some people might view as being a way of saying that one image is better than the other.

I'm not offended by it. It's clear that you have a very unique view of what makes images common or similar. I don't share that view and I don't think that your one-set-of-green-icons-is-the-same-as-any-other approach to stock images is a way of building a quality collection.

I apologize of my comparing of styles offended you, but thats not what I intended. I was showing that we already have similar content; grunge, shields, eco icons and that we are not looking for more. I forget how sensitive everyone is via emails, forums and text, however if you had been having a face to face conversation with me, you would have a completely different understanding.

A lot of people also dont understand what we are doing over here. I'm not trying to stock a library as full as possible. I'm trying to fill one niche at a time. Once I've added an artist for that niche, I dont want to add more. I'm doing this in hopes of giving our contributors less competition with our other contributors, so they make sales and stay for long periods of time. Its worked so far.

Quote from: lthn on June 24, 2011, 11:34

Quote from: jvoetsch on June 24, 2011, 08:11
This tool is amazing and will help a lot of artists track down unlicensed images. Go get em guys!

You go get 'em. We shoot, create, you take care of our images.

And I do when they have our watermark. 

jbarber873 said it right.

Having had the opportunity to work with Yuri in the past on one of our photo sites, I can honestly say every single image was perfection. Great composition and quality.

Yuri has such a huge client base that even if he did pull out from every agency, he would succeed. His clients know him and would follow to support him, even if it meant paying more per image.

Good for Yuri and I hope he makes even a bigger mark in this industry than he already has.

Quote from: VB inc on June 24, 2011, 18:05

Quote from: john_woodcock on June 24, 2011, 17:40

QuoteIts about who came to us first.

This seems a rather strange policy. You'd keep on an artist who's work is not as good as someone who comes to you later, purely on the grounds of the date they joined, rather than a judgement on quality. If I'm understanding that right, that seems rather an odd way of stocking a library.

i was going to respond because i clearly wasnt paying attention to what she wrote but you hit the nail right on the head. i just thought the name of the company itself was odd.

We aren't interested in adding more than a couple hundred artists, and I dont kick off artists to add new artists that offer similar content. That's how we work. I guess artists do like being bullied and abused and apparently expect it. helix7, I did not say anyone was better than you I was clearly saying you dont have anything different to offer us from what our existing artists already contribute. That is all. Take it how you want to but I didn't say so and so was better than you.

This tool is amazing and will help a lot of artists track down unlicensed images. Go get em guys!

Quote from: VB inc on June 24, 2011, 06:32
^^  
Real classy... calling out anothers work. But the jokes on you.
If you actually had any eye for talent, you would be able to clearly tell that helix7's stuff that you posted is far superior than the shown items in your library. 8 years as a reviewer and you still cant tell quality?

Its ok, some people are slow learners and dont know that they dont know.

Its not about who's is better in this case. Its about who came to us first. I'm not going to boot off existing artists and replace them with new, similar work, nor am I going to add more of what we already have. If you actually paid attention to what I wrote, its about duplicate content. We need fresh, new, exciting imagery, not the same stuff over and over by new artists.