Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

rinder99 · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:00 am

OK, Here we go again. I got an e-mail from a friend who saw a site with My best selling Image on the home page. They are selling My Image as fine art prints along with some of my students and friends. I tried calling them.....No Luck,

Then I e-mailed the owner. Without posting his responce, he said he bought them at another site. The one starting With "I" I got I think $1.60 and he got the rights to make 2000 prints in any size to sell as fine art. I Think this Sucks And I mean BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Know, I Know,This is what we all signed up for and I've fought for myself and a bunch of you about this and we won some and lost some.
I gotta tell ya in the strongest terms This kind of shit is gonna kill Us. And one of the the reasons a lot of Us have gone back to RM.Any Person That can spend $200.00 , start a site and print Our stuff. And, we get Nothing other than a few dollars for our Talent and our work. This shit has to stop my friends.

We as artist's give away enough already without some Guy with $200.00 Making Money on our work.It's time we stand Up!!! Im not asking for a bigger Royalty, Im asking for a different EL Deal. No more T-shirts and Baseball caps and coffee cups and 2000 Prints for this kind of money.Do you agree? Or not. I wanna Know, am I alone in this? heres the site., I want you to write that other site. If they just would have contacted the artist about this and made a separate deal and stood up and respected us I would have no problem.I have NOTHING against people making Money. I want them to make money on there talent, Not Mine!!! I have CC'ed this to many organizations I belong to.

Heres the site. Do what your comfortable with and look for your work.Be nice. They have obeyed the rules, But the rules MUST be changed. PERIOD!!!!!!!!

I deleted The web address. He has done nothing wrong. He followed the rules.

ctesti · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 1344 Location: California

They sell great images, and Ansel Adams is one of the photographer being ripped off :(

http://www.lightgate-imagery.com/Scenica/Tetons.html

But are you sure they can re-sell prints $165 without buying an EL???

ctesti · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 1344 Location: California

mikeledray · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:16 am

i agree that does suck
I have thought about this concept alot
what is stopping any of us from doing the exact same thing with our images?
Start a Print on Demand site for a fee?
after all our images are Our images first
I agree the Extended lisc rights need to be changed
having found Fifi on Birthday Cards (along with other people)
of course its great fun, but to think of how far and wide our images are used globaly sort of makes me want to start my own print on demand site
I just need to figure out how to do it
sorry to read this

bluecherrygfx · Joined: 28 Mar 2008 Posts: 506 Location: Arkansas

OK, this is my opinion - and I'm pretty sure it's going to be unpopular.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but is the end user complying with the license agreement? If so, I would never dream of contacting them to ask for more money based on how much (perceived) money they are making. The reason being, plain and simple, we agreed to these terms knowing full well that could happen.

That happens all the time in business; isn't that what a lot of businesses are based on? Find something you can re-sell for a profit?

Now, if he/she is NOT complying with the terms of the license agreement, then yes, by all means I'd pursue it. If they are within their rights for what they contracted for, though, no one is forcing us to sell our images under those terms.

==

That being said, the question of whether the compensation to artists is a fair one is another issue altogether. I agree it should be higher. But there's always a steady supply of people ready to fill in and do it for that price or cheaper, so I don't foresee any drastic changes in compensation.

As I look over more and more of the portfolios here, though - both photographers and illustrators - with the level of quality of some I find it hard to believe that microstock is the only source of potential income.

IMO, quality is always going to be in demand and there will always be those willing to pay a higher price for higher quality.

Just to be clear, though, if I did mis-read the post and the person is violating the license agreement, I agree they should be addressed.

ctesti · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 1344 Location: California

I believe they can only resale for up to 2000 prints if they bought a $100 EL.

Still a bad deal for the photographer, but that's we signed for.

Same goes when micro images end up on magazine cover. There should be a special EL for that as well.

rinder99 · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:55 am

Let me say again. I don't think he did anything wrong and Im going to find out if anyone did for me and US.My post wasn't about this site perse' it was about our agents and the licence agreements we all agreed to.Blindly I might add. I Think it's time for a change. If any of you out there that are more clever about the Legal stuff ....Please Join In.I went to the other site and read as much as I could and found really Nothing [At least with My eyes that they did anything wrong]I just think It's time WE did something to stop this.

we have enormous Power guys. It's time we did something about it. Just a few Small Changes about this kind of usage.

mandy · Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 1624

The owner of the site replied on another forum and said that he had bought Els for the images that he is selling. The answer is not to offer Els on your images and then this can't happen.

hospitalera · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:12 am

Easy solution, opt-out of EL sales with you don't agree with the conditions, Laurin. SY

starsofglass · Joined: 11 Apr 2008 Posts: 48 Location: Brussels

I agree completely that the pay is "peanuts" for EL compared to what the buyers can do with it.

On the one hand EL's provide bigger pay-outs, but on the other hand it's painful to see our images sold so cheaply making others more money. I'm torn myself between opting in or out on EL sales :s

mahnken · Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 531 Location: Cordele, GA

He seems very professional.....

"What payment methods du you are accept?"

editorial · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 482 Location: Dublin

Hmmmm, this is a difficult one to call on. The site is operating within that twilight zone of just about, nearly but not quite bordering on criminal.

If it's legit, it's legit and there's not a darn thing anyone can do. It's unfortunate that you found it. Sometimes you're just better off not knowing about these things.

I don't produce much work that could be classified as fine-art but I empathize with all the snappers like Laurin who do.

It's a proverbial kick in the nuts, but what's the solution? I'll tell you what it is but you'll all have to PM me to find out :)

But think hard before you do!

lffile · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:47 am

starsofglass · Joined: 11 Apr 2008 Posts: 48 Location: Brussels

There are options in between as well. I'm currently in the process of uploading images to a website that offers prints and framed prints. They do all the practical stuff, and I get a profit for each picture sold (I can choose the profit margin myself. And in that case the profit is for each print, not one time only.

gregor · Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 808 Location: Netherlands

I agree with Laurin. With the microstock market growing and taking over the macrostock market, it's time to change the EL prohibitions.