The opt-out is for the site as a whole - yayimages.com. The site updates once every 24 hours, so it can take some hours before your images are removed. If you want to close your account you�ll have to send an email to [email protected], as we can�t handle these request from a forum post.

As for control with customers, we monitor customer use and if we see anything suspicious we�ll contact the customer. Often the customer will contact us if they need a lot of images, as most people want to be honest and they don�t want to break any copyright rules. It�s not the people who use stock agencies that�s our main concern, it�s all those people and businesses using Google images as a �free images�-tool. And that�s why we�ve created our streaming option - we want to give people an easy to use, affordable priced online image solution. We haven�t looked at other stock image prices when developing our Streaming product, but on other online products such as Spotify, Netflix, Wordpress etc.

We're launching it in January, and this is a brand new site with a new product aimed at online users with our streaming option. You can watch our video to get a short intro to the site and streaming: http://yayimages.com/support/50-yay-images-introduction-video  With streaming we'll also get information about where images are used, and how many views they have. This will help us develop the product and the site further, and we'll also share this information with you (general numbers + your specific numbers). You can read about the different subs on our site, http://yayimages.com It's live, but we haven't launched yet.

If you have any questions you can contact us at [email protected], or directly at [email protected].


Happy Holidays!


Linda

Hi,

Just to clarify - there is no DAILY download limit, but there is a monthly. http://yayimages.com/support/2-uncategorised/28-how-many-images-do-i-get-in-a-month
It's also not allowed to use our subscriptions to build an internal image bank for a company or a service.

For those wanting to opt-out you can do so at yaymicro.com, API details.

Cheers,

Linda

Quote from: Linda - YayMicro on September 23, 2013, 07:36

Quote from: roede-orm on September 23, 2013, 07:23

Quote from: Ron on September 23, 2013, 07:35

What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales.  Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED

Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.

Yes, we're discussing a better solution to this. As for it being illegal - a photographer don't have to close their account, and we could also argue that the money up to �30 is to cover uploading and hosting expenses, reviewing etc. But, after a give amount of time, ex. 1 year, it should be possible to close the account and get all your earnings. We've only discussed it briefly during lunch hour today, but we'll look more into it later on in a formal meeting.

Thanks

Linda

You could also argue you take your commissions to cover that !

Yes, I agree.

L:)

What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales.  Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED

Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.
[/quote]

Yes, we're discussing a better solution to this. As for it being illegal - a photographer don't have to close their account, and we could also argue that the money up to �30 is to cover uploading and hosting expenses, reviewing etc. But, after a give amount of time, ex. 1 year, it should be possible to close the account and get all your earnings. We've only discussed it briefly during lunch hour today, but we'll look more into it later on in a formal meeting.

Thanks

Linda

Music and movies are entertainment, stock images are not.
Buyers/clients/users/consumers of music/movies are completely different from microstock buyers.
The first are looking for entertainment and the last is looking for an image to support a product/page/site/ad/whatever.
What this initiative says is that the price for online images is going down and more closer to zero than before.

Then, are other aspects, like the fact that resolutions are moving up for online content. Small size is a moving target and is increasing with screen resolution. Or the other fact that images can be downloaded always once displayed in the browser and nothing can prevent it.

In my opinion, pirates will still pirate because their activity generates a profit for them and attract visitors by uploading more content to their ad filled sites. People that download from pirate sites will continue to do so until their activity is big enough and in danger due to using pirate images. And buyers will continue to buy wherever they are used to until they feel the need to change to another site either because of cheaper price or because they want specific content not available on their previous place to buy.

And a final thought, what if the content servers fail? Imagine the consequences for all sites linking to the images. Any webmaster will have to consider this possibility.

Why are agencies so enthusiast to announce cheaper products as if they were not going to affect negatively the perceived value of microstock as a whole?

Hi,

Although we don't agree I think you have many good points! First, I think the product that images are a part of is entertainment, i.e. blogs and websites. The marketing channel for music is, roughly, artist - production company - seller - consumer. For images it's a bit different, with photographer - seller - user - consumer.

As for sizes, you're right that it keeps going up. Our main focus is that customers will not get a file, and they do not get a license that allows for any other use than showing the image on online content.

To combat piracy a combination of activities seems like the best solution. One is to target illegal use, another is to make legal use attractive enough. For our new site the streaming product is part of an overall mix that we hope will increase the conversion. A good image search is key, and it's easier to find the image you're looking for at the new site than on Google images and other sources people use to find "free" images. We've also added online image editing and filter, helping people adjust the images - and with streaming we also host the image. This combination offer a much better product than any piracy source will. We'll also continue to update it with features that makes image usage easier and more efficient for image users.

We're hosting the images with Amazon, and we have another hosting partner as well - so that the servers failing at YAY is not more likely than for any other hosting service you would use to store your images.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the right direction for a microstock company. Hopefully we can prove that streaming helped convert non-paying into paying customers, and that it didn't just lower the price for online use-images.



Linda

Hello Linda,

I didn't have the time to read the details yet, but I don't think I will be interested in any streaming schemes even if I have to delete my portfolio. The difference between streaming peanuts and nothing is negligable.

I just saw the mention of Spotify, so I'll just comment on that.
I am a happy Spotify user and a customer. As a customer I think it is an awesome service. As for the business side, I think it is one of the dumbest ideas in recent years.

