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Messages - robynmac
51
« on: July 10, 2011, 18:56 »
This site is running Google AdSense. None of the advertisers are advertising with this site specifically, probably. They are running ads in Google's network, and Google shows the ads. This basically means that you only have to convince Google that this site is a fraud, and the ads and income go away. Individual advertisers won't know what you're talking about.
That's good to know! I'll notify Goodle AdSense of my concerns. Thank you.
52
« on: July 10, 2011, 16:40 »
I received the following response from Le Bang, in response to my complaints about how the website is operated:
"Thanks for your feedback.
You should not feel hostile so.
We are always willing to cooperate to resolve any dispute.
There have been many requests to us, and we resolved very satisfactorily.
There are also some people just like you, they send their requests directly to our advertisers. But then the advertisers we have sent mail about the complaint to us. We have direct contact to the person who sent the request and apology together with resolve their complaints.
you should preferably in direct contact with us..."
The way I read this, they are saying that so far they've got away with their practice of infringing copyright, despite many complaints, and that they've managed to keep their advertisers on-side by convincing them that the complaints are isolated and have been dealt with. Obviously no commitment to stop copyright infringements in the future. My complaint to their advertisers will therefore be just one more that they have to explain away.
53
« on: July 10, 2011, 06:21 »
Mark, you're probably right. But I will pursue this as a matter of principle. I've written to the web hoster, pointing out where this site appears to be in breach of the hoster's terms of service related to prohibited conduct. ("Content that infringes or violates any copyright, patent, trademark, service mark, trade name, trade secret, or other intellectual property right of any third party.") Got to at least try!
54
« on: July 10, 2011, 03:42 »
...They are blatantly taking and posting images without permission on their site and telling users that they do not have copyright on them (caveat emptor)!! Unbelievable. Somebody needs to write to them to tell them redistributing another person's work without explicit consent is NOT OKAY and it needs to stop immediately.
I've done this today. FWIW.
55
« on: July 10, 2011, 03:19 »
The site has a lot of advertising - I'm in Australia, and the adverts that appear here are for some major Australian food producers and retailers, banks, TV cooking show, etc. If all else fails, I shall contact the advertisers and point out the copyright infringements.
56
« on: July 09, 2011, 21:06 »
A fellow photographer spotted one of my food images on this site - I hadn't heard of it before. Thanks for the contact details - I shall email and protest loudly!
57
« on: June 09, 2011, 16:59 »
I'm emerald rank at Fotolia and have experienced a similar big drop. Comparing May 2011 to May 2010: Earnings: -28% Downloads: -21% I shoot microstock full-time, so this drop is having a major effect on my income, especially coupled with the iStock downturn and a big currency swing during the same period.  Thank goodness for Shutterstock and Dreamstime!! Fotolia had been my #2 site for a couple of years, but has slipped to #3. It's no fun to shoot and upload new stuff, only to see it languish with few views and even fewer downloads!
58
« on: May 10, 2011, 15:43 »
... Very disappointing from a site that was doing so well.
I agree! Shutterstock has overtaken Fotolia as my #2 earning site. The way it's going, Fotolia might even fall below Dreamstime for me. Very sad. Sales and views of new images in particular seem to be well down. Thank goodness for improving sales on SS and DT! 
59
« on: May 09, 2011, 22:22 »
Sandra, your port is so beautiful and creative, you truly deserve your continuing success at Fotolia!! In my case: Overall rank: 49 (was at 45) 7 day rank: 136 My 7 day rank used to be around my overall rank or better. Then there was a pretty sudden change a couple of months ago, and now my 7 day rank is mostly over 100. This is sad, as earnings are obviously affected pretty dramatically. Not sure of the reason for the sudden decline, but coming on top of falling downloads at iStock, coupled with dramatically rising local currency against the USD, the picture is a bit gloomy. Maybe it's because I've uploaded "only" 440 images to Fotolia in the last year? If so, I'd better get back to work...
