MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Yaymicro => Topic started by: Microbius on April 16, 2013, 03:47
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Here's the email:
"Hi, hope everything is going well!
We're writing to let you know about an exciting new product release here at YAY. Later this week we are releasing a new product: Image Deals for small and medium images. It works the same way as high-res Image Deals does: The customer buys a package of images, and can download these when needed.
We've set the prices and commission with the same steps as for single images. The medium is half the price of high-res, and small are 1/10. This gives you the following commission:
€1 (= $1.3) for high-res,
€0.5 (=$0.65) for medium, up to 3MP
€0.1 (=$0.13) for web sized images, no larger than 0.3MP
The average commission is 35%.
Our aim is to get people to pay for web and medium sized images, as many people still find their images by using search engines and such. We also hope to up-sell from web images to medium and high-res images.
Nothing is set in stone, and we would love to get your feedback on this. If you have any feedback or questions, reply to this email and we'll get back to you!
Best wishes,
The YAY Team"
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Way too cheap!
Really, there is no need to be that cheap, all it does undercut ourselves to a point of stupidity.
What a joke
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Prices are too low, I am not happy about this... :(
I am really not looking forward to mass of 0.1E sales...
I am definitely going to write them about this - or hopefully someone from Yaymicro
will discuss it here with us.
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Average commission 35%? Why is it 15% below the normal 50%?
Just when I was starting to like YM, lower prices and a huge commission cut must be a late April fools joke?
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**sigh** I am tired of this
Maybe another site I'll have to pull my port from if they follow through with this inane idea.
Seriously thinking of only having SS and RM sites for my stuff...
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Edit
Sorry I though the number quoted were the sale prices.
Still low
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YAY advertise 50% commission and have reasonable on-demand prices.
So why 35% and not 50%?
Are there other "deals" or "packages" where commission is less than 50%? (besides the partner program)
0.13 $ pr download? Maybe we sucked that up for a little while at iStock, but that was because they provided us with about 50-100 times more income than YAY. I am not sure YAY is big enough to get away with this.
YAY is also shooting themselves in the foot with regards to all the great iStock exclusives leaving and looking for new venues. One of the biggest microstockers Sean Locke, who has many followers, are right now looking for new venues. Why not take an opportunity like this, to win over photographers of his caliber, instead of alienating them, as well as many of your current contributors?
This can take YAY from one of the most fair and liked agencies to one of the worst. Very disappointing.
Let us indeed hope for YAY that nothing is set in stone.
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IMHO 13c is just crazy (aside from the commission percentage cut)
I have been a fan of YAY in the past, if this goes ahead add me to the list of people thinking of pulling their port.
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Im not going to upload anymore there, 1500 port with one sale over a year pathetic, i will leave account open for now and see if a miracle happens, but i seriously doubt it!!!
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Hi guys,
I just want to give a little more explanation on our thoughts here.
First of all: We are not cutting any provisions. They will stay at the same level that they always have.
With these new products (small and medium sized image deals) we are reaching out to a whole new market, namely web users. Today there are really no good offers for people who use a lot of images on their blogs, websites, homepages or social media accounts. Research has shown that 85 % of image use online is actually unlicensed and illegal. This is an untapped market with huge potential. There are over 160 million blogs and 649 million websites in the world. That is the market we want to sell these images to.
The commission we offer has the same ratio as our image deals and subscriptions have had for the last 5 years. It varies according the the size of the deal, but average is 35 % which is still above most of our competitors. I certainly understand that it looks like pennies when we pay a commission of €0.10 (USD 0.13) for a small image, but please consider that this image is less than 1/20th the size of the high-res. One of the largest microstock sites in the world pays $0.25 for a high-res download on the basic level. Our commission for high-res images bought through an image deal is 520 % (!) higher.
We hope that by reaching these new markets we can raise earnings for all photographers. We aim to be a righteous marketplace, and we will not undercut our photographers like our competitors.
This is all about volume, so you'll have to look past the low earnings per sale and have confidence that it is a lot better with 1000 sales paying €0.10 than 10 sales paying €1.
Jan
COO / Partner
YAY Images Team
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thanks for coming here and commenting and thankyou for responding to the email replies.
I'm tempted to think you will get your current customers buying images cheaper and the people who dont buy images, still not buying.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but the logic sounds like this:
1. Legitimate buyers already get an excellent deal on cheap images. Some of which cost photographers quite a lot to produce.
2. Because some people steal images, the images must be made cheaper to tap a market that might not really exist (as Phil said - those who don't pay now may still not pay in the future).
Doesn't it make more sense for the whole industry to work together to educate people on legitimate use, and to put in or develop safeguards to protect the images more effectively?
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It varies according the the size of the deal, but average is 35 % which is still above most of our competitors.
Please explain, how do you get 35%. If I try to calculate percents for budget images deals, I receive average 25.8% for small, and about 22.8% for Medium and Large?
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Seriously, this isn't going to work, your just going to drive down prices lower without any extra sales. Those who are prepared to pay are prepared to pay a couple of euros for a small image, the thieves wont even be prepared to the 10c.
We know this market, trust your contributors on this one!
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YAY is known for less sales but nice ones, this doesn't look exciting...
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35% of $0.13 is virtually giving out for free! This is really too cheapskate.
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35% of $0.13 is virtually giving out for free! This is really too cheapskate.
0.1 EUR (0.13 USD) is commission for the artist, if I understand it right.
Price for buyers will be around 0.3 EUR.
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I'm glad this thread came about, after three+ years of closing my account with them, I was starting to consider uploading again... :o...thanks for the info Microbius!...
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Yeah it really is a shame. I actually do alright there in terms of downloads and I love the individual partner program opt outs-- definitely best practice for the industry. Customer relations have always been really good there to as far as I was concerned.
A real shame they are thinking of taking this path.............
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I'm glad this thread came about, after three+ years of closing my account with them, I was starting to consider uploading again... :o...thanks for the info Microbius!...
You speak my mind. I was just beginning to think of uploading there too. So much for that idea.
I can't fathom why the solution to everything is to cut our earnings, or why we seem to be expected to be happy about it.
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Great minds think alike Rubyroo ;D...lol
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;D
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Hi guys,
I just want to give a little more explanation on our thoughts here.
First of all: We are not cutting any provisions. They will stay at the same level that they always have.
With these new products (small and medium sized image deals) we are reaching out to a whole new market, namely web users. Today there are really no good offers for people who use a lot of images on their blogs, websites, homepages or social media accounts. Research has shown that 85 % of image use online is actually unlicensed and illegal. This is an untapped market with huge potential. There are over 160 million blogs and 649 million websites in the world. That is the market we want to sell these images to.
The commission we offer has the same ratio as our image deals and subscriptions have had for the last 5 years. It varies according the the size of the deal, but average is 35 % which is still above most of our competitors. I certainly understand that it looks like pennies when we pay a commission of €0.10 (USD 0.13) for a small image, but please consider that this image is less than 1/20th the size of the high-res. One of the largest microstock sites in the world pays $0.25 for a high-res download on the basic level. Our commission for high-res images bought through an image deal is 520 % (!) higher.
We hope that by reaching these new markets we can raise earnings for all photographers. We aim to be a righteous marketplace, and we will not undercut our photographers like our competitors.
This is all about volume, so you'll have to look past the low earnings per sale and have confidence that it is a lot better with 1000 sales paying €0.10 than 10 sales paying €1.
Jan
COO / Partner
YAY Images Team
I guarantee 95% of us are well beyond the .25 level and have been for a very long time.
This just devalues our work and will not turn thieves into buyers.
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Seriously, this isn't going to work, your just going to drive down prices lower without any extra sales. Those who are prepared to pay are prepared to pay a couple of euros for a small image, the thieves wont even be prepared to the 10c.
We know this market, trust your contributors on this one!
I am with you on this one Microbius..
for once, an agency must trust their contributors.. most of us know the industry better than they do.. especially contributors who run their personal sales platforms know very well that it is not about the price, as long as it stays between reasonable price brackets..
when I first started to sell through my own channels I was pricing the images at $3 to test the waters, then increased the prices to $9-10 levels.. to my surprise, the number of transactions did NOT drop a bit.. and I started earning 3 times more just by increasing prices..
I think YAY has just entered to my list of "agencies to cut the ties with soon"
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I guarantee 95% of us are well beyond the .25 level and have been for a very long time.
A great point that I wish many agencies would take note of. It's very concerning that they believe this is an accurate figure for most of us. Very concerning indeed.
