it's a start : ) ... are you going to widen its scope in the future? 

For a start there are so many problems with account closures.  How about a statement that no account can be closed if it doesn't break the terms and conditions?  Closures can be so arbitrary, with no robust appeals process.

I'm watching the issues of other agencies. The Fairstock initiative is still in early stage, so for now I'm gathering information and adding people to the list so I know what we have and then I have some ideas in what direction would be the best with it...

Why is it so hard to be ethical?  You said 'There's no agency that will be "clean" forever as there are people in every agency and people are not perfect.'

We're trying every day.

Can you not implement a system of checks and balances to counteract this problem?  Or are you saying all agencies are inately corrupt and there's no solution for it?

It's there now. But as the system keeps changing (new features) new issues keeps entering our work. So we fix one issue, work a few months on the innovation of the product and once someone makes a mistake or just not realize that feature X influences feature Y another problem approaches us. It's in every agency, but not all of the problems get public.

We do all make mistakes, but the kind of mistakes where our earnings go in your pocket requires something more concrete than an apology.

I understand that. And that's why I try to explain everything. Talk to you guys here and work on a solution to prevent such issues in future. Be sure that the cost of the issue was high. Not only in money, but also in time and the most important thing: We lost trust. I know that there's no way we can take back time, so the only thing is to tell you as much information here as I can.

You think the solution is for us to forgive you fast - but it's up to you to prove we can trust you, isn't it?  What are doing to guarantee this doesn't happen again?

You're right. We've been investigating this internally. We've implemented several new control mechanisms. We've returned the money to contributors and I've launched the Fair Stock Agency initiative to clearly state the issues that might happen to any agency in future. I'll be working on this in the future and will try to avoid any such problems in the future.

As I told you guys before. I'm clever enough to realize that without each of you on our side we're lost. I'm not going to do any activity that would result in negative buzz or loose of trust. Sure I can't avoid new issues to approach us, but I'll definitely try to be open and honest.

This is not good for either reputation. I'm disappointed and afraid we will be just left with an icky gut feeling...

The thing is that everything is relative. People make mistakes every day. The difference is between those people that try to fix and learn from the mistakes and those that are silent to the issues or try to blame others. One example for all is this: "What if we as agency sell an image to a customer that uses the image in a wrong way?" It would be wrong, but do we have any chance to find it out if it's on the other side of the world? Or do we always have enough information about the scale of such misuses? Probably not. Should we cry or scream?

The only thing you can do towards agencies and we can do towards customers is "Watch and learn." The world is changing, technology is changing, culture is different in every country etc. We can either work together to become stronger together. Or fight with each other to make each of us weaker. Everybody has to choose the preferred approach to his/her live. At Pixmac we try to stick to fundamental rules of crowd-sourcing where the crowd has the power and Pixmac is only it's tool. Sure not all our steps were the right ones, but that's when one tries to innovate and push the product forward.

Thank you everyone for the feedback. Although some of you think this initiative is not going to work because of business politics I�m sure this might help all levels of agencies and contributors in the long run.

Real life examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_Guide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_NCAP

Both initiatives have impact on customers and producers as well. They don�t force anyone to do this or that. They just award those who do it objectively right. It impacts the business indirectly but the long term results are pretty strong.

From the discussion here and under the initial article at www.microstockdiaries.com it�s clearly visible that there might be some additions to the beta of FairStock idea. Please tell me what you think makes sense:

1. Ranking

This is a brilliant idea! Thank you Cory. I can imagine 3 levels as you said, where the contributor can get an extra bonuses such as better revenue split, easier upload, no need to upload MR files with each JPG file etc. The main benefit for agencies would come when responsible contributors would switch to Fair agencies only. And also to clearly show the agency�s qualification to sell the creative content responsibly without leaks and grey zones.

2. Auditing

Same as flagging of images with keyword spam. We all work with agencies/cntent every day and that gives us million of eyes to watch each agency or contributor doing bad stuff. The consequences might be that contributor that does bad stuff would be rejected from all �Fair� agencies at once. Buyer that does a lot of strange refunds might be rejected too. And an agency that would not be able to treat it�s contributors fairly might be audited by FairStock initiative while receiving a public rank even if not a part of the initiative.