60
« on: May 07, 2011, 02:36 »
I just made the decision to opt in about 500 files to photos+, out of a possible 800. These are a lot of my best sellers. Given that sales on IS seem to be in freefall, I figure this surely can't do any more harm..  I guess it all depends on the best match placement.
61
« on: April 14, 2011, 16:11 »
Don't forget that the Easter vacation period has already started in much of Europe. I think we can expect a quiet couple of weeks on all agencies.
In the last couple of years, Easter has not affected my sales until the week of Good Friday, i.e. next week. So I don't think that's the reason for the current decline.
62
« on: April 14, 2011, 15:59 »
Has the dust settled? My sales are down 25-30% this week. This coincides with a big jump in my local currency (Australian $) against the US$. So all in all, this latest best match change couldn't have come at a worse time. I certainly hope they haven't stopped dialling!!
Curious point: For a while last week, when I sorted my portfolio by best match, 18 out of the top 20 images were "Australian" - scenes, money, food, etc. This even though such images are only a small percentage of my total. Don't know what was going on there. Something to do with their "regional results" experiment??
63
« on: April 05, 2011, 17:31 »
My Fotolia sales dipped since January. Before that, my 7 day ranking was consistently between 30-60. Since the change, it went to well over 100, and I just couldn't see why.
So glad you posted! I am in exactly the same situation! 7 days rank was always 20-45ish and now over 100. Thought it was just me and that my images had lost their appeal.
It makes me feel a bit better to know I'm in such good company! 
64
« on: April 05, 2011, 16:36 »
My Fotolia sales dipped since January. Before that, my 7 day ranking was consistently between 30-60. Since the change, it went to well over 100, and I just couldn't see why. FT has dropped from #2 to #3 earner for me. There's been a bit of an improvement in the last few days, so I just hope the pendulum will swing back again.
65
« on: April 03, 2011, 15:35 »
I'm a diamond independent. By chance, I did a search a few days ago on "salad", and was really happy that several of my images were on the front page. I just tried that again, and they have disappeared from view. I stopped searching after the first few pages. It's early Monday morning here, and I think I'll just go back to bed and have a little cry.
66
« on: November 20, 2010, 18:44 »
All my pending images have been approved super-fast, and the queue is longer than the number of images needed to get to 10,000,000, so I know I won't win... Even so, it's great fun to watch when it will be. Thanks Dreamstime!
67
« on: October 26, 2010, 16:15 »
Warning -- biased opinion:
Forget about any site except the first four top earners and maybe a few from the next five on the middle tier earners list. You don't need to waste time now with the so-far losers. Let the uninformed test out the wanna-bes.
I completely agree with this^^.
Consistently, 90% of my microstock income comes from the top 4 sites. Depending how how much time you have, those four are the ones to concentrate your energies on. Once your portfolio is on those sites and earning for you, then you can pick and choose which of the smaller sites you want to support.
I totally agree - in my case, I earn 95%+ of my microstock income from the top 4 sites. (I didn't realise this until I read Lisa's post and worked it out.  Fortunately, a couple of the smaller sites are so easy to upload to, that it's worth the effort for the relatively small return. I thank my lucky stars I didn't go exclusive with iStock some months ago - for once, my indecisiveness was a blessing.
68
« on: September 08, 2010, 16:57 »
I think this thread can now be closed
Yeah, I don' think anyone will ever be going exclusive with iStock again...
I stressed for a year or two over whether or not to go exclusive with IS. Even stopped uploading to DT for a while. I work at microstock full-time, so it's a crucial decision. Now I don't have to worry any more! IStock has basically made the decision for me - I am absolutely confident that staying independent is the only way to go.
