Hi pixel8, just want to clarify some of your concerns here. (For context, our sister agency is VideoBlocks, hence my profile image.) First, GraphicStock's free trial, which is offered through certain partners, does not allow unlimited downloads. (That would be silly!) We allow up to 20 downloads per day for 7 days. Most of our customers pay $99 per year for full access to the library.

Each of our contributors is paid thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars for licensing rights to their work. And we're non-exclusive, so contributors can continue selling and distributing their work elsewhere. The model seems to work well for the contributors we work with!

Congrats Noedelhap!

Cobalt has got the general idea here. That said, I totally understand the nickel-and-dime feel that comes from these third-party processes. We've negotiated where possible to keep the fees as low as possible, and as we keep growing we'll do what we can to make things even better.

Hey GooDween, metadata can be applied on VideoBlocks in three ways:

1. Type the title and keywords for each clip in your account (you can copy and paste, too).
2. Upload a CSV file. (You can even upload a CSV formatted for Shutterstock or Pond5!)
3. IPTC metadata is automatically applied.

Hope that helps!

Gotta jump in on that one Mantis: absolutely not. All sales earned are from real buyers.

We opened to customers last week! Check it out if you haven't already!

Sorry for the delay here guys; been a really busy couple of weeks.

The general question/concern that seems to percolate through this thread is, how is our model sustainable? It's a fair question. We've always been a purely subscription-based business, so we've always been fully supported by our membership fees. The marketplace cost us the time to build it, and a little bit of storage/data space (though most of that was already in place), but that's about it. Since we have been and always will be supported by our membership fees, we don't need to take a cut on sales from our marketplace, which is an added component of a buyer's membership. And if we don't need to take a cut, then we have the unique opportunity to give you as the artists 100% of the commission.

We knew there would be some natural skepticism when we announced 100% commission, and we also knew that if we were to make any change in the future, the only way the commission could have logically gone was down. So we made sure our model was fully sustainable before building it. We won't ever lower the commission rate, and the ball will always be in our court to uphold that.

Addressing the more recent questions about tax withholdings: this is a bug. We're storing payments correctly, they're just not being displayed properly on your earnings tables. Our developer in charge of this functionality is on a much-needed vacation for a few days, but this should be cleaned up before the end of the week. Sorry for the confusion!

BlackJack & JoeClemson - to confirm, the VAT tax is not imposed on sellers. In all cases, we and/or the buyer is responsible for covering the tax.

Thanks Zeus & Noedelhap for the feedback on pricing. Our mission is to provide creative content that everyone can afford, but of course we want to benefit the seller too. A lot of data went into our decision on pricing, and we think $49 strikes a good balance between saving customers money and compensating you guys for you work.

elvinstar- thanks for being a customer for so long!

Noedelhap & Gizmo - our encoding system decided not to play nice on Tuesday/Wednesday. Sorry about that! Hopefully you've seen that everything's back to normal now.

BlackJack & JoeClemson - we should operate the same as most other agencies, where we as the agency deal with the VAT accounting. Our finance and legal teams are doing a final re-confirmation just to make sure everything is squared away here, and I'll follow up with a definitive answer ASAP.

StockPhotosArt - we'll be reinforcing the messaging in-product (and through our actions as well), but your feedback here is certainly valid.

Hey imagesbykenny - yeah, occasionally the preview player can get stuck open. If you hover back onto and then off of the thumbnail again, the player should close.

I'll PM you about the CSV and we'll get it sorted out.

imagesbykenny - I checked your account, and it looks like you got the CSV to work. If you ever run into trouble going forward, just shoot a note to our support team: contributor [at] videoblocks.com.

Zeus - Buyers are subscribers to our product, and since we're supported by our membership fees, we're able to pass on 100% of the commission. You can find out more details on our "official" thread: http://www.microstockgroup.com/videoblocks/videoblocks-footage-marketplace-keep-100-of-what-you-earn/

fritz - have we worked with you for our subscription library? If so, hi! I don't recognize your username.

Hey guys,

Zach Bernstein here, head of content at VideoBlocks. Responding to some comments:

Quote from: ShadySue on February 18, 2015, 13:55
"Up to 140 downloads during your free trial. Start your 7 day free trial today!" Do contributors get anything for the 'free downloads'?

All members - including free trial members - will have access to purchase marketplace content, but it will not be available for free. So buyers will always be paying for your content. To clarify here, content you upload to VideoBlocks is only made available in the marketplace. We acquire and produce content for our "unlimited access" library separately.