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...The commission we offer has the same ratio as our image deals and subscriptions have had for the last 5 years. It varies according the the size of the deal, but average is 35 % which is still above most of our competitors. I certainly understand that it looks like pennies when we pay a commission of €0.10 (USD 0.13) for a small image, but please consider that this image is less than 1/20th the size of the high-res. One of the largest microstock sites in the world pays $0.25 for a high-res download on the basic level. Our commission for high-res images bought through an image deal is 520 % (!) higher....
I think any site that just paid 50% without using excuses to pay us less would get a lot of support from us. It could make a big difference. I'm more likely to send buyers and link to sites that pay me a decent rate. Sites that have a huge volume of sales can pay less commission but there's little incentive to use the low volume sites if the commission is low.
One of the largest microstock sites in the world pays me $0.38 for subs but I also had a $120 commission last month. So will Yay be looking to keep up with their competitor by selling images for $240 with a 50% commission? I think that end of the market is more lucrative than trying to convert image thieves that aren't used to spending any money on images.
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I am with you on this one Microbius..
for once, an agency must trust their contributors.. most of us know the industry better than they do.. especially contributors who run their personal sales platforms know very well that it is not about the price, as long as it stays between reasonable price brackets..
when I first started to sell through my own channels I was pricing the images at $3 to test the waters, then increased the prices to $9-10 levels.. to my surprise, the number of transactions did NOT drop a bit.. and I started earning 3 times more just by increasing prices..
I think YAY has just entered to my list of "agencies to cut the ties with soon"
I wonder about this too. How can these agencies "successful" business models be so far off what mine is? It really is mystifying.
Oh well, do what you like Yay. You'll probably just be doing it without me.
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Disappointing....... what happen if you don t make the volume then, you stop the project? You will contributors on this move I think...
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Dear Yay Team,
please, no.
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We have requested that our portfolio be deleted at Yay. We had only uploaded 200, but they are coming down.
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OK, I am ready for all the minuses (unfortunately have to go against the grain here), but being a low sales site and considering it is low resolution pictures, I will rather prefer 20 low income sales per month than the zeros I sometimes have. Add the few nice sales I get every now and then and I can perhaps get a few payouts a year. Quite acceptable to me for a low earner (who is not slashing commission on medium to high resolution images).
Hope they can reach the new market as they plan and bring in a nice steady additional income from their product range expansion.
My 5 cents worth - so let those minuses roll ;)
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A little bit of something can be better than a whole lot of nothing. I am willing to let the new scheme run for a bit to see how it pans out. But I suggest they bump up the web price to 0.2Euro which is roughly 0.25 cents.
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NO! By accepting this offer now, you are hurting yourself and industry. Problem is not a low income, but in low percent. When they sell 5 Mid-res, they receive 5.80 and give you 0.65. That is 11.2% and extremely low.
Dreamstime and 123rf sell credits, and price of credit is determined by amount of purchased credits. And author receives revenue, based on credit price for every case.
Buy YAY will pay you lowest price, instead of making fixed 35% of price, for example.
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NO! By accepting this offer now, you are hurting yourself and industry. Problem is not a low income, but in low percent. When they sell 5 Mid-res, they receive 5.80 and give you 0.65. That is 11.2% and extremely low.
Dreamstime and 123rf sell credits, and price of credit is determined by amount of purchased credits. And author receives revenue, based on credit price for every case.
Buy YAY will pay you lowest price, instead of making fixed 35% of price, for example.
If your calculation of the percentage is correct, I will unconditionally withdraw the support I pledged. Can not logically argue against that. :P
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deleting my portfolio...
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... it is a lot better with 1000 sales paying €0.10 than 10 sales paying €1.
As if Yay would sell 1000 licenses of a photo! My advice to the YAY-people: get yourself a camera, then produces photos and then sells them to your own prices, but without me >:(
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Perhaps if contributors pay for sell is better ;D Bad deal for $ zone? Yahoo source, change today:
0,1$=0,767€ And this is the official change, when you get a payment, add commissions and then see what is the real change for contributor. Why annoying people with these jokes.
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Hi again!
As we said a couple of days ago, we wanted your feedback on our new product. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback, some positive, and some negative. Many of you have several concerns, and we’ll try to address these.
There are two issues here,: price and commission. Although they are closely related let’s look at them separately first.
Pricing of images:
This has been a controversial topic since the rise of microstock. When the first sites appeared the prices were around $1 for a high-res image, competing with prices reaching $1000 for traditional agencies. Many microstock photographers deliver as high quality as professional stock photographers, so no wonder microstock agencies gained huge market shares from traditional agencies. Then the market developed into what we see today: Large microstock agencies control the traditional image market and have increased the prices, smaller microstock agencies tries to compete by keeping the price low, and traditional agencies are mostly focusing on RM-collecting and low-price subs from microstock partners. Growth is mainly achieved by taking market shares from competitors, or expanding into new markets, such as Asia.
At YAY we try to find another way to grow our revenue. We strongly believe that images and the way images are licensed must adapt to the changes we see in our society. Both the music and the film industry are working hard to find different ways to turn (illegal) users into buying customers. According to industry experts, as much as 85% of images online are used without a legal license. While Getty has chosen not to pursue the private market, neither to stop them from using image or by tempting them to license images, we at YAY hope to change this.
Our market research efforts tells us that people using images illegal would like to use legal images, but they don’t have an offer suited for their needs and economy, so they end up “lending” what they find on Google images. Most of you have seen blogs citing the source of images, hoping this will make up for the lack of license.
So, we find ourselves in the same situation the music industry did years ago. Once Napster and other music sharing sites took off, it was assumed that users would not pay for material no matter what, and the solution was to work harder on copyright protection and lawsuits against wrongdoers to scare people into buying their products. In hindsight it’s very easy to see that this period was extremely bad for the music industry, billions where lost, and nobody was happy. But the problem was eventually resolved: First by services such as iTunes letting you buy and download music, and today streaming services like Spotify are one of the main reasons the music industry is growing. The commission rates, paid per stream, are small, but the number of users ready to pay a small monthly fee is huge, and artists are making more money than they used to.
So isn’t the image industry totally different than the music industry? Yes and no. It’s our belief that today it is. It’s mostly business-to-business industry with large agencies and corporations’ buying most of the images. These companies expect value for the images they use, giving them a return on investment.
At the same time your average blogger just want their post to look good. They don’t have a budget, and are not nearly as willing to pay good money for an image. But, you better believe they are many, and the total sales potential in this market is large (low-priced images in high volumes).
Our first move in trying to adapt is to release image deals for small and medium images. Small images are intended to web use, and our main target segments here are bloggers and people who run their own web site. Currently web sized images are 2% of our sales. Clearly, we don’t have a product that web users wants – paying $1,95 for one web sized image is not something anyone in the market is ready to do.
When we set the prices on our new deals we looked at it two ways. First, how much cheaper should web sized images targeted to non-corporate customers cost? And more importantly: How much do we think these people are willing to pay? Based on our data and experience we decided to begin with a price of $9.90 for the smallest image package, giving the customer web images for $1. So we are back to the roots of microstock, but this time with much smaller images.
After getting feedback from our photographers we sat down and discussed for hours and hours. Are the prices to low? And we concluded that we are confident that a baseline price of $1 for a web images is not to low. But be assured, we will test our prices, and monitor what customers we get. We don’t want to charge too little, or too much, and we don’t want our high-res customers to shift to web. As a smaller company we can turn around and change prices if we see that this isn’t working.
What we did see is that we give too much discount to customers buying 100 and 500 image packages. So we have decided to raise the prices of these deals for all three versions.
The small 100 image deal will go from $39 to $ 59, and the 500 deal will go from $159 to $199. The medium sized images will go from $199 to $299 and $999 for 500 images. And for the high-res images 100 deals go from $399 to $599 and 500 from $1599 to $1999. The lowest price for an image is then $0,4 for a web sized image and $4 for a high-res.
We believe firmly that images should be priced low to reach new segments, but we agree that giving up to 70% discount for buying a larger image package made little sense.
And this leads us over to the next discussion:
What should the commission be? We really do want to be a fair agency, and we really want to make a lot of money for our company and photographers. Creating something great, and a company we can be personally proud of is very important for us three founders.
Still, with low image prices comes a low commission per image. The only way we can make a fairer deal is to make sure that we give what we consider a fair cut of our earnings, and to make sure that our earnings are high. As we wrote, we think we’ll reach a new segment and high volume with targeted product towards new segments.
We have decided to aim for a commission as close to 50% as we can get it. This is for all image deals.
Our system today doesn’t allow for a percentage cut on image deals, but we will try to tweak the fixed price to reach an average percent. The way we calculate the average percent is to sum all the image deals, example for web images: If you buy one of each, the total of images are 625. The total cost is $288. Then we see what the total sum of commission must be in order to reach the desired percentage.
