Author Topic: FOTOLIA ADMIN - WE WANT TO BE PAID OUR RIGHTFUL COMMISSIONS (Read 21569 times)

gostwyck · « **on:** February 02, 2010, 17:18 »

Dear Fotolia Admin,

You have just increased prices substantially for customers buying credits. Please can you explain why these higher prices have not resulted in proportionate increases in our commissions?

What you propose to do about it and when?

Why are you not paying commissions based on the actual purchase price of the purchaser's credits (or higher) as other reputable agencies do?

Artemis · « **Reply #1 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:03 »

Seconding this, strongly!

melastmohican · « **Reply #2 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:12 »

This is not Fotolia forum. You can scream and they could never hear you :-)

gostwyck · « **Reply #3 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:16 »

Quote from: melastmohican on February 02, 2010, 18:12

This is not Fotolia forum. You can scream and they could never hear you :-)

Don't worry, they'll hear me __ long and loud. Of that I can promise.

lisafx · « **Reply #4 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:18 »

Quote from: melastmohican on February 02, 2010, 18:12

This is not Fotolia forum. You can scream and they could never hear you :-)

That's not true. Administrators from all the major agencies keep up with these forums. And FWIW there is a thread on the Fotolia forum with similar concerns raised.

@ Gostwyck, I am right there with you. This is the first time I am aware of in the micro industry where a site has raised it's prices but the contributors have not gotten their contracted percentage.

It seems that a response (beyond the confusing and dismissive replies sent to Warren) is in order.

I can't overstress the significance of this type of behavior in my calculations to go exclusive with Istock.

To be honest, I really didn't WANT to go exclusive anywhere, but actions like this on the part of Fotolia have pushed me in that direction.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:20 »

sorry to hear fotolia is screwing you guys ....again

its the same thing with the agency every time and they will continue to do it

its one of the main reasons i went exclusive - bc having to deal with the issues of bad companies sucks

i hope you guys sort it out soon and you get your monies

GeoPappas · « **Reply #6 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:25 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on February 02, 2010, 18:20

sorry to hear fotolia is screwing you guys ....again

its the same thing with the agency every time and they will continue to do it

its one of the main reasons i went exclusive - bc having to deal with the issues of bad companies sucks

i hope you guys sort it out soon and you get your monies

Please be aware that this is not just a problem with FT, since I can guarantee that the rest of the industry is watching very closely (as they do in all of these matters).

If this issue doesn't get sorted out properly, then I can guarantee that other agencies will follow suit quickly.

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #7 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:27 »

Quote from: gostwyck on February 02, 2010, 18:16

Quote from: melastmohican on February 02, 2010, 18:12
This is not Fotolia forum. You can scream and they could never hear you :-)

Don't worry, they'll hear me __ long and loud. Of that I can promise.

You should scream for sure but I doubt they will hear anything. Until people, in large numbers, begin to pull images off the site, diddly will happen. I mean actually take the images and remove them, not just stop submitting. But not enough key players will do this. After all a little is better than nothing most everyone always says. "Oh but I make xyz% of my income from them" blah blah blah.

gostwyck · « **Reply #8 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:35 »

Quote from: Zeus on February 02, 2010, 18:27

You should scream for sure but I doubt they will hear anything. Until people, in large numbers, begin to pull images off the site, diddly will happen. I mean actually take the images and remove them, not just stop submitting. But not enough key players will do this. After all a little is better than nothing most everyone always says. "Oh but I make xyz% of my income from them" blah blah blah.

Not true. They climbed down on the both the subscription commissions and also on them counting towards Ranking. This is MUCH more important and no compromise will be acceptable. We want to be paid our rightful commissions.

melastmohican · « **Reply #9 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:36 »

Quote from: Zeus on February 02, 2010, 18:27

You should scream for sure but I doubt they will hear anything. Until people, in large numbers, begin to pull images off the site, diddly will happen. I mean actually take the images and remove them, not just stop submitting. But not enough key players will do this. After all a little is better than nothing most everyone always says. "Oh but I make xyz% of my income from them" blah blah blah.

