Just announced (from Serban, on the forums) -

Hello everyone,

As some of you will recall, we advised you many months ago that we would have some exciting news to share.  This is that news: Dreamstime has been selected as a beta provider of stock photos for Google display ads! Although we have agreed to keep details of our arrangement confidential, we can share with you as a selected member of our contributor community a few specifics about this relationship.  We commend Google on their efforts to effectively utilize and integrate stock photography into their advertising products in a way that will be beneficial to advertisers and photographers alike.

The details of the program that we can share with you at this time are that Google has selected a large number of images from our collection for use in display ads: Google will be able to use pre-selected Dreamstime RF images only for ads, and in limited sizes to accommodate ads.  During the beta period, images will not be available in a template library. These images will be used under the Royalty Free license in a beta for the next 12 months, and contributors will receive royalties soon. The royalties for the first 12 months will be based on our all-at-once subscriptions � i.e., $2.00 (non exclusive) and $2.20 (exclusive) per image.  As we do with other initiatives, Dreamstime supports the volume discounts and we expect to at least double our regular royalty rate.  The volume discount also reflects the use case, since these images will be used in limited-sized ads and not in more prominent uses. We have decided to provide a higher royalty rate for this launch than originally planned as a demonstration of our long-term commitment to offering fair revenue to our contributors.  It is important to note when considering the amounts that we�re talking about a very high volume purchase that will hopefully increase even more over time.

Provided the first phase of this project goes as expected, after a maximum of 12 months (we all hope it will be sooner), in addition to the royalties described above, Google will initiate another volume purchase of an upgraded W-EL license for each image. We might switch images that didn't perform well with new ones, awarding royalties as appropriate. For the second stage we will award EL royalties (25%-60%). Overall the royalties will average approximately 50%.
Although we are very enthusiastic about the long-term potential for this collaboration, and we would anticipate your enthusiastic participation in this groundbreaking program, you may elect to �opt out� any time until January 31st by removing your participation in the Alliances program on your account management page. We will proceed awarding royalties after this date. If you have opted-out in the past from Alliances and wish to participate you can opt-in using same Alliances & Partnerships page (which will of course enroll in all our Alliances).

In our opinion, this is potentially not only a very attractive deal for our contributors, but with so much future potential, will ultimately be good for our entire community.  It�s a collaboration with the world�s most acclaimed advertising network and is something we have dreamed of since inception of the site.  This has taken many months to finalize, we thank all of our contributors for their patience and, of course, for their support through all these years.

Good times!

http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_39797

Thanks for posting that link, Sean. I don't normally spend time on the forums, but that thread looks like something worth monitoring.

Most of the first responses there were the usual wooyay! I may be more clueless than most, but I don't understand the deal at all. Seems wise to be cautious at this point.

Once again an "exciting" announcement that leaves out a lot of the pertinent details. If it's a yearlong license for Google to make the images available for infinite use and we get paid $2 once, it svcks. If we get paid every time someone wants to use one of our images in a Google ad, like the Facebook/SS deal, woo yay.

I'm always suspicious when they leave out important details like that.

I had a $2.00 subscription sale on DT yesterday, small, licence RF. I do not allow the web usage licence, but wonder if this one was sold to Google. I have not seen $2.00 subscriptions on DT before.

Of my last 200 sales I've had 11 of the $2.00 sub sales - and I am not opted into any of the Alliances or partnership deals.

I'm not interested in this new deal with Google and won't be opting any of my files into the alliances -- it's all or nothing. You either opt into all of their alliances or out of all of them.

Nothing said so far makes me want to opt into all of their side deals.

Edit:  why is everbody's DT meter on the left at zero today?

I've had 2 $2 sales.

So have I, and I didn't know what in he_ll they were for. Guess I do now.

I think (hope!) what they mean is that if it is an exclusive DT image you get a bit more money NOT that Google will get exclusive use. That would be insane for $2.20. You would be paying Google for the privilege of having them give your work away.

the $2.00 sales are the under the 'Subscription all at Once' plan...

"These plans are now available at $39 and $69, giving access to five or ten files. The files can be downloaded anytime throughout the next 30 days. The royalties awarded are $2.00 for non-exclusive contributors and $2.20 for exclusives. These values are computed based on our historical average for downloads generated by both credits and subscriptions."
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_35047

I posted something in the DT forums asking for clarification. It's all very well that they trumpet that the selected images get a $2 royalty even if no advertiser ever uses the image, but they're apparently glossing over the fact that Google can resell the image to multiple end users multiple times if an image ends up in lots of ads.

This really isn't different from the Google/Getty deal with the exception that there's an opt out offered (which is a very good thing; and the worse the deals, the more I appreciate that). I think people see Google and get all starry eyed and do daft things.

This is very different from the iStock/google drive deal. It is a lot worse for the contributor. In the Dreamstime/google deal, an unlimited amount of end users can use our images for advertising purposes and all you get is 2 dollars. No one should ever accept this.

To opt out:   http://www.dreamstime.com/alliances

I was not opted in - opted out when they wanted us to donate to a "big secret partner" and donating is almost the same as $2 unrestricted as far as I'm concerned.