Given limitations on our system we’re not able to reach 50% blank, but we’re close at 44% commission on all image packages. On all partner earnings and credit sales it’s 50%.
And in $ this means that we’ll increase our commission on all image deals as following:
Small images package from $0,13 to $0,2
Medium images package from $0,65 to $1
High-res images package from $1,3 to $2
(Provisions are paid in EUR)
Nobody has complained on our commission on high-res images, but if we want to be fair and focus on a percentage cut it’s obvious we needed to raise this as well.
We know some of you disagree on the direction we’re going. We are working hard to give you more control of your images. Currently you can opt in and out of all our partners. Soon you will be able to opt in and out of YAY as well – you can be a part of our partner programs, but not sell your images at YAY. Why? We don’t want to force anyone to agree with our strategy, and we don’t want to loose you as a photographer. We hope you’ll give us time to prove that our concept and direction is the right one.
What we can promise you is that we’ll try to let you know what is happening, the reason behind our decisions and we’ll aim to have an open discussion. We will also try our very best to be fair. Low prices might not be fair for many of you, but we hope to make it up by having high volume, giving you a high cut of earnings – and in total provide you with a good income from YAY.
And, nothing we do is set in stone – if it don’t work, we’ll change it!
Bjorn, Jan and Linda
YAY Founders
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Thank you Yay team for actually listening to the concerns here and making (unlike some of your competitors) a real effort in addressing it. It is appreciated (well maybe at least by some of us).
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Thank you for listening and for trying to address our concerns. That does not happen very often in this industry.
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I wont do anything drastic with my port at this point - but appreciate your explanation of what is going to take place. I would like to see how this pans out in real sales - because as nice as YAY is as an agency, at the end of the day sales is what really counts - for everyone - the agency and the contributors.
Thanks for you getting your message across
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It is good that you are open for discussion. Thanks.
I see problem not in overall prices, but in author's commission.
Our system today doesn’t allow for a percentage cut on image deals, but we will try to tweak the fixed price to reach an average percent
I think an average percent looks like average temperature of patients in hospital.
You have good price for large packages, but I'm sure that 100 and 500 image packages will be extremely rare purchase. They are expensive and make good income, but rare. Commission for small packages still quite low.
For Mid and High resolution 10, 25 and 50 packages will be the most popular and they give 17%, 20%, 25.25% percents for author. Everything that goes below 25% makes me sad.
I think it can only be fixed by using fixed price for each package, not for whole category.
Same thoughts for small size - price for first 2 packages can be little higher, for example: 0.25$, 0.22$, 0.2$, 0.2$
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It is good that you are open for discussion. Thanks.
I see problem not in overall prices, but in author's commission.
Our system today doesn’t allow for a percentage cut on image deals, but we will try to tweak the fixed price to reach an average percent
I think an average percent looks like average temperature of patients in hospital.
You have good price for large packages, but I'm sure that 100 and 500 image packages will be extremely rare purchase. They are expensive and make good income, but rare. Commission for small packages still quite low.
For Mid and High resolution 10, 25 and 50 packages will be the most popular and they give 17%, 20%, 25.25% percents for author. Everything that goes below 25% makes me sad.
I think it can only be fixed by using fixed price for each package, not for whole category.
Same thoughts for small size - price for first 2 packages can be little higher, for example: 0.25$, 0.22$, 0.2$, 0.2$
Yes, we thought about this - but we have to set the same commission on each size deal. What we'll do is to adjust the overall commission over time when/if we see any changes. So: if we mostly sell small deals, and the amount we get in and the amount commission you don't add up to ≈45-50% we'll readjust.
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Sorry I'm confused (it's late :))
small image packs
10 images = $9.90 = $0.99 ea
100 images = $59 = $0.59 ea
500 images = $199 = $0.398 ea
our commission is between $0.13 to $0.20 per sale but is also 44%??
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Sorry I'm confused (it's late :))
small image packs
10 images = $9.90 = $0.99 ea
100 images = $59 = $0.59 ea
500 images = $199 = $0.398 ea
our commission is between $0.13 to $0.20 per sale but is also 44%??
Yes, I know - it's a bit confusing! What we've done is to look at our total earnings from image packages, and then try to get the $-cut as close to 50% as we could. It doesn't look like 44%, but in reality - when you sum up all images sold, all earnings and all commissions it is.
Ex. if one customer buys one of each the total number of images are 625. The total cost is $288, and the total commission paid is 625*$0,2=$125. $125 of $288 ≈ 43-44%.
Hope this made sense. And, if we see that we sell more of one package we'll try to adjust!
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With all due respect Linda, based on your commission/% post (which is still very confusing) I think I'll wait until you finish with all of your adjustments and changes before I'll try to reconsider again uploading to YAY. Good luck with your new product.
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I guess it is time for another round of agency culling.
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I would be interested, which positive feedback should have come from contributers side. 8)
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"While Getty has chosen not to pursue the private market, neither to stop them from using image or by tempting them to license images, we at YAY hope to change this"
- Fine, if that is your real goal, then licences should not be offered to incorporated entities and be limited to non-commercial use. Will you do that?
"Nobody has complained on our commission on high-res images, but if we want to be fair and focus on a percentage cut it’s obvious we needed to raise this as well"
- That because we were not aware that we were not giving 50%
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Sorry I'm confused (it's late :))
small image packs
10 images = $9.90 = $0.99 ea
100 images = $59 = $0.59 ea
500 images = $199 = $0.398 ea
our commission is between $0.13 to $0.20 per sale but is also 44%??
looking with fresher eyes :) (but I would love for you to come back and tell me that I'm wrong and why)
artists commission is $0.2 for a small image sale, regardless of the whether it is 10 image pack or a 500 image pack sells?? so our commission ranges from 20% to 50% depending on which image sold??
and it is 44% based on selling 1 of each pack, but I'm sure you'll sell a lot more 10 image packs then 500 image packs (Especially if you are trying to target small buyers and using price as the lure.)
Sorry for being so cynical but after years of dealing with the micros as soon as an agency says 'great news' my first thought is that I'm about to be screwed again.
The way I see this deal is "great news, we are cutting prices and commissions - you'll probably average somewhere around 25% commission instead of the 50% you were getting".
(I'm sure you would know what this will work out at based on previous sales and analysis - hence hiding it?).
other comments
There are just so many differences between the customers of stock images and music I don't think it is good comparison.
Still, with low image prices comes a low commission per image. - Why? why is this a given (and not just Yay) - we cant afford to run with our offer so we have make the artists subsidise us because they can afford it??? rings of istocks unsustainable and not doing stock for the money :D
The only way we can make a fairer deal... - a fairer deal is a commission cut ???
we give what we consider a fair cut of our earnings, and to make sure that our earnings are high. - we have to cut your commission so we can earn more - sounds like a getty statement :D
we think we’ll reach a new segment and high volume with targeted product towards new segments. - and with every commission cut is the statement that you'll get amazing levels of new sales blah blah blah ;D ;D
seperately
So did your market research, say the limiter is price? I would still guess and it is very much a guess, that someone is willing to pay $0.50 they will pay $2. I would guess that image accessibility, finding the right images, payment methods, education etc would be bigger factors?? I would think going after bloggers would be more about wordpress plugins, deals with wordpress.com etc, incorporation into other plugins ie visual composer module for insert stock image, a lot more factors than price?
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So did your market research, did it say the limiter is price?
If it did, you should find some new market researchers because they are wrong.
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lets not forget the sizes at YAY
- Small (0.3MP)
- Medium (3MP)
- Large (full size)
don't want to call SS here but we (SS) are/is actually selling 750 downloads for 250$, making 33 cents per download and I believe full size, so in fact I believe we should give it a go, then we will decide (at least I will)
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lets not forget the sizes at YAY
- Small (0.3MP)
- Medium (3MP)
- Large (full size)
don't want to call SS here but we (SS) are/is actually selling 750 downloads for 250$, making 33 cents per download and I believe full size, so in fact I believe we should give it a go, then we will decide (at least I will)
I am with you on this bro ;)
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so in fact I believe we should give it a go
Okay go on. Let's show every agency that we are ok with cutting commission to 17%.
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so in fact I believe we should give it a go
Okay go on. Let's show every agency that we are ok with cutting commission to 17%.
No they did not.
So your advice, let us rather keep on complaining .......(removed) about sites with limited sales and every time they do something which makes business sense to improve their sales, we bark like rabies infected dogs at them if they dare try to be competitive and touch our commission (even if it means they can not compete against the rest of the industry which have already done so).
You can then joyfully cheer them on, while their ship goes down, because they do so with honor in your books.