Quote from: gcrook on February 18, 2015, 16:06
I can see the cheese, but where is the trap?
There are 2 separate marketplaces.One pre-existing, dirt cheap, with files that have lots of downloads,and the other one is the one that we are supposed to create as new contributors with high prices and 100% commission minus some ridiculous paypal fees as described.
How can these 2 coexist?

helloitsme has it right, in that our model is very similar to Costco. I also like to compare our model to Amazon Prime Movies: with a Prime membership, a customer has unlimited access to a pool of movies. But if a customer wants something different or more specific, they can explore the larger library of pay-per-download movies and purchase individually as needed. This is how our model works. At buyer launch, the marketplace will have more than twice as much content as our "unlimited access" library, and it will only continue growing from there. While we of course want buyers to get value out of our unlimited library, there will also be incentive for them to explore the marketplace.

A few more details can be found at our main thread here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/videoblocks/videoblocks-footage-marketplace-keep-100-of-what-you-earn

Quote from: KB on February 13, 2015, 05:08
The VideoBlocks vs. Shutterstock "earnings calculator" is cute, but really, do you think that someone who sells 50 videos on SS in a typical month would also sell 50 videos on VideoBlocks? That would be great, but I'm doubtful it's likely.

Out of the gate, it's probably not realistic that we'll match Shutterstock in terms of sales volume. But over time, traffic will grow and sales should increase.

Quote from: KB on February 13, 2015, 05:08
I'm not one to read CLAs closely (shame on me, I know), but clause 2.5 worries me:
2.5 Promotions. We may, from time to time, run promotions for Members and we may include your Content as part of such promotions.  You agree and acknowledge that  such promotions may affect the amount of Revenue you receive for specific Content.

The language is intentionally broad, but truthfully, we won't go crazy here. Our goal is to be the most contributor-friendly agency there is, so we will never do anything to jeopardize our relationships. We know how you guys generally feel about Bigstock and others, and it's certainly not a feeling we want to be emulated. We don't have a full sense of what our promotions/discounts may look like in the future, but we will always keep the contributor's best interests in mind when making decisions.

We actually have a huge incentive to drive sales for you. The higher the sales volume, the more incentive there is for you guys to keep uploading, and the bigger and more diverse the library becomes for buyers. And the more appealing the library is to buyers, the more likely they'll be to become members - so there is a financial incentive for us as well. Driving sales is the key to making this whole thing work.

To confirm a couple comments:
- Yes, we accept editorial content (but of course we prefer releases whenever possible)
- It is free to join as a contributor. The fee I was referring to is a membership fee for buyers.

I think that covers all the main comments/questions, but let me know otherwise. Thanks for the help and discussion KB and others!

Hi all,

I'm Zach Bernstein, the head of content at VideoBlocks. If our name is unfamiliar, we've been around for about five years as a subscription-based stock footage agency.

We're excited to announce that we've added a marketplace component to our business model. The marketplace is layered on top of our existing subscription content, a lot like Amazon Prime. This is a different kind of business model for the stock media industry, and we think it's one that massively benefits both buyers and sellers. Because we profit from our memberships, we're able to give 100% of the marketplace sales to contributors. We think you deserve it, and we're excited to support your success.

You can find out more details and start submitting content at: contribute.videoblocks.com.

To answer a few common questions:

1. We accept 4K and HD content. 4K is priced at $199, and HD is priced at $49.

2. We automatically downsize 4K to produce a HD version.

3. Everything you upload is published to the marketplace only. Your files won't end up in our subscription library.

4. The marketplace opens to buyers in April 2015. Currently, we're filling the library with content.


If you've got any questions or feedback, feel free to post in this thread or contact our support team at:
contributor [at] videoblocks.com. Thanks!

Best,
Zach

Quote from: gcrook on November 26, 2014, 03:55
So that means apparently that if i apply and you review and accept my files, these will only be available ONLY for marketplace pay as you go download, with the terms  menioned in the application page?

Correct. All content submissions are for the marketplace only.

Quote from: gcrook on November 26, 2014, 03:55
Will there be a contributor credit?

Of course! (But note that credit doesn't currently exist for our subscription content.)

Quote from: gcrook on November 26, 2014, 03:55
where does the majority of the clips in the non-marketplace area of your site come from?

To grow the subscription section of the library, we reach out to contributors to either have them produce new content, or to acquire existing content if they choose. (And occasionally we shoot internally as well.) Content cannot exist in both the subscription and marketplace libraries. We make one-time, lump sum payments for all subscription content.

FYI, all of this info will be available on the VideoBlocks website in the coming weeks.

Hi guys,

I'm Zach Bernstein, the head of content acquisition at VideoBlocks. Good discussion in this thread - I just wanted to clarify one comment around our free trial. Yes, we will continue offering the trial, but it will only affect our subscription library. The marketplace content will always be pay-per-download.

Quote from: elvinstar on November 23, 2014, 19:31
It appears that VideoBlocks is going to expand beyond their current subscription-only model into pay-per-download as well with 100% of the sale price going to the artist.

This is exactly right! If you all have more questions, feel free to shoot me a note or keep the thread going. Happy to support you guys and help get you on board - I hope you're as excited as I am!