69
« on: January 20, 2010, 19:07 »
Hi Lisa, I can't answer your specific question about the duration you committed your images to be on Microsoft going back a while, but have some general comments: Some months ago I received an invite from FT to be part of their "crank your rank" program of making available some small images for free on Microsoft, in exchange for a one-off increase in rank. (I'm currently gold, so a "crank" to emerald looked appealing!) I've just re-read the offer that was made, and nowhere did it specify how long the commitment was for. I didn't even think to ask about that (silly me). I accepted the offer, images were selected, and I was told that "within three weeks" my rank would be cranked. That was four months ago. Still waiting... When I queried FT, I got no response. I can't see any of my selected images on Microsoft, fortunately. Now I'm not far off going emerald without a "crank", so there's no longer any tangible benefit of being part of this program (assuming it's still in existence). It certainly seems logical that FT should contact Microsoft rather than you! FT has all the relevant details of the images they have provided to Microsoft, and the people they deal with. Their response sounds to me like classic buck-passing.
70
« on: January 07, 2010, 13:51 »
What a relief! Given that Fotolia is still encouraging us to spend time and money obtaining an ITIN, I've asked the question whether or not Fotolia is going to mail out the "W7 letter" to all contributors who have asked for it.
71
« on: December 12, 2009, 17:20 »
I got a response from FT about my issue. In a nutshell they can't help me please go to the tax center on the site for help. Unfortunately the only thing on the tax center is the ability to re-submit the form that has already been rejected twice. There is no help file or other information.
The email also said that I could hire an accountant to help me. I didn't have this problem when I filled out the form for SS.
There is a bug on their site - the "Tax Center" link in the member area takes you to " http://www.fotolia.com/Member/TaxCenter/View", where there is the list of submitted tax forms and their status, but no other information. There needs to be a link to take you to " http://www.fotolia.com/Member/TaxCenter" where there is the general information about requirements. I pointed this out to them, but as yet no change. Currently there is no link anywhere that I can see that takes members straight to this information area. (Not that the area is particularly helpful once you do get there...)
72
« on: December 12, 2009, 17:13 »
Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent. With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more.
Are you saying that 80% of your microstock income comes from IS???
I would imagine Lisa means that if she were exclusive her commissions would double (as a diamond level), so she must be making roughly 40% of her total earnings from IS. My level is about the same - it fluctuates between 39%-42%. So it will be a matter of watching and waiting in the New year to see how IS sales alter, before making the exclusivity decision. I do this full-time, so it's a decision that I would not make lightly, and even then with lots of trepidation!
73
« on: December 03, 2009, 18:49 »
I am not applying for an ITIN just for fotolia. If they do withhold any tax, I can put that on my tax return and I wont have to pay so much in my own country. Hopefully, when they see how badly their contributes feel about this, they will have to do what SS did and let us have all our money without the ITIN number. They have disappointed me so many times lately that I am not sure if I will be with them in years to come. There are lots of other places to sell my images.
I'm not sure what country you're from, but in my case here in Australia there are limits on how much credit can be claimed for foreign tax paid. It's not a matter of simply reporting the US tax paid on my income tax return and reducing local tax paid by the same amount. That would be too easy! So you might want to check this out further in your own country.
74
« on: December 03, 2009, 16:53 »
You need a letter/document from Fotolia to support the W7 - application for ITIN. I asked Fotolia for this, and the response was that their executive team is working on it, and will post info about it in a few days.
75
« on: December 03, 2009, 12:33 »
OK, you all have good reason to be concerned about the word "may" !!! I've just received an answer from FT support to my specific query. Here is my question and their response: My question: "... I am an individual living in a tax treaty country. If I submit a W-8BEN WITHOUT AN ITIN, will Fotolia deduct tax on my US sales at the reduced tax treaty rate?... FT support answer: Dear Robyn, Unfortunatelly not. If no ITIN is submitted the form will be subject to the default 30% rate withholding. Kind regards, Fotolia Team U.S" Good grief! So what is the point of lodging the W8-BEN at all? Why is the FT policy different to what SS is doing? In any case, I shall get the ball rolling on applying for an ITIN.
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