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Deleting message, as it's no longer relevant and will confuse newcomers to the thread. Thanks for the hearts though.
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I still think YAY are very wrong about this for the reasons already discussed, but I really have to applaud the way you have been communicating here and trying to adjust the scheme.
Also again applaud the opt outs you offer and the fact that you will be soon offering an opt out for YAY too. Really great, especially when you compare it to the way IStock works with its PPs
ETA: corrected typo "offering" not "offing"!
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Charl: Thank you! We try to listen and address concerns, our contributors are our most important partners.
Shiyali: Thank you! We try our best.
noodle: You're right - the bottom line is the most important part. Hopefully we'll get sales up, and in new segments.
m@m: We understand if anyone would like to wait. The adjustments will be made as we see how the image deals sells.
@roede-orm: You'll see some in this forum, and we've gotten several supportive emails. People appreciate that we try to target new segments, hoping it will increase their overall earnings.
@somethingpretentious: We'll keep it simple for all our customers, giving a royalty free license. Most corporate customers need high-res images, so we don't expect them to shift. Remember, we want to make money as well ;) And for the commission - we've been clear about 50% on image sales and €1 / $1,3 on image deals. After increasing our prices the last couple of years we saw the need to increase the commission as well, and you now get $2 for high-res downloads.
@Phil: You are right, it don't look like it will add up to 44%. If we sell only 10-packs of images and none of the 100 and 500 it won't be either. But if this happens we will adjust the commission again to get an average ≈ 50%. Our system don't support different commission on the same image sized deals, and that's why we have to use an average. At the end of the day a part of this will have to be trust, until we get a better system. If you don't feel you can trust us I would recommend you to hold off on giving us the responsibility to represent your images until there is enough trust in place.
Music and images are very different products, and images have much broader and varied segments and uses. Our main focus is on new ways people use both technology and images, trying to adapt to the changes.
Low prices and low commission cut in $: It's difficult / impossible for a company to have low prices and high commission in $. If we sell an image for $1 it's limited how much we can give out in commission. What we focus on is to give a fair cut of our earnings from each customer ≈50%, not on giving a fair commission based on dollars / image. We might not agree on this, and I can only say that our goal is to give a fair share of the earnings. All the money coming in to YAY goes to running YAY and trying to get an even higher growth rate. And we haven't cut your commission, we've raised it for all image deals, giving you $2 for each high-res dollar - and aiming for a ≈50% on all our deals.
And of course we don't see price as the only way to get new segments. It's a mix of features, including price. We'll release new services this year that better incorporates all this. Price is an important feature for non-commercial users, and it's difficult to get them to pay considerably more for image than for any other service they use - especially when most still consider Google images as "free images". It's a complex process, and we are trying out different solutions and mixes in order to 'get it right'.
@cthoman: It didn't - but it's one of several considerations.
@luissantos84 Thanks :)
@Zelfit: Our commission is 50% on credit sales, 50% on partner sales and an average of 44% on image deals.
@Microbius: Thank you! We know that all of you won't agree with us, but we still think it's important to have this discussion. Giving you an opt-out from YAY will make things easier in the future, making it easier to take action if you disagree in the way we do business - and easier to join in when you see the huge success we'll have and how much money all of us will make ;)
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I'm not a dog lover, but I have a very special affection for elderly ladies who deal with a multiple of difficulties, obstacles, sadnesses and tragedies often with tremendous bravery and not a whisper of complaint. Could we lose the 'old woman...' phrase there please?
Just heard my mother in law is coming to visit, so it felt appropriate. But so noted, so appreciated and so done, my lady ;)
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I still think YAY are very wrong about this for the reasons already discussed, but I really have to applaud the way you have been communicating here and trying to adjust the scheme.
Also again applaud the opt outs you offer and the fact that you will be soon offing an opt out for YAY too. Really great, especially when you compare it to the way IStock works with its PPs
And I applaud your enlightened view point.
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Thanks CD123. Much appreciated... and I applaud Microbius too. :)
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Linda and Jan,
first of all thanks for coming here and explaining your plans and answering detailed questions.
Thanks also for listening to our concerns and adjusting the plans. One of my major concerns was about commission percentage, and your stated goal of keeping that close to 50% is very much appreciated.
It cannot be stated clearly enough that this behaviour of open discussion, taking contributor concerns seriously and trying to keep up fair commissions sets you apart from most of your competitors.
That alone will bring you a lot goodwill and support from many contributors (me included).
Nevertheless a few questions / remarks remain:
When you talk about an opt-out from Yay, does this mean from all direct sales or only from the newly introduced packge deals? Would there be a possibility to opt out from the package deals but still have images on offer for single image direct sales via the Yay website?
And: Jan mentioned "social media accounts" as one possible target usage for these new packages. To my knowledge there might be some licensing conflicts, as (afaik) e.g. facebook still requires user who upload images to provide rights they do not get with a regular RF licence (e.g. the right to sub-licence). How do you want to address this? Widen your licence terms or rather explicitely mention that uploading to such social media sites is NOT covered by the licence?
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when I first started to sell through my own channels I was pricing the images at $3 to test the waters, then increased the prices to $9-10 levels.. to my surprise, the number of transactions did NOT drop a bit.. and I started earning 3 times more just by increasing prices..
I agree completely with this. At Dt my sales don't drop at all on images as they go up through the price levels. Of my last 10 credit sales at DT, 9 are level 5 and the other one is level 4.
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@dirkr
Thank you so much for your kind words! Having these dialogues inspires us to continue with our transparency policy :)
For your questions:
Opt-out will be for the whole site. We don't want our customers to experience that they can't access all the images on the site.
But: When we later this year launch new products we will have them on a new site, and you will be able to opt out from all our new product without opting out from our main yaymicro-site.
We'll make sure to give you all the information about this when we're closing in on a launch. You'll then have the option to opt-out from any partners, from yay main site and/or from our new products - and create the opt-in mix you like best.
As for using images on social media sites we'll have to look closer into licensing terms at different sites, and we'll make sure the user knows what limitations might exist.
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As for using images on social media sites we'll have to look closer into licensing terms at different sites, and we'll make sure the user knows what limitations might exist.
Facebook:
Sharing Your Content and Information
2. You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
- For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms (http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms)
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thanks linda for replying and for being so open about it all.
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Hi Yay,
1. Discussing the issue with contributors = increased trust (+1), if it remains + depends on your move alone;
2. Touching sensitive part of the agreement like commissions especially in a what-it-looks-like decreased % = less trust (-1);
3. Trying to cover the deal with future trust due to increased sales = suspicious (mainly due to common sense and competitive experience) = less trust (-1);
4. Opt out = initially more trust, BUT: We have signed with Yay due to 50% commissions, extremely easy upload process, good $ commission, so what ., we give it a try, we cannot lose. From contributor point of view, more competition on the distributors side = possible better deals for photographers for future. This does not look like it. To me it seems that you are trying to increase overall business (which is very much ok) but on the expense on the photographer (not ok). Yay does not care if its income of $100 comes from 100 images sold or from 10.000. On the end fiscal year statement it is exactly the same, while for us contributors it makes a whole lot of difference. Don't get me wrong, i would like to sell as much as possible, but not below the industry standard subscription based $ per image downloaded (between $0.36 and $0.38). It is standard for me as it makes more that 50% income. I as a contributor am interested in raising this % and $, after all this was part of my strategy when i joined Yay. This is especially true for newcomers in the stock market. Sorry Yay, you have to develop your business using other added value services rather then undercutting the very branch that we both sit on. Customer value is not derived solely from price. Bottom line (-1);
5. We were here before Yay, meaning that our images were somehow distributed to end users before. Why should we agree to a less lucrative deal than that of even much stronger distributors? Yay, please try to look in another way to expand. Sorry (-1)
6. And one additional thing not very much connected with this offer, but not insignificant at all. You claim 50% commission (at least up to now) and yet at the same time you go on and negotiate partner programs from which the end user gets 25% of the deal. Sure, its 50% from the money you get, but still 25% for the photographer. Please enlighten me: Why should the photographers cut their 25% so that Yay can negotiate a deal with partner program? Correct me if I'm wrong, but its in Yay's part of the obligations (undertaken with the initial contributor-distributor deal) to go ahead and promote/grow the business by increasing the sales of the site the best way it can. We (contributors) are obliged to produce the best quality we can, which we more-or-less do. If you want/need to partner with other micro sites, I think its fair the the 25% comes from your cut and not from ours. It makes sense to me that you have positioned yourself between us and other distributor which at the end sells the image to buyer, so Yay and the partner should divide the 50% after the contributor has been paid if you want to continue being fair. Putting it differently, what stops Yay from making sister(s) company(ies) (that will get 25%) and than partnering with other (possibly several more) sites until the image is sold to end user? With such pipeline, its only a matter of time until we start discussing the fairness of 5% vs. 10% from the end price. This is what Getty is doing all along and that's why we all feel so frustrated and with less trust to any such moves from anyone, including Big stock as the trial ground for SS. The statement that you cannot control the end price in some deals is your problem to solve, don't throw it to us, please. (-2). Opt out form PP (+1), overall (-1)
My future move (hold submission, opt out or delete my portfolio) depends solely on what you decide to do. Sorry Yay, but it would be much easier move than that of IS. I have very little to loose.