Unfulfilled threats are empty threats. People are venting here every time agency exercise their power. After couple days they gladly accept it. Right now market is consolidating so there is no better place to take your stuff for sale. Microstock opened it to the masses so new people are coming every second. On the other side you cannot easily go to macro agencies cause these guys are collapsing and eventually most of them become micro or die.

gostwyck · « **Reply #10 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:40 »

Quote from: melastmohican on February 02, 2010, 18:36

Unfulfilled threats are empty threats.

Who said anything about threats, unfulfilled or otherwise?

We are campaigning to be paid our rightful commissions. Why do you have a problem with that and why aren't you doing the same?

lisafx · « **Reply #11 on:** February 02, 2010, 18:52 »

Quote from: gostwyck on February 02, 2010, 18:40

We are campaigning to be paid our rightful commissions. Why do you have a problem with that and why aren't you doing the same?

Frankly, all the defeatism around here is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Those who just want to blindly accept whatever crumbs are thrown their way are certainly free to do so, but to continuously pour cold water on those who are trying to get fair treatment for themselves and YOU is not only counter-productive, but downright crazy.

warren0909 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 02, 2010, 19:00 »

Well you all know im 100% behind you guys if only we could get some of the real big guns to say somthing here or on the forum it might help

They once started off with micro !!

Warren

sharpshot · « **Reply #13 on:** February 02, 2010, 19:05 »

The sites have taken action numerous times in the past when enough of us have complained, without resorting to pulling portfolios. Despite what some people think, I believe the sites still need us and they have to be careful not to fatally damage the relationship with their suppliers.

melastmohican · « **Reply #14 on:** February 02, 2010, 19:08 »

Big guns are few and they can be always "compensated" for being loyal :-)

Pheby · « **Reply #15 on:** February 02, 2010, 19:28 »

Quote from: melastmohican on February 02, 2010, 19:08

Big guns are few and they can be always "compensated" for being loyal :-)

But there might also be a few amongst the few bigguns who are simply decent people and won't be corrupted by "compensation".

RT · « **Reply #16 on:** February 02, 2010, 19:28 »

Quote from: warren0909 on February 02, 2010, 19:00

Well you all know im 100% behind you guys if only we could get some of the real big guns to say somthing here or on the forum it might help

Please try and understand that there is a history of vindictiveness from "some" sites towards what people have said here, rest assured as mentioned in a previous thread some of the 'big guns' are taking this latest insult from Fotolia very seriously, that may involve going exclusive with iStock or for others reassessing the viability of creating images for the microstock market as a whole, either way Fotolias latest attempt at foul play will have an effect on them.

As for speaking out on their forum - pointless, either the management just ignore it or 'censor boy' will delete it before they get a chance to see any comments.

It'll be interesting to see in a few months how many people have been tipped over the edge towards iStock exclusivity because of Fotolias latest move, and what will be even more interesting will be to see their blogs and comments all over the internet stating their reasons why they did it!

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #17 on:** February 02, 2010, 19:31 »

Quote from: gostwyck on February 02, 2010, 18:35

Quote from: Zeus on February 02, 2010, 18:27
You should scream for sure but I doubt they will hear anything. Until people, in large numbers, begin to pull images off the site, diddly will happen. I mean actually take the images and remove them, not just stop submitting. But not enough key players will do this. After all a little is better than nothing most everyone always says. "Oh but I make xyz% of my income from them" blah blah blah.

Not true. They climbed down on the both the subscription commissions and also on them counting towards Ranking. This is MUCH more important and no compromise will be acceptable. We want to be paid our rightful commissions.

I certainly wish the best on this one. But really the reality is I doubt you'll get much more than what was presented initially as a red herring or nothing at all.

stockastic · « **Reply #18 on:** February 02, 2010, 20:38 »

Is IStock really more ethical, with a higher regard for contributors? If so can we count on them to stay that way? Especially if the competition goes away?

Pixart · « **Reply #19 on:** February 02, 2010, 21:27 »

What is the biggest design magazine? How much are ads? We should take a collection and pay for an ad that tells buyers how the contributing artists are being expoited and suggest that they move to another agency until we are treated fairly. The stage and theatrical unions place these kinds of ads all the time.

NancyCWalker · « **Reply #20 on:** February 02, 2010, 21:49 »

I tried to find the forum thread on their site and couldn't. The only post about it was from Chad stating that he appreciated everyone patience as the new commission and purchase incentive programs are rolled out.

