I just received this email:
After careful consideration of the feedback we've received from the community over the past couple of weeks regarding the soon to be released Photos.com Plus and Jupiterimages Unlimited Plus, we will be making several changes to incorporate your concerns and address key issues. While we hope these changes will be viewed as positive, we will explain them in detail here so you can quickly and easily decide for yourself. As with our last email, we're choosing to include a great deal of detail so you can better understand the issues. Please accept our apologies for the length.
Of 1.8 million images available for licensing on Stockxpert, as of today about 1.3 million are available for inclusion in subscriptions (and growing at about 30,000 a week). So why are we making these changes? Two reasons: first, we want as many contributors as possible participating in these new opportunities, and; second, you were right. Options like extended licenses have value and we should be charging extra for them.
As you'll recall, the new Photos.com Plus (Photos.com+) subscription plan is an extension of Photos.com, one of the oldest and most popular photo subscriptions on the internet. The second opportunity is the coming launch of the Jupiterimages Unlimited Plus subscription, or JIU+. Jupiterimages Unlimited is one of the fastest growing subscription businesses at Jupiterimages and we're excited to add the fresh, stylized images of Stockxpert to the collection.
As both of these new subscriptions are extensions of existing subscriptions with many, many customers, we were faced with the difficult task of creating an end user license agreement (EULA) that met the expectations of current customers as well as contributors. Based on your feedback, we're making the following changes.
Photos.com Plus
We will revise our Photos.com Plus EULA, introduce new extended license options, and adjust our single image pricing.
We will be introducing an Extended License option on Photos.com Plus. It will be sold for $100, and it will grant license for one of the following: physical items for resale , print runs in excess of 250,000, or a 10 user multi-seat license. This was a late addition to Photos.com+, so we had to get creative in how we could build this functionality into the product. Photos.com+ does not support selling a discreet image resolution and a separate extended license, so our solution was to create a new purchase option which would include these rights and the image file itself. As such, logically the extended license option will include the highest resolution JPG or EPS PPD image available.
We have revised and simplified the pricing for single image downloads in two of three instances. Pay per download (PPD) for the two highest resolutions is available to non-subscribers, Photos.com-only subscribers and Photos.com+ subscribers. PPD prices were to be higher for non-subscribers ($219.95/$299.95) and Photos.com-only subscribers ($179.95/$239.95). Based on customer feedback, we think these price points are out of line with the market. We will instead be charging the same price for PPD regardless of whether you're a subscriber or not, and if so, what subscription you have. At launch, all PPD pricing will be at the Photos.com+ subscriber rate, which will be as follows:
EPS - $50/image (standard license)
Super (roughly XL on Stockxpert) - $50/image (standard license)
Extended License - $100 - Includes the highest resolution PPD JPG image available
or the EPS and a choice of one of the following: physical items for resale, print runs
in excess of 250,000, or a 10 user multi-seat license.
Now ideally, a Stockxpert contributor should be able to be opted in to subscriptions but opted out of selling extended licenses (although we would hope most would be opted into both). Unfortunately, as this is a last minute change, at launch we will not be able to distinguish between these two settings. So if you want to participate in Photos.com+, you will have to be opted into BOTH subscriptions and extended licenses. We will fix this issue in a patch release within a few months.
Make sure the following boxes are checked in your profile:
5. Extended License settings
7. Subscriptions at Stockxpert.com
We will exclude the following usages from the standard Photos.com EULA (which covers Photos.com and Photos.com Plus):
a. Physical Items for Resale
b. Print Runs in excess of 250,000
c. Multi-seats for pay-per-download images
Jupiterimages Unlimited Plus
At launch, we will not be able to sell an extended license on the site although we will be able to do so when a customer calls in, which is what we expect to happen in most cases anyway. This limitation will be messaged in the image details window on JIU+. Accommodating this change in JIU+ proved much more problematic. Our solution for launch is not ideal but again, as with Photos.com+, we will follow up with a patch release in a couple of months to add better functionality and the ability to buy an extended license right from JIU+.
We will revise our JIU EULA and, later, introduce a new extended license option.
We will exclude the following usages from the standard JIU EULA (which covers JIU and JIU+) only for StockXpert content:
a. Physical Items for Resale
b. Print Runs in excess of 250,000
Timing
Photos.com+ is launching on or about August 20th. If, based on these changes, you now want to participate in the launch of Photos.com+ and JIU+, you may opt-in at any time. We will update Photos.com Plus and JIU+ with Stockxpert images roughly on a weekly basis.
Image Size Categories
Throughout our communication with you regarding Photos.com+ and JIU+ we have been framing image sizes in context of the Stockxpert sizing standard. As you may have noticed on Photos.com, however, image size categories are different than image size categories on Stockxpert. Because of this there are some discrepancies when mapping Stockxpert images to Photos.com categories.
On Photos.com, only "Super", "Ultra", and EPS sized files are sold as PPDs. "Super" roughly equates to an "XL" Stockxpert image, and an "Ultra" roughly equates to an "XXL" Stockxpert image. An image is categorized as "Super" if its longest side has a length between 3300 and 4824 pixels. An image is categorized as "Ultra" if its longest side is longer than 4824 pixels. If, however, your Stockxpert "XXL" image falls below the pixel length range for an "Ultra", it will be available as a "Super" PPD and EL. We have updated the product grid at
http://www.stockxpert.com/lpages/contributor for more information on mapping image size categories.
Going Forward
Later in the year we're going to investigate the possibility of having one EULA for any subscription which includes Stockxpert content. We believe this will go a long way toward simplifying these kinds of issues for contributors and customers alike. If it turns out that this is not practical, for subscriptions that do not conform to the standard Stockxpert subscription EULA, we agree that we should offer specific opt-outs for each non-conforming subscription.
As always thank you for your continued patience, support, and feedback as we work through and implement these changes. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at
[email protected].
Best regards,
- The Stockxpert Team
September 11, 2010, 09:52