So far (-4), one more (-) and something should be done. I think very fair feedback from me. I don't even bother writing if I do not believe you deserve it, Yay (this means that I'm still positive with Yay).
Sorry everyone for the large read,
Dimitar
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Last months were pretty interesting at Yaymicro, I am sure that they
do many things right.
So all this development is rather important for me.
I personally find the modified version much better then the original one.
I am on subscription sites and I am usually not complaining about low prices,
but I have serious allergy to see commissions under 0,2 USD.
(no matter what resolution / partner distribution...)
Most recently subs on Mostphotos and one of partners on Yaymicro, so
I am thankful for that detailed opt-out system there.
I will certainly hope, that EUR/USD exchange rate will hold. :)
And I am really glad to see, that people from Yaymicro are discussing this plan
here with us.
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Thanks @ShadySue, we'll make sure to take note of that!
@Dimco
2: Well, noticing a glitch in commission and raising it 50% is an increase.
3: Nor sure what you're going at here. Of course we believe in increased sales. What we meant is that lower priced, targeted products can increase our overall sales, and that will generate more income than keeping thing at status quo will.
4&5: I understand your concern, and if our sales comes comes from sales at other sites where you have your images it makes sense. Our aim is not to get customers from competitors by lowing our prices, but to create products mainly for new customers. Growing by taking market shares from competitors is not easy, and not our main goal. For all sales we generate that isn't form a competitor every dollar will be a dollar extra in your account.
6: What stops us from making sister companies is ethics and morale. I also think most photographers would leave if we would do anything like that. We have a couple of "sister sites" today, but they use the YAY payment, so the commission to the photographer is the same as sales at YAY. As for commission on partner sales we get 60% on all new deals, and we split this 50/50 with our photogs = 30%. I'm sorry if you find that unfair, and that's why you can opt-out.
All in all, we understand your concerns, and we also don't expect you to agree with all of it. It will be up to you what you decide to do after taking an overall evaluation of what YAY has to offer.
@Clairev Thanks for your input! We think it's important to have an opt-out in place, making it easier for you to join in on what you believe in.
L:)
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Linda,
There are two issues here, end price in terms of $ and % comm's. I'm interested in both.
2: 44% is less than 50% but let's say that you will adjust that long term, so ok.
3: Put it in other words, lowering the end price will benefit mostly Yay as our images are distributed already to end user in some way. So the only beneficiary is bottom line Yay, while the photographers will get increased number of sales in the beginning, they stand to loose their overall income as the $ comm's decrease long term;
4&5: "Our aim is not to get customers from competitors by lowing our prices, but to create products mainly for new customers" this is my concern mostly. How are you going to secure this? Customers will not be "made" due to Yay's new plan, rather derived from existing one's. " For all sales we generate that isn't form a competitor every dollar will be a dollar extra in your account. " - But a dollar less I might add due to the fact that I'm already distributed by your competitor(s), so how will this new Yay's plan benefit me with lowered comm's?
6: So the 50% turned 30% and this is ok? That's exactly what i was commenting in my original post. You have pledged to keep 50% and yet came up with a scheme in which the 50% becomes 30%. Sorry, but it looks like to me that this 30% will soon become even less in some other plan.
I think it would be helpful if you start contributing and/or buying images from your site so that the things are looked at from several perspectives.
This is after all a partner deal, so both partners should benefit sustainably and i'm not convinced that this is the right thing for us photographers.
Best regards,
D
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@dimco I think I answered your questions in my last post (we give 50% on all our earnings, we are targeting new markets etc.), and that we'll just have to agree to disagree on the last subjects.
L:)
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Dear MS contributors:
WE ARE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES!!
IF WE AGREE TO UPLOAD AND SUPPORT SITES THAT PAY LOW LOW INSULTINGLY LOW COMMS, WELL THEN WE HAVE TO TAKE SOME OF THAT BLAME!
This includes myself, which I am now seriously pondering of only contributing to SS and to RM sites.
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Hi there yay :)
This kind of creative thinking is what made istock a household name along with an amazing advertising campaign, creating a completely new segment of buyers!
And "inviting not forcing" contributors with opt outs is a really good thing.
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Hi there yay :)
This kind of creative thinking is what made istock a household name along with an amazing advertising campaign, creating a completely new segment of buyers!
And "inviting not forcing" contributors with opt outs is a really good thing.
Thanks! We're very excited about releasing this product! And we're also happy that we managed to get in place an opt-out option, we don't want to force people to join in on our new direction.
Cheers,
Linda
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Hi there yay :)
This kind of creative thinking is what made istock a household name along with an amazing advertising campaign, creating a completely new segment of buyers!
And "inviting not forcing" contributors with opt outs is a really good thing.
I don’t know. Maybe I read it wrong, but it seems like you would make an average of about 4 or 5 cents every time someone uses a product through the new service? Am I wrong? Did I completely misread that? I am just looking at what they will be charging per month and what they say the average amount a customer downloads per month.
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i'd be more concerned if Yay actually produced any sales -- their performance over the last year has ranged between dismal & pathetic. I stopped uploading awhile ago, whe their reviewing became tottally random and rejections uninformative. i'm closing my account here and on other non-performers like big, gl,dp I used to leave these nonperformers open, but with symbiostock i'd rather get google results directly
steve
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Yay seem to have a policy of lowering prices again and again in the vague hope of attracting 'new' buyers. Is there any evidence that this strategy has been successful? Or are existing buyers simply migrating to take advantage of below market prices?
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I'd echo Cascoly's point too. Sales on Yay are so exceptionally rare it's simply not worth uploading there. I'll let others take the Yay experiment - I'm out.
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Hi there yay :)
This kind of creative thinking is what made istock a household name along with an amazing advertising campaign, creating a completely new segment of buyers!
And "inviting not forcing" contributors with opt outs is a really good thing.
I don’t know. Maybe I read it wrong, but it seems like you would make an average of about 4 or 5 cents every time someone uses a product through the new service? Am I wrong? Did I completely misread that? I am just looking at what they will be charging per month and what they say the average amount a customer downloads per month.
The payment will vary, from low for the streaming - and potential high for subs. We'll know more details when we get our own numbers on how users will use the product.
As for lowering prices - we're releasing a new product towards a new segment. Hopefully we'll succeed in reaching our target segment with this price. Compared to not paying at all, we're raising prices ;) If you think it's too low you're always free to opt out.
Cheers,
Linda
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My sales on YAY are 0,5 a month (yes, 4 sales in 8 months!), from 0,15 to 0,5
If they change price what it will change for me?
Nothing!
So it is a good thing, no?
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Linda,
some comments.
The streaming thing sounds terrible. It will do nothing else but take current buyers away. Those who don't pay today won't pay tomorrow. Current prices are low enough for everybody. And the expectation of 4 or 5 cents per download may be far too optimistic. As I understand it it is unlimited images for $9,90 per month. So the real result will be fractions of cents per download.
The "regular" subs don't sound too bad, but that is just an existing market where you don't seem to offer anything new - at least not that I could see that from the newsletter. If you believe in the stated average royalty of around $0.49 then please set that as the minimum payout.
And please do consider separate opt-outs for the two different plans.
All in all you're going in the completely wrong direction with this plans. You should look for ways to increase prices, not decrease them. We have enough cheap sites out there. You don't have the volume. I'd like to continue to support you, but you're easy to drop...
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Linda,
some comments.
The streaming thing sounds terrible. It will do nothing else but take current buyers away. Those who don't pay today won't pay tomorrow. Current prices are low enough for everybody. And the expectation of 4 or 5 cents per download may be far too optimistic. As I understand it it is unlimited images for $9,90 per month. So the real result will be fractions of cents per download.
The "regular" subs don't sound too bad, but that is just an existing market where you don't seem to offer anything new - at least not that I could see that from the newsletter. If you believe in the stated average royalty of around $0.49 then please set that as the minimum payout.
And please do consider separate opt-outs for the two different plans.
