All I can say to all this is that one of the first things you learn as a lawyer is that just because people say that something is a certain way in a contract does not mean that's how it really is.

Just because your contract has a clause saying "this is freelancing and not employment" does not mean that employment law doesn't apply, no matter how much you want it to. And just because you say it's a marketplace and you don't owe sales tax does not make it so, either.

As a contributor to this "marketplace" I will not worry too much about this. These are people that walk like an agency and talk like an agency. They review the content, they brand it with their watermarks, they set the licenses as well as the prices, they process the payment, and so on and so on... Chances are, any judge and any tax authority will recognize them as an agency.

Quote from: stockastic on February 15, 2015, 21:25

Quote from: Lizard on February 15, 2015, 21:07

Quote from: stockastic on February 15, 2015, 20:15

Before I waste a lot of time on this - could someone give me a quick bottom line on 500px?  Is it another exclusive club that accepts a chosen few, or can anyone come in?  Do all photos get exposure or is it another crazy 'curating' game like Crated?  What's the 'catch'?  Every new site has one :-)

There is some free option but generally you have to pay for the sweets 

Oh, so it's Pay To Play.  I think I remember that now.   Oh well.

I don't pay. Still get sales. More than on FAA.

+1, although I have nothing bad to say about FAA either

Quote from: Semmick Photo on February 16, 2015, 02:12

Same as faa. Made my money back on faa 100 fold. Made my money back on 500px 15 fold in the first year. Great catch

I sell now and then on FAA so maybe 500px is worth a try.   You're talking about print sales on 500px, right? They're a POD?

They are not POD but licences, IIRC

For now they sell both POD and licenses. You as a contributor get to choose whether to allow one or the other or both per image.

I just took a brief look and I'm totally confused.  On at least one photo I saw what appeared to be a print option.  I tried to find a 'contributor' or 'seller' section that laid out the terms and options, but failed after wandering around their too-cute site for a while.  For example, it says you get 70%.  But of what? Do you set your prices or do they?  Do they read IPTC? 

I freely admit I just don't have the patience for this stuff anymore... especially sites that are all over you to "Sign Up" before you can even read their terms.

UPDATE: found a FAQ of sorts, and this statement:

"Please note: We will close the 500px Art market as of late 2015. To continue selling photos on 500px, submit them to 500px Prime. To continue purchasing printed art from 500px, visit 500px Prime, where you can purchase full resolution digital images for printing through an online provider, such as Gallery Direct."

So now I'm even more confused.  No way am I selling anyone a full size image.

Your confusion is understandable. Part of this is that 500px and 500px Prime are being kept apart quite thoroughly, with 500px being the photography community and Prime being the marketplace. As a contributor, you contribute by enabling your 500px (i.e. community) photos to be sold on 500px Prime (i.e. the marketplace).

Prime is relatively new and before it existed, there was already an option for selling POD and -- as you describe -- direct downloads for private use. That part, the art market, wasn't separated from 500px and is now closing. In fact, the direct downloads for private use option is already gone.

The licensing model is RF. They take editorial and commercial. As for royalties, they pay out 70% of the gross sale, so *a lot* more than anybody else. The shown prices in Prime are $50 for web/social, $250 for a regular RF, and $750 for "products for resale", i.e. an EL. As I already remarked, math says my recent sale must have been for $350, so there must be other (irregular) options as well.

My run-down of 500px is simple:

1. I joined them before there was a (true) sales function, because at the time I was looking for an alternative to Flickr, which was more and more looking like Yahoo had finally run it into the ground. I like online photo pages with social interaction features (the "likes" everybody around here hates so much) and I had over the years made very positive experiences with sales through them (people messaging me because of a photo on Flickr and me ending up making a direct sale).

2. It turned out they were different from Flickr in a couple of ways. Mostly, their much sleeker design and inherent focus on quality rather than quantity in your portfolio attracts a very different crowd. Many "fine arts" folk and less of a "gear enthusiast" community like Flickr tends to attract. Not judging here, I am more of a gear enthusiast myself, but I like looking at fine art, so I like both.

3. I never paid a cent to them. I have a free account, and at the moment I don't think I see the need to upgrade. Maybe for their portfolio function, but I shall decide that later.