Phil · « **Reply #21 on:** February 02, 2010, 21:52 »

Quote from: lisafx on February 02, 2010, 18:18

Quote from: melastmohican on February 02, 2010, 18:12
This is not Fotolia forum. You can scream and they could never hear you :-)

That's not true. Administrators from all the major agencies keep up with these forums. And FWIW there is a thread on the Fotolia forum with similar concerns raised.

@ Gostwyck, I am right there with you. This is the first time I am aware of in the micro industry where a site has raised it's prices but the contributors have not gotten their contracted percentage.

It seems that a response (beyond the confusing and dismissive replies sent to Warren) is in order.

I can't overstress the significance of this type of behavior in my calculations to go exclusive with Istock.

To be honest, I really didn't WANT to go exclusive anywhere, but actions like this on the part of Fotolia have pushed me in that direction.

+1 Lisa. I've always said I will never go exclusive, but StockXpert is another 6% of my income lost and it seems there something contraversial with Fotolia every 3-6 months, I am going to be crunching numbers and doing some investigating for the next few days...

stockastic · « **Reply #22 on:** February 02, 2010, 21:53 »

I just spent a few minutes looking at the contributor agreement. It is 100% weasel words and in reality it commits to nothing in terms of commissions. It says contributors get certain percentages - but does not specifically say that means a percentage of the sale price. It says we get 'credits' but is completely vague on the subject of what a credit is, in terms of local currency.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me there's nothing actionable here, Fotolia holds the cards.

None of this means much to me, I'm a small player, I can use the money but it isn't a big factor to me. I've been in this a year, have already dropped a couple of agencies and, and Fotolia just went to the #1 spot on my "next drop" list. They're simply trashing this business.

Dreamframer · « **Reply #23 on:** February 02, 2010, 22:01 »

Sometimes I am really disgusted with some agencies acting... I feel sorry for us all.... Looks like they are screwing more and more every month....

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #24 on:** February 02, 2010, 22:56 »

Quote from: Zeus on February 02, 2010, 18:27

You should scream for sure but I doubt they will hear anything. Until people, in large numbers, begin to pull images off the site, diddly will happen. I mean actually take the images and remove them, not just stop submitting. ...

Actually, withholding uploads is a pretty effective technique for any site that sells a lot of subscriptions. Subscription buyers want new stuff each month. If there isn't any, they fuss (you should have read the Jupiter forums about Photos.com plus before the StockXpert content went up there; they were mad that there wasn't anything new getting uploaded).

Pulling a portfolio is really an end-of-the-line sort of move - putting it back entails a ton of work on the contributor's part plus all the reviewing all over again on the agency's part. I can't imagine any serious (i.e. large portfolio) contributor would do something like this as a negotiating tactic.

Funnily enough, the one site that has the easy ability to disable the whole portfolio with one command is the one site that has in general behaved fairly reasonably with contributors - SS. It'd be great if other sites had that feature so you could just turn off the sales if you weren't happy but turn them back on once the dispute was resolved. Given FT's track record, I can't imagine them implementing that feature.

The major problem is that there are a few very large contributors that just don't get involved in any way with the smaller folks. It'd be a huge help if they did, but I think they figure they don't have anything in common with the non-factory contributors. If anyone knows any of them and can approach them offline to see if they'll weigh in, that'd certainly be worth trying.

In the movie business people want a percentage of the gross as their bonus - when it was a percentage of profits the studios ensured that the way the books were kept there never was any "profit" to get a percentage of. It seems to me FT is playing this game - if they control the definition of what contributors get a percentage of and it's independent of the price a buyer pays then they can keep reducing royalties by changing the definition of a credit.

Seems reminiscent of boxes of cereal, tissues, crackers, etc. that stay the same size while reducing the weight/count of product, hoping the buyer won't notice it's a price increase. And that's a scummy practice too!

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Author Topic: FOTOLIA ADMIN - WE WANT TO BE PAID OUR RIGHTFUL COMMISSIONS (Read 21569 times)

gostwyck

Artemis

melastmohican

gostwyck

lisafx

ichiro17

GeoPappas

PeterChigmaroff

gostwyck

melastmohican

gostwyck

lisafx

warren0909

sharpshot

melastmohican

Pheby

RT

PeterChigmaroff

stockastic

Pixart

NancyCWalker

Phil

stockastic

Dreamframer

Jo Ann Snover

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