All in all you're going in the completely wrong direction with this plans. You should look for ways to increase prices, not decrease them. We have enough cheap sites out there. You don't have the volume. I'd like to continue to support you, but you're easy to drop...
Hi dirkr,
We understand your concern. There's no way to be 100% sure that a new product is the right one. But, our experience and market research indicates that this might be an unserved market.
Thanks,
Linda
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Your answer tells me you understand my concern but you're doing nothing to address it.
Not good.
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Your answer tells me you understand my concern but you're doing nothing to address it.
Not good.
What we do to address your concerns is to give you the option of opt-out.
We've gotten more positive than negative feedback from photographers on this. Most are happy that we're trying something new, and hope it can make a change. We also have a lot of data and different professionals backing our conclusion. We'll of course adjust our offering if we later get numbers and facts suggesting that our initial data is off.
Thanks,
Linda
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Linda,
maybe I was not specific enough:
What I would like to see:
1) Please separate the opt-outs of the streaming thing from the regular subs. It is quite likely that contributors will have different opinions on the two.
2) Please set a minimum payout for the regular subs, that we don't end up with very small commissions if your assumption of subs usage does not turn out to be right.
Those are small changes that should be easy to accomplish.
I fully agree that the opt out in general is the right way to go - it let's contributors decide to what extent they want to take part in new offerings. That's good.
Thanks for listening,
Dirk
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Linda,
maybe I was not specific enough:
What I would like to see:
1) Please separate the opt-outs of the streaming thing from the regular subs. It is quite likely that contributors will have different opinions on the two.
2) Please set a minimum payout for the regular subs, that we don't end up with very small commissions if your assumption of subs usage does not turn out to be right.
Those are small changes that should be easy to accomplish.
I fully agree that the opt out in general is the right way to go - it let's contributors decide to what extent they want to take part in new offerings. That's good.
Thanks for listening,
Dirk
Thanks for clarifying!
We don't have a solution to let people opt out from parts of the image base, and we also want to avoid this as it can cause confusion for our customers. As for commission, we'll monitor all numbers, and adjust it accordingly. If you don't feel certain what we're doing is right you can either join in know and opt out later when we get our first set of numbers - or wait to join until we present numbers that you find satisfying.
Thanks,
Linda
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The next step would be actually: We pay you once and then sell your images as often as we want!
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...We've gotten more positive than negative feedback from photographers on this...
I find that hard to believe. It might be because the majority don't use your site? The obvious problem is that other sites have tried to convert people that don't pay for their images without much success. Whenever a site offers subscriptions we usually see some buyers switch and we always seem to earn less.
I'm sure the streaming service is going to attract some current buyers, the question is, how much will we lose out on that? The comparison with Spotify is so alarming. Haven't you seen all the complaints from musicians about the tiny amounts of money they make from that?
I might be interested in opting in images that don't make me much money. The thought of all my best images being available for a tiny fee that is highly unlikely to make me much is almost certainly going to make me opt out and I'm sure the vast majority of people with a portfolio that makes a reasonable amount will do the same.
The question is, should I bother with a site at all that wants to do something like this?
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I find that hard to believe. It might be because the majority don't use your site? The obvious problem is that other sites have tried to convert people that don't pay for their images without much success. Whenever a site offers subscriptions we usually see some buyers switch and we always seem to earn less.
I'm sure the streaming service is going to attract some current buyers, the question is, how much will we lose out on that? The comparison with Spotify is so alarming. Haven't you seen all the complaints from musicians about the tiny amounts of money they make from that?
I might be interested in opting in images that don't make me much money. The thought of all my best images being available for a tiny fee that is highly unlikely to make me much is almost certainly going to make me opt out and I'm sure the vast majority of people with a portfolio that makes a reasonable amount will do the same.
The question is, should I bother with a site at all that wants to do something like this?
I understand your concern SharpShot, and you have several good objections. Some customers might switch from a current service. What we hope to achieve is to get the price online users pay for images to go from $0 to $9,90. The price is low, but keep in mind that this is for online use only, small images - and that the exposure of the images are substantially less than for pro users.
If you want to try it out or not is entirely up to you. We would love to have all of you with us!
Cheers,
Linda
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Linda, I fear that you simply leading the pack in the race to the bottom with this initiative. I hope I'm wrong - but at this moment, I doubt it. I'll close my account with you as soon as I reach 30 Euro payout....which, at the current rate of sales will be in late 2016.
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Linda, I fear that you simply leading the pack in the race to the bottom with this initiative. I hope I'm wrong - but at this moment, I doubt it. I'll close my account with you as soon as I reach 30 Euro payout....which, at the current rate of sales will be in late 2016.
We hope you're wrong as well ;) We'll try to give you good numbers when we launch, and hopefully this will help with your decision.
Cheers,
Linda
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How do I opt out of "YAY Streaming"? do I just have to untick "YAY Subs" on the API list or is there a separate tickbox somewhere?
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How do I opt out of "YAY Streaming"? do I just have to untick "YAY Subs" on the API list or is there a separate tickbox somewhere?
It's YAY Subs, sorry for the confusion. We'll update the name!
Linda :)
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Hello Linda,
I didn't have the time to read the details yet, but I don't think I will be interested in any streaming schemes even if I have to delete my portfolio. The difference between streaming peanuts and nothing is negligable.
I just saw the mention of Spotify, so I'll just comment on that.
I am a happy Spotify user and a customer. As a customer I think it is an awesome service. As for the business side, I think it is one of the dumbest ideas in recent years.
Top musicians make some peanuts there while Spotify just generates losses for the owners.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow (http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow)
To cut a long story short, since I have Spotify I don't remember the last time when I bought a CD or MP3.
Cheers
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I just saw the mention of Spotify, so I'll just comment on that.
I am a happy Spotify user and a customer. As a customer I think it is an awesome service. As for the business side, I think it is one of the dumbest ideas in recent years.
Top musicians make some peanuts there while Spotify just generates losses for the owners.
[url]http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow[/url] ([url]http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow[/url])
To cut a long story short, since I have Spotify I don't remember the last time when I bought a CD or MP3.
Cheers
I might be the Spotify exception where I listen to albums I already own, so I guess those artists are making money on me twice. I suppose I've been buying less new albums though.
As far as Yay, I put in my request to close my account. Those .15 Euro sales were the last straw for me. I don't even want to see how this new thing materializes.
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Linda, I'd like to close my account now rather than waiting until 2016. Would you be so kind as to pay me the few Euros I've managed to earn with Yay this last year or so..? Or if I close my account do I lose that money?
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I opted out of streaming. Will stay with Yaymicro for now but this is a real problem for me. I don't think I'm going to want to support a site that is offering this. Hopefully it will be a failure, as I think it's more likely to attract current buyers than people that have never paid for images before.
Some sites can sell my microstock images for hundreds of dollars, I'm really not interested in nanostock. If it was only for images that don't sell elsewhere, I might of given it a try.
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Linda, I'd like to close my account now rather than waiting until 2016. Would you be so kind as to pay me the few Euros I've managed to earn with Yay this last year or so..? Or if I close my account do I lose that money?
You should send a request to [email protected] if you want to close your account. The payout limit is €30, so if you're close to it I would recommend waiting until you 've reached it.
Thanks,
Linda
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Linda, I'd like to close my account now rather than waiting until 2016. Would you be so kind as to pay me the few Euros I've managed to earn with Yay this last year or so..? Or if I close my account do I lose that money?
You should send a request to [email protected] if you want to close your account. The payout limit is €30, so if you're close to it I would recommend waiting until you 've reached it.
Thanks,
Linda
What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
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What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
When microstock started the cost of payouts where pretty high, and it also takes time to manage. I do think we should look for a better option, as the payment industry finally supports micropayment. I'll take it up in our next meeting.
Thanks,
Linda
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Hello Linda,
I didn't have the time to read the details yet, but I don't think I will be interested in any streaming schemes even if I have to delete my portfolio. The difference between streaming peanuts and nothing is negligable.
I just saw the mention of Spotify, so I'll just comment on that.
I am a happy Spotify user and a customer. As a customer I think it is an awesome service. As for the business side, I think it is one of the dumbest ideas in recent years.
Top musicians make some peanuts there while Spotify just generates losses for the owners.
[url]http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow[/url] ([url]http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow[/url])
To cut a long story short, since I have Spotify I don't remember the last time when I bought a CD or MP3.
Cheers
Spotify is an interesting case! How I see it, CDs would disappear even without Spotify and other streaming services. We'd be left with digital files, and people would either buy them in online record stores, or continue to download them illegally. I believe that Spotify has grown the total market by converting illegal downloaders to streamers.
