Contacted them to opt me out of partnership programs. Will wait and see before resuming uploads.

+1

Quote from: pixsol on March 14, 2014, 00:22

I delayed the inevitable since I had a very small portfolio. But, I decided to go ahead with my OPT OUT:
"Please OPT OUT my FULL portfolio (##) with your agency from all your partnership and reseller programs so that my images will be sold SOLELY on depositphotos.com. Please ensure that my images are removed from all Partners and Resellers at the earliest."

Let me see how quickly this gets done.

It took DP almost a month to take me off their partner sites, claiming that it was a 'difficult technical process'.  By comparison, I read another contributor's post that the same thing was done by another agency (DT) promptly and immediately when requested.  We can draw our conclusions from that!

I am sure it will take a similar timeframe for me though I am hoping that it would be quicker (like the reply on the ticket that I received in about 2 hours )

I delayed the inevitable since I had a very small portfolio. But, I decided to go ahead with my OPT OUT:
"Please OPT OUT my FULL portfolio (##) with your agency from all your partnership and reseller programs so that my images will be sold SOLELY on depositphotos.com. Please ensure that my images are removed from all Partners and Resellers at the earliest."

Let me see how quickly this gets done.

+ The model contacts the stock sites.  All of them except Fotolia refer her to me, since I uploaded a signed and witnessed model release.  Fotolia blocks my entire account.  (Bear in mind that once photos are uploaded to Fotolia and submitted, they cannot be edited, nor can they be deleted, by the contributor.)

Carl - You are right about the images being non-editable. But, I was able to delete images in the past. Is this a new change in FT ?

Yes. I pinged support twice. Now, I dont bother. I let them review it when they get to it. It takes about 3 - 4 weeks. Good thing, they clear all the backlog when they do the review. So, a bunch of 20 images submitted at 5 or 6 different timelines get reviewed at once.

Looks like the Valentine's month at IS has finally come to an end !

If the subject line of the sale mail has "Fotolia - File Sold (Subscription)‏" it should have been a subscription sale. It is for 0.25$ at the entry level. In this case, the sale would have happened in the US and you have been deducted another 0.07$ for the withholiding tax. This is what I think has happened based on my experience (entry level) with FT.

Quote from: pixsol on February 23, 2014, 02:40

What could be the reason for customers to buy from Shotshop, when they can buy them cheaper via DP (credits or subs) ? Is DP not accessible to German markets ?

Maybe (I have no idea) Shotshop has better SEO, therefore a customer might find them there and have no idea they are available via DP (and often via other low-cost sites also). I have no idea how many customers would do a GIS to see if an image is available cheaper elsewhere.

Sue - What you say is definitely a good possibility !

Quote from: pixsol on February 23, 2014, 02:40

What could be the reason for customers to buy from Shotshop, when they can buy them cheaper via DP (credits or subs) ? Is DP not accessible to German markets ?

Of course, they are available and they offer an interface complete in German. Wondering the same, so I don't have an answer! But it must be lucrative in any way.

Thanks Roede-orm !

I'm not going to engage in debate over exclusive vs indie, but I don't think you're comparing apples to apples in thinking you do better than the poll

I think that there are a ton of newbie figures in everything but the IS exclusive poll. If you filtered those out I think you'd see something very different - earnings comparable with risk spread as an indie vs less admin work and all your eggs in one basket as exclusive

+1

Being a newbie myself, it is a long route to become an IS exclusive considering the very few DLs I get in IS. I am happy that SS gives a reasonable revenue opportunity for newbies. For the sake of all the photographes (pros and amateurs), I would like a range of agencies to be successful and just not one. If the agencies can also become more contributor friendly, nothing like it 

It's good to remember that DT penalizes you for having lots of keywords. All things being equal, images with more keywords appear lower in search results at DT. When submitting there, I usually delete a few of my less important keywords. I think it helps.

I know that DT allows for a maximum of 75 keywords. Could you please tell me what will be the maximum keywords to have based on your experience ? Thanks !

I have asked and invited them to answer on this thread .

They answered me directly by email:

"Our Partnership programs have been created to boost your sales and expose your portfolio to new markets.
Our API re-sellers re-sell images not only by subscriptions but by credits as well. Your royalty rate is fixed and depends whether our API re-sellers purchased your files by credits or by subscriptions directly on depositphotos.com. Once your file is sold by credits, you will get your commissions that you usually receive  when your files are sold by credits, depending  on your contributor's level. So the point is that our partners re-sell your portfolio by credits as well throughout the world. Regardless the way your files are sold on our partner sites, Depositphotos remains your main source of revenue.

If you want to opt out of all our partner deals, please confirm and your portfolio will be sold only on depositphotos.com."

Why is a partner having to buy images via depositphotos.com like a regular buyer ? Do they not have the API route to get all the DP images and host them on their site ? If I were to go by the statement from DP (in bold), it means that I will get a max of 1 subs sale per image purchased by Shotshop eventhough Shotshop might sell the image any number of times. In reality, I checked for any sales on DP for an image of mine that I saw in Shotshop and I could not find any sale (subs or credits) in DP. To be honest, I am not sure what exactly is the real deal 

I thought you'd already discovered that it's a delayed royalty?

Yes Sue, I did but since this is the first time a subscription sale has occurred for me, I was not sure about when the delayed royalty will come through. From your response, I could get that it will come but can be delayed a bit though.