3. Top Contributors and Big Agencies

Everyone who participates in this needs a reason to participate. That�s for sure. Fair Trade Coffee and stuff like that is initiative that forces either business or customers to do something. It�s similar to sustainability of Europe Union with all it�s artificial regulations. This FairStock initiative (now I realize the name was not chosen right) should rather talk to both camps and ask each what would be acceptable and effective. And finding a compromise that would result in a sustainable yet profitable business for all parties. In the end it could be that 15/85 for newcomers is the right split. Who knows? If the top content is only available at the �Fair� agencies the customers will find it.


Other ideas

The �secrecy passus� issue. Thank you Pancaketom and Cobalt and others. The idea behind this was that people usually assume on forums before they speak with the agency. I wanted to avoid misunderstandings there. It could be said differently, please suggest anything.

The 50/50 issue. Thank you for that Dirkr. Even that short term interest of an agency might be high profitability, lowering the revenue for contributor brings long term difficulties. I agree that 50/50 could seem as a ideal split. But we don�t live in an ideal world so the split will always be changing. It would be great to open each agency books to everyone, but that�s not possible for a simple reason: competition.

If I may speak of Pixmac, our target is to give the contributor as much as possible. Increasing the revenue for contributor in time, that is the most important thing that keeps photographers working with the agency. And I believe that agency should become just an effective �marketing layer� for example as Amazon.com where margin is the lowest in the retail industry. For an agency it should be primarily about volume, not margin. This will actually happen in the future, we just need some time to get there.


I�d be very happy to read/hear any other issues or ideas here. That�s the only way the idea could fly. I know it�s difficult for some of you to discuss it with an agency�s CEO and also a member of an agency which approaches the industry in a disruptive way. Still from the other point of view we�ve made a few things already that inspired the big agencies so I hope we�re not �just another agency�.

I always say: �Innovation is like a walk through a mine field. Every step is risky.�

How could you...

It's a beta. It's a proposal. We launched it to get the feedback and soon comply with the rules we and you set.

I think that if a "fair trade commission" is going to be founded to provide honesty and transparency to buyers, contributors and agencies, a simple answer like "political issues" isn't going to fly. Who was responsible for stripping out the copyright? Someone has to know, but no one wants to claim responsibility. What has been done since to remedy that situation? Apparently nothing, because just 2-3 weeks ago, my images were on a partner site with copyright info stripped out. Nobody's talking. Nothing has changed.

Please, look into history of MSG forum, Shutterstock's forum and our blog before you say this about Pixmac.

Political issues?

Political issues.

We are still waiting for payment from our distributor, but it should be out shortly. Linda

Is it us? If yes, the payment should be there already, or at least it's in the wires :-)

Hmm, that's interesting. It seemed each of the top sites were growing steadily. Could that be the Fotolia's PhotoXpress site?

And another question:
If I upload directly to Pixmac, will all my partner program images be removed?

I want to maximize my royalties and I don't want to have partner downloads through Pixmac if I upload there directly as well.

You're the manager :-) We usually remove all content of photographers who are directly at Pixmac upon request so there are no duplicates and also the system is more transparent for you. There's also a system detecting duplicates that does that more or less automatically, but if you have complete portfolio at Pixmac it makes sense.

Uploaded a few today to check it out. You're right, upload is nice.

Got an email tonight that says
We are pleased to inform you that your images have been processed today.
To see more information please log in to www.pixmac.com and go to the Sell Images section.

I log in and don't see anything that say's Sell Images. Also, if I click my account and go to photographer, it shows everything is waiting, so not sure what Processed means.

Thank you dbvirago for the comment. I'll pass that to Lucy, as she knows more about that part of Pixmac system.

Hello everyone. I'm a bit confused :-)

Is there anyone having issues with Pixmac approval times, it's rejection rate and reasons? If yes, please send us an email to [email protected] and Lucie will explain everything individually. We have several people in the approval team and Lucie is their supervisor.

Thank you!

I am also very glad to hear that the API partners cannot further sublicense the images.

I've seen many contracts and it was never allowed. So I guess it's always like that.