Most artists find that they'll have to go on tours in order to keep their income up - a good thing for their fans. Vinyl records, digital files, and merchandise sales are up, and people attend more concerts. I have both Spotify and Netflix, and I have never spent more money on music (collecting vinyl records and going to concerts) and movies (going to the cinema several times a month).
For images we've already had our second digital change - when microstock came in the early 2000s. (The first being digital images) What we need now is a further adaption to the digital world. Generic content is abundant, and the competition between photographers, and between agencies is hard.
I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has. The image is only used online, and in a small size. Streaming is a product for the digital world, not an adaption from when physical images were sent with a courier. The world will always change, and what's important is to try to see how, and what you can do to adapt to it.
Perhaps giving people affordable access to millions of legal, great images can help grow peoples appreciation of photography?
Linda
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What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
When microstock started the cost of payouts where pretty high, and it also takes time to manage. I do think we should look for a better option, as the payment industry finally supports micropayment. I'll take it up in our next meeting.
Thanks,
Linda
Mass payments via paypal have very low fees. Also, if you pay one contributor they pay the fee, not you. Unless you are talking about internal costs (dont know how much it cost), it costs you close to nothing to pay someone their money. Its not your money.
Thanks for commenting though, its appreciated to step into the lions den.
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Music and movies are entertainment, stock images are not.
Buyers/clients/users/consumers of music/movies are completely different from microstock buyers.
The first are looking for entertainment and the last is looking for an image to support a product/page/site/ad/whatever.
What this initiative says is that the price for online images is going down and more closer to zero than before.
Then, are other aspects, like the fact that resolutions are moving up for online content. Small size is a moving target and is increasing with screen resolution. Or the other fact that images can be downloaded always once displayed in the browser and nothing can prevent it.
In my opinion, pirates will still pirate because their activity generates a profit for them and attract visitors by uploading more content to their ad filled sites. People that download from pirate sites will continue to do so until their activity is big enough and in danger due to using pirate images. And buyers will continue to buy wherever they are used to until they feel the need to change to another site either because of cheaper price or because they want specific content not available on their previous place to buy.
And a final thought, what if the content servers fail? Imagine the consequences for all sites linking to the images. Any webmaster will have to consider this possibility.
Why are agencies so enthusiast to announce cheaper products as if they were not going to affect negatively the perceived value of microstock as a whole?
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I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.
Linda,
can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.
Thanks,
Dirk
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I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.
Linda,
can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.
Thanks,
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
With streaming the user will get a link from YAY, not the file. With this link we can see how many impressions an image has, and we can also track the link in order to see where it is used. We'll give photographers information about impressions and what kind of sites that use our images. We also have the option to break a link if the user violates our terms etc.
Linda
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Music and movies are entertainment, stock images are not.
Buyers/clients/users/consumers of music/movies are completely different from microstock buyers.
The first are looking for entertainment and the last is looking for an image to support a product/page/site/ad/whatever.
What this initiative says is that the price for online images is going down and more closer to zero than before.
Then, are other aspects, like the fact that resolutions are moving up for online content. Small size is a moving target and is increasing with screen resolution. Or the other fact that images can be downloaded always once displayed in the browser and nothing can prevent it.
In my opinion, pirates will still pirate because their activity generates a profit for them and attract visitors by uploading more content to their ad filled sites. People that download from pirate sites will continue to do so until their activity is big enough and in danger due to using pirate images. And buyers will continue to buy wherever they are used to until they feel the need to change to another site either because of cheaper price or because they want specific content not available on their previous place to buy.
And a final thought, what if the content servers fail? Imagine the consequences for all sites linking to the images. Any webmaster will have to consider this possibility.
Why are agencies so enthusiast to announce cheaper products as if they were not going to affect negatively the perceived value of microstock as a whole?
Hi,
Although we don't agree I think you have many good points! First, I think the product that images are a part of is entertainment, i.e. blogs and websites. The marketing channel for music is, roughly, artist - production company - seller - consumer. For images it's a bit different, with photographer - seller - user - consumer.
As for sizes, you're right that it keeps going up. Our main focus is that customers will not get a file, and they do not get a license that allows for any other use than showing the image on online content.
To combat piracy a combination of activities seems like the best solution. One is to target illegal use, another is to make legal use attractive enough. For our new site the streaming product is part of an overall mix that we hope will increase the conversion. A good image search is key, and it's easier to find the image you're looking for at the new site than on Google images and other sources people use to find "free" images. We've also added online image editing and filter, helping people adjust the images - and with streaming we also host the image. This combination offer a much better product than any piracy source will. We'll also continue to update it with features that makes image usage easier and more efficient for image users.
We're hosting the images with Amazon, and we have another hosting partner as well - so that the servers failing at YAY is not more likely than for any other hosting service you would use to store your images.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the right direction for a microstock company. Hopefully we can prove that streaming helped convert non-paying into paying customers, and that it didn't just lower the price for online use-images.
Linda
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What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany (where I come from) a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.
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I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.
Linda,
can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.
Thanks,
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
With streaming the user will get a link from YAY, not the file. With this link we can see how many impressions an image has, and we can also track the link in order to see where it is used. We'll give photographers information about impressions and what kind of sites that use our images. We also have the option to break a link if the user violates our terms etc.
Linda
That doesnt explain control of the copyright holder imo. To me it seems there is no control at all for the copyright holder, if there is any control, its by Yay.
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I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.
Linda,
can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.
Thanks,
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
With streaming the user will get a link from YAY, not the file. With this link we can see how many impressions an image has, and we can also track the link in order to see where it is used. We'll give photographers information about impressions and what kind of sites that use our images. We also have the option to break a link if the user violates our terms etc.
Linda
That doesnt explain control of the copyright holder imo. To me it seems there is no control at all for the copyright holder, if there is any control, its by Yay.
And being such a nice company, we'll share this information with our users. The information we get from regular downloads is close to zero, so I think this is a very good improvement.
L:)
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I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the right direction for a microstock company. Hopefully we can prove that streaming helped convert non-paying into paying customers, and that it didn't just lower the price for online use-images.
Linda
You are hoping its going to work? And if not, you are leading the race to the bottom with content you dont own.
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What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.
[/quote]
Yes, we're discussing a better solution to this. As for it being illegal - a photographer don't have to close their account, and we could also argue that the money up to €30 is to cover uploading and hosting expenses, reviewing etc. But, after a give amount of time, ex. 1 year, it should be possible to close the account and get all your earnings. We've only discussed it briefly during lunch hour today, but we'll look more into it later on in a formal meeting.
Thanks
Linda
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I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of. It gives the copyright holder control on where an image is used and how many views it has.
Linda,
can you explain that part? I don't understand how a streaming service will give me more control.
Thanks,
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
With streaming the user will get a link from YAY, not the file. With this link we can see how many impressions an image has, and we can also track the link in order to see where it is used. We'll give photographers information about impressions and what kind of sites that use our images. We also have the option to break a link if the user violates our terms etc.
Linda
That doesnt explain control of the copyright holder imo. To me it seems there is no control at all for the copyright holder, if there is any control, its by Yay.
And being such a nice company, we'll share this information with our users. The information we get from regular downloads is close to zero, so I think this is a very good improvement.
L:)
Nice companies dont keep our money when they want to close an account.
You are the CEO, make the decissions :)
I am butting out of this discussion now, I dont want to take it further off topic.
Cheers
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The agency "123rf" does the same thing, I've been stuck there $.015 to go ;)
Most sites are pretty good, one let me pay a modest fee of $3.00
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What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.
Yes, we're discussing a better solution to this. As for it being illegal - a photographer don't have to close their account, and we could also argue that the money up to €30 is to cover uploading and hosting expenses, reviewing etc. But, after a give amount of time, ex. 1 year, it should be possible to close the account and get all your earnings. We've only discussed it briefly during lunch hour today, but we'll look more into it later on in a formal meeting.
Thanks
Linda
You could also argue you take your commissions to cover that !
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I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the right direction for a microstock company. Hopefully we can prove that streaming helped convert non-paying into paying customers, and that it didn't just lower the price for online use-images.
Linda
You are hoping its going to work? And if not, you are leading the race to the bottom with content you dont own.
Only death is certain. Our analysis and our strategic take on the future for digital stock images indicates that this is the best option. If I told you I knew it I would be lying.
Linda
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@Linda
Good point about the expenses.
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What is it with agencies keeping money thats not yours when someone wants to close their account? It can take years to reach payout, you've made your profit on the image sales. Just pay the money you are due !!! GREED
Correctly, the withholding of money in such a case is not only in Germany a law violation, but probably in most European countries. Maybe even in the whole western world.