Top musicians make some peanuts there while Spotify just generates losses for the owners.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow

To cut a long story short, since I have Spotify I don't remember the last time when I bought a CD or MP3.
Cheers

Spotify is an interesting case! How I see it, CDs would disappear even without Spotify and other streaming services. We'd be left with digital files, and people would either buy them in online record stores, or continue to download them illegally. I believe that Spotify has grown the total market by converting illegal downloaders to streamers.

Most artists find that they'll have to go on tours in order to keep their income up - a good thing for their fans. Vinyl records, digital files, and merchandise sales are up, and people attend more concerts. I have both Spotify and Netflix, and I have never spent more money on music (collecting vinyl records and going to concerts) and movies (going to the cinema several times a month).

For images we've already had our second digital change - when microstock came in the early 2000s. (The first being digital images) What we need now is a further adaption to the digital world. Generic content is abundant, and the competition between photographers, and between agencies is hard.

I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has. The image is only used online, and in a small size. Streaming is a product for the digital world, not an adaption from when physical images were sent with a courier. The world will always change, and what's important is to try to see how, and what you can do to adapt to it.

Perhaps giving people affordable access to millions of legal, great images can help grow peoples appreciation of photography?


Linda

Linda, I'd like to close my account now rather than waiting until 2016. Would you be so kind as to pay me the few Euros I've managed to earn with Yay this last year or so..? Or if I close my account do I lose that money?

You should send a request to [email protected] if you want to close your account. The payout limit is �30, so if you're close to it I would recommend waiting until you 've reached it.

Thanks,

Linda

Linda, I fear that you simply leading the pack in the race to the bottom with this initiative. I hope I'm wrong - but at this moment, I doubt it. I'll close my account with you as soon as I reach 30 Euro payout....which, at the current rate of sales will be in late 2016.

We hope you're wrong as well We'll try to give you good numbers when we launch, and hopefully this will help with your decision.

Cheers,

Linda

Linda,

maybe I was not specific enough:

What I would like to see:

1) Please separate the opt-outs of the streaming thing from the regular subs. It is quite likely that contributors will have different opinions on the two.

2) Please set a minimum payout for the regular subs, that we don't end up with very small commissions if your assumption of subs usage does not turn out to be right.

Those are small changes that should be easy to accomplish.

I fully agree that the opt out in general is the right way to go - it let's contributors decide to what extent they want to take part in new offerings. That's good.

Thanks for listening,

Dirk

Thanks for clarifying!

We don't have a solution to let people opt out from parts of the image base, and we also want to avoid this as it can cause confusion for our customers. As for commission, we'll monitor all numbers, and adjust it accordingly. If you don't feel certain what we're doing is right you can either join in know and opt out later when we get our first set of numbers - or wait to join until we present numbers that you find satisfying.

Thanks,

Linda

Linda,

some comments.

The streaming thing sounds terrible. It will do nothing else but take current buyers away. Those who don't pay today won't pay tomorrow. Current prices are low enough for everybody. And the expectation of 4 or 5 cents per download may be far too optimistic. As I understand it it is unlimited images for $9,90 per month. So the real result will be fractions of cents per download.

The "regular" subs don't sound too bad, but that is just an existing market where you don't seem to offer anything new - at least not that I could see that from the newsletter. If you believe in the stated average royalty of around $0.49 then please set that as the minimum payout.

And please do consider separate opt-outs for the two different plans.

All in all you're going in the completely wrong direction with this plans. You should look for ways to increase prices, not decrease them. We have enough cheap sites out there. You don't have the volume. I'd like to continue to support you, but you're easy to drop...

Hi dirkr,

We understand your concern. There's no way to be 100% sure that a new product is the right one. But, our experience and market research indicates that this might be an unserved market.

Thanks,

Linda

Hi there yay

This kind of creative thinking is what made istock a household name along with an amazing advertising campaign, creating a completely new segment of buyers!



And "inviting not forcing" contributors with opt outs is a really good thing.

Thanks! We're very excited about releasing this product! And we're also happy that we managed to get in place an opt-out option, we don't want to force people to join in on our new direction.

Cheers,

Linda

Thanks @ShadySue, we'll make sure to take note of that!

@Dimco
2: Well, noticing a glitch in commission and raising it 50% is an increase.
3: Nor sure what you're going at here. Of course we believe in increased sales. What we meant is that lower priced, targeted products can increase our overall sales, and that will generate more income than keeping thing at status quo will.   
4&5: I understand your concern, and if our sales comes comes from sales at other sites where you have your images it makes sense. Our aim is not to get customers from competitors by lowing our prices, but to create products mainly for new customers. Growing by taking market shares from competitors is not easy, and not our main goal. For all sales we generate that isn't form a competitor every dollar will be a dollar extra in your account.
6: What stops us from making sister companies is ethics and morale. I also think most photographers would leave if we would do anything like that. We have a couple of "sister sites" today, but they use the YAY payment, so the commission to the photographer is the same as sales at YAY.  As for commission on partner sales we get 60% on all new deals, and we split this 50/50 with our photogs = 30%. I'm sorry if you find that unfair, and that's why you can opt-out.

All in all, we understand your concerns, and we also don't expect you to agree with all of it. It will be up to you what you decide to do after taking an overall evaluation of what YAY has to offer.

@Clairev Thanks for your input! We think it's important to have an opt-out in place, making it easier for you to join in on what you believe in.


L:)