Shutterstock owes all their video contributors an explanation to these obscene video prices at Bigstock! What on earth is going on Shutterstock?

This is a forum for contributors, not Shutterstock shareholders. How is this exciting news for contributors?

Canva is doing a lot of new things - micro rights managed, buyer never gets our files, and design in the browser. I'm willing to cut them a fair bit of slack to see if this can fly

50% is meaningless in the absence of some context

But there is plenty of context here! And yes, Canva is doing a lot of very interesting things, but you should still be payed at least 50% when they sell your IP.

The fact that the license is only valid for one time is a great thing, but it is certainly not an argument that Canva should keep 65% from selling your images.

Its really sad that we are now so used to getting screwed with low commissions that there are actually contributors defending 35%.

Pretty glowing review of DPC from Amos Struck.

I get that Amos is in the business of working with both contributors and agencies and has to remain fairly neutral. But he could have at least mentioned the controversy and that this is a hot issue with contributors.

I agree. By promoting a site that is so bad for contributors, Amos shows that he really does not care about the contributors at all. It is disappointing since he is one of the people arranging Microstockexpo. I am now happy that I decided not to buy access.

I understand that some people get payed in Euro and others in Dollars on Fotolia and that there is no way of changing this.  Can someone with good grasp of this situation please explain it here? Is the conversion of Fotolia credit to Dollars the same as the conversion of Fotolia credit to Euro? If this is the case then contributors payed in Dollars are getting about 30% less than contributors payed in Dollars!

Is this really the case?

This is probably a good time to also educate fotolia contributors (including myself) about this subject, and I would be happy if you could help me out.

Quote from: EmberMike on April 28, 2014, 22:46

Quote from: MatHayward on April 27, 2014, 14:10

I am a contributor with a vested interest in overall sales growth.  Here are my FT portfolios: 

http://us.fotolia.com/p/19000

http://us.fotolia.com/p/200920505

Are you employed by Fotolia?

Hi everyone,
 
Yes, after volunteering as a moderator in the Fotolia forum for many years I made the decision to leave the restaurant business I had been in for more than 25 years and turn my focus to my true passion of photography.  The timing was fortuitous as an opening came available on the Customer Service team at Fotolia that I happily accepted this past September. 
 
Working in this position has allowed me the opportunity to see firsthand the passion and commitment the team at Fotolia has towards increasing business and revenue for all involved including photographers.  Going into the job I have the unique perspective of looking at it from the view of a contributing photographer.
 
As much as I love to talk about myself (NOT!) I would like to reiterate a couple of solid points that some people in this forum are attempting to brush off as irrelevant.  The license at Dollar Photo Club has changed as a direct result of the urging of contributors.  The license at Dollar Photo Club has always been a Standard License but now it has been made more clear.  Customers cannot use the images in items that will be resold where the primary value comes from the image (tee shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) and there is now a limit of 500K on the run.   As it has been pointed out here, the only difference between buying an image at any stock agency  with a subscription plan and buying it at Dollar Photo Club is the fact that the customer can continue to use their purchased downloads even after cancelling their membership.
 
The fact that a customer can continue to use their available downloads without them expiring means that again, a higher percentage of overall spending goes to the contributor.  If a member of Fotolia or any stock agency buys a subscription and allows the subscription to expire before using their available downloads, those downloads expire and no commission is paid to the photographer. 
 
Dollar Photo Club is hitting a previously untapped market and is driving sales at  fast rate.  I recommend you think it through with logic rather than passion before deciding if you want to be a part of the growth or simply a witness to it.  As has been mentioned, you now have the option to opt out or opt back in manually in your account settings.  If you have any questions or concerns my email address is [email protected] and I will be happy to start a dialog with you one on one.

-Mat Hayward

You really should have been much much more clear about this.

Yay contributor you need to opt out now or terminate your account! Here is why:

You can now download almost the entire Yaymicro database (original high resolution images and vectors) for just 99$ - at least if your internet connection is fast enough to pull down 4 million images in one month.

That is correct! If you have not opted out, buyers can now download your entire full resolution portfolio for only 99$, and you will only see a tiny undisclosed fraction of that money. It is almost impossible to grasp that Yaymicro have sunk this deep, but I have read it 4 times so I am starting to believe it now.

Read it here: http://yayimages.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14

And then go deactivate your account or at least opt out!

Yaymicro have totally misjudged their position in the market on this one. They do not have any leverage, as they do not produce nearly enough sales to make hard for anybody to pull out.

The only way Yaymicro can hope for this to work is by keeping the contributors uninformed. With 4 million images, most contributors are still opted in. Please spread the word in your contributor network. This needs to be stopped!

Yay contributors, what do you plan to do about this?

Questions to Yaymicro:

This is such a radical change in the terms and conditions that contributors signed on for and it is clearly highly unethical that you have set the default option to "opt in" for this new product. Will do the only fair thing and set the default to "opt out"?

When were we informed about this?
 
Also, Please explain how this is not screwing over contributors in the worst possible way? And please no nonsense about new markets.

 

Is there anywhere we can read about this?

Quote from: somethingpretentious on November 13, 2013, 15:11

Quote from: Tror on November 13, 2013, 06:53

I don`t know where always this possibly false information and negative feedback about payoneer pops up as soon as they post something on this board, but I am very happy with payoneer, never got charged anything unreasonable and they are my favourite payout option.

Thanks guys and keep up the good service and contributor relations by posting and responding here!

what false information?

possibly false information since I cannot confirm your experiences.

Would you then be so kind as to specify what information that is possibly false according to you?

This topic is to notify anyone selling on Pond5 of new payout options. These include:

Global Bank Transfers - receive direct bank transfers to more than 200 countries, in over 50 currencies. Cost starting at only $2.99 per transfer with very competitive exchange rates. This is a much quicker and lower cost option when compared to traditional wire solutions.

Payoneer Prepaid Debit MasterCard Card - funds are available within minutes, to over 200 countries, with immediate access to cash in hand.

Regarding exchange rates, please note that funds are converted based on MasterCard's official currency exchange rates. While I do appreciate your feedback, our pricing is extremely competitive when compared to other available solutions and we offer account holders the flexibility to choose the option that works best for them. The Payoneer card offers may benefits, and so does our Global Bank Transfer Service - users should choose the option that works best for them.

Mastercard exchange rates vary and the exchange rates payoneer mastercard has are just horrible.

Please explain why Payoneer charges 1% on US dollar transactions made in US with US dollar? I have never heard of any other Mastercard that does that.

Remember that Payoneer charges insane commissions and are very very intransparent about it. It might look fine, but it is not. Payoneer might be relevant if you live in the US. For anybody else there are better solutions.

In this case a simple opt-out does the work. I just hope that the vast majority of contributors recognizes this, than Yay can start their streaming product without content.

I disagree. All contributors are by default opted in. The vast majority of contributors will never read this and will not be aware of that their files are included in a streaming product. Many does not even read English. Yay is taking advantage of this.

For a product so horrible for contributors, the default should surely be "opted out".