Yes, we're discussing a better solution to this. As for it being illegal - a photographer don't have to close their account, and we could also argue that the money up to €30 is to cover uploading and hosting expenses, reviewing etc. But, after a give amount of time, ex. 1 year, it should be possible to close the account and get all your earnings. We've only discussed it briefly during lunch hour today, but we'll look more into it later on in a formal meeting.
Thanks
Linda
You could also argue you take your commissions to cover that !
Yes, I agree.
L:)
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@Linda
Good point about the expenses.
Thanks!
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@Linda
Good point about the expenses.
Why? You give up 50% and also want to cover their expenses for keeping your files?
I am gobsmacked.
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@Linda
Good point about the expenses.
Why? You give up 50% and also want to cover their expenses for keeping your files?
I am gobsmacked.
Good point and some agencies it's more.
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I also made a positive comment on this new product before I understood it to be $9.90 a month for "unlimited images for web use"
I will still say creative thinking... But I do see for this to work you would need HUGE # of subscribers streaming LOW #s of images for any real $$
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Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but isn't web use the biggest part of our business.
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I also made a positive comment on this new product before I understood it to be $9.90 a month for "unlimited images for web use"
I will still say creative thinking... But I do see for this to work you would need HUGE # of subscribers streaming LOW #s of images for any real $$
I agree that it it could be a good idea if all agencies treated web usage like this. Then you can know when someone is using the image legally and you know all versions of your file not legitimately linked through your agencies is stolen and take appropriate action.
The problem is the the price which is ridiculous. There is no reason why someone should be paying less for the "streaming" of the image. If anything they should be paying more because they are getting the image hosted for them.
It is a terrible model for the contributor. We would only have to lose one or two standard sales from existing customers converting to the new "streaming" model to make it a loss for us.
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Yay is aggressively undercutting the market prices with this new streaming service. Yay can spin it anyway they want, but if this is a success, Yay is much more likely to convert paying customers into less paying customers. And to take marketshare from sites where customers pay more.
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I don't know for sure that streaming is the best solution for our industry, but it's the best we at YAY could think of.
There is always doing the opposite. Selling less for more. I'm 3 years into that philosophy, and I've enjoyed the results. It's just a shame so many other companies and contributors are working against me because I know it could be even better.
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Yay is aggressively undercutting the market prices with this new streaming service. Yay can spin it anyway they want, but if this is a success, Yay is much more likely to convert paying customers into less paying customers. And to take marketshare from sites where customers pay more.
It is not only an aggressive way, it's actually quite rude against the creators.
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If the Shutterstock share price is anything to go buy, there's still a lot of growth in the microstock business. I see my images being used for lots of business purposes, not mainly entertainment blogs and websites.
I hope Yaymicro can think again about this streaming offering. I wouldn't mind sites doing something like that instead of offering free images. To only have the option of having all my portfolio included seems like madness. I'd rather experiment with Stipple, who have been doing something similar. I haven't bothered with them because I can't find any photographers saying they're making money with them.
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The only people I can see that are likely to benefit from this initiative are Yay employees. Everyone else is likely to be a loser.
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It seems to me the growth of the industry is reliant on getting someone elses marketshare and the way to do that is cut prices. They however, never take into consideration the contributors cost vs return.
This industry needs an artist union terribly.
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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.
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boy·cott
tr.v. boy·cott·ed, boy·cott·ing, boy·cotts
To abstain from or act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion.
n.
The act or an instance of boycotting.
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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".
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Facebook got a massive backlash for doing opt out on Beacon. Opt out is bad practice. It should always be opt in. When you are messing around with someone else's intellectual property the decent thing to do is to offer opt in, instead of opt out. I am glad I am not part of YAY and never will be.
We need to start reporting these agencies to the BBB or similar bodies.
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Linda, will you consider setting the default to opted out?
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If they don't put the default to opt out for streaming, it will be a good time to leave Yaymicro. Perhaps the threat of lots of us leaving will persuade them?
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By the way: who has actually ever achieved significant revenue with YAY! I never did. So I'm gone. The chance to ever get paid the time and effort in the future is suspectet zero.
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Tried to follow their instruction to delete images - nope, delete option does not exist anymore. very bad.
requested from them to delete my images.
No way to select an image in portfolio
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So, Linda.... how did you get on in that meeting..?
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So, Linda.... how did you get on in that meeting..?
SCENE 1. Daylight
tumbleweed. the toll of a distant bell. no word has issued from the royal court, thus the peasants drift back to their daily toil, none the wiser.
;D
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I sent them e-mail reminding that what they told me to use x in portfolio to delete images does not exist (not Chrome, not IE).
They didn't answer anymore. I sent again a request to delete images. They really loosing face.
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I sent them e-mail reminding that what they told me to use x in portfolio to delete images does not exist (not Chrome, not IE).
They didn't answer anymore. I sent again a request to delete images. They really loosing face.
Just checked in both IE9 and Chrome - the delete facility for individual images is still there. Logged in (obviously) click on My Account then My Portfolio then click on the image you wish to delete. Bottom left of the image are two small icons -a pen icon for editing and an X icon to delete. Hope that helps. Regards, David.
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So, Linda.... how did you get on in that meeting..?
SCENE 1. Daylight
tumbleweed. the toll of a distant bell. no word has issued from the royal court, thus the peasants drift back to their daily toil, none the wiser.
;D
LOL
I just busted a gut
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I sent them e-mail reminding that what they told me to use x in portfolio to delete images does not exist (not Chrome, not IE).
They didn't answer anymore. I sent again a request to delete images. They really loosing face.
Just checked in both IE9 and Chrome - the delete facility for individual images is still there. Logged in (obviously) click on My Account then My Portfolio then click on the image you wish to delete. Bottom left of the image are two small icons -a pen icon for editing and an X icon to delete. Hope that helps. Regards, David.
I finally received email from them - they promised that all my port will be removed from database in 24 hours. Will check tomorrow.
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I think this should drive attention to behavior of this "agency" from all: they promised to delete my images in 24 hours, time passed, instead they closed access, but continue to sell images, my port is still online, YAY stole images. I think they initially had no intention to work normally.
What they wrote 2 days ago:
Hi,
Your account is now closed and the images deleted. They will be gone from the website within the next 24 hours. I am terribly sorry you had this problem, but the option is there, the delete individual images option. No users have had this problem before, maybe it is a problem with your browser. We check everything and the option is still there. Please don't hold grudge against Yay Micro because there is clearly a misunderstanding here and the possibility of deleting images by users is there, we never took this out.
Have a great day!
Best,
Irina - Yay team
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@skyfish. Sorry you are having troubles and Hopefully it's a tech glitch, I've dealt with yay in the recent past and found them helpful when I closed my account, please keep us posted.
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@skyfish. Sorry you are having troubles and Hopefully it's a tech glitch, I've dealt with yay in the recent past and found them helpful when I closed my account, please keep us posted.
They closed account before deleting images, but i asked them to do otherwise and they promised to delete images because x button was not available for me (even this is very strange). If it is a glitch, they could give an answer for this. Didn't delete images after introducing a product which will devalue any portfolio? Sound suspicious. Will wait a little
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Wow... Curious, how many images do you have up?
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Wow... Curious, how many images do you have up?
589 currently
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That's a good amount, I'd like to see your portfolio, could you put a link :)
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That's a good amount, I'd like to see your portfolio, could you put a link :)
no problem
http://yaymicro.com/search.action?search.photographer=skyfish (http://yaymicro.com/search.action?search.photographer=skyfish)
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Thanks, nice work... Especially the work with the gent in the beige suit :)
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Thanks, nice work... Especially the work with the gent in the beige suit :)
Thanks. That was a memory from workshop at Yuri studio
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Nice, workshops are fun and you learn so much!... And I digress from the topic ;)
I will be looking forward to see how things turn out. Best of luck
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Time is going.
Yay only promised to delete images, but continue keep them on sale.
All e-mails from them become false promises.
Doing this they put their hand in my pocket, my images even if not sold, work for attraction of buyers.
YAY - you already know who you are.
To all contributors: if you deleted images: do they really diappear from sale or we have to check after if YAY not started to use them again? YAY become blacklisted company
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Time is going.
Yay only promised to delete images, but continue keep them on sale.
All e-mails from them become false promises.
Doing this they put their hand in my pocket, my images even if not sold, work for attraction of buyers.
YAY - you already know who you are.
To all contributors: if you deleted images: do they really diappear from sale or we have to check after if YAY not started to use them again? YAY become blacklisted company
Finally i see that my images disappear from their site.
It took much longer than it was promised by their employee.
Not good impression generally. 2 times promised "in 24 hours".
It is better they continue their life without my port.
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Thanks for your update skyfish, glad it's resolved.