4. Today, they are a site were I put my most "artsy" photos, the ones I myself like best. I then link to it when I want to show someone what I can do. So they are a portfolio. However, they also have their market, and while this was my first real sale, it is a very nice one.

5. Yes, I ended up *getting* $245. I don't know how, it must have been some license that is not shown among the standard stuff. Contributors get 70% (gasp!), so the sale must have been for $350.

WHEN...and it's gotta be inevitable...WHEN they eventually drop exclusivity, will exclusives be bound to the 30-day limbo where they can't approach/upload to other agencies?

Why is this inevitable? If I were them, I might decide to stop accepting new exclusives, and I might slowly worsen the exclusivity program to the point where people may leave on their own, but what reason would they have to phase it out entirely? What would they win?

My biggest hesitation right now is that it is only 9.95 (or so...)  wasn't it over $30 when they introduced it?  What happens to everyone once they renew in a year?  9.95 per month in perpetuity sounds fairly reasonable.  But then again, I paid a lot for CS5 and don't feel the need to throw any more money at Adobe until absolutely necessary.

Currently they are saying it will stay at 9.95. Depending on inflation I am sure that will be raised sooner or later, but I doubt it will go back to 29.95. There is a reason why they lowered it.

That's strange because I opted for sharpening to be off. I shot jpeg and RAW just to see how the RX10 made jpegs. I opted for vivid though. This image has not been touched in LR, only the RAW version which was submitted.

If I can get near to the Nikon D200 quality I will be happy but perhaps this is going to be my first camera for video and second as stills. The D200  (when sensor has been cleaned) will be my main for quality as it seems more reliable. Shame.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.

If the rx10 is anything like my rx100 III there is no way to turn off in-camera sharpening of JPEGs. Same goes for the very heavy-handed noise reduction. Shoot Raw.

I received 2 sales of this:
Amount received �0.10
Date 1/27/15 10:38 AM
Item High-res: 183370 (0983 Scale.jpg)
Purchase method Monthly package
Filename 0983 Scale.jpg

What kind of monthly package generates this sale? :-( Looking at their offers and prices at https://www.mostphotos.com/billing I see quite decent prices vs number of downloads included. Those numbers aren't supposed to generate such ridiculously low revenues (?)

It's the sort of sale that makes you realize Mostphoto is one of those rare sites where you shouldn't just stop uploading, you should pull your port and close your account! I'll do it as soon as I hit payout. Although by then my copyright will probably have expired anyway.

Quote from: MarcvsTvllivs on January 31, 2015, 16:17

Quote from: MarcvsTvllivs on January 20, 2015, 16:44

How about the "our contributor console doesn't strip out capital letters" project? How's that coming along?

O. M. G.

They fixed it.

OMG can somebody inform Sean about it?...It took him almost 2 years of begging to get this fixed.
Party time  - http://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/how-to-waste-money-on-promoting-free-content/msg406671/?topicseen#new

Haha... indeed. Thanks, Jonathan! Finally someone listened to us.

I'm sorry to hear that you, or anybody, is pulling his stuff from micros.
But I can't agree with you that a smartphone is good enough for anything serious . I have the latest smartphone and its pictures are a joke.

You bought the wrong smartphone then. The iPhone's photos are quite sufficient to sell as Stock and have been ever since the 4S. That being said, it is of course nonsense that the phone is enough to shoot all kinds of photos and in all kinds of situations.

However, so far the lowest return was 5 dollars, the highest 42 dollars, ...

That sounds better than being directly with Getty, actually. Loads of "Premium Access" B.S. in the microstock range there.

And I'm surprised as well as my approval is 100%.

Mine used to be 100% when they first started with photos, now it is about 50% and there is no rhyme or reason to the refusals.

Laugh all you want guys but this is the only agency that is truly contributor friendly.
If we all would have supported this agency when it needed us the most we would be making triple of what we do now.
Of course sales aren't what you expect them to be there. Prices there are higher then the competition and somehow we like to guide customers to the more greedy agencies out there to get some quick sales anyway.
Us photographers and designers are supposed to be smarter then that no?

Sorry, how are $ .15 image sales "contributor friendly"? Because those are all I ever got from them. No, really, even dropping Depositphotos wasn't quite as much of a no-brainer as dropping Yay.