Author Topic: Discussion for those submitting to Depositphotos (Read 43372 times)

eppic · « **on:** November 16, 2009, 15:27 »

So last week I decided to begin submitting images to depositstock on account of the .20/per accepted image for the first 500 images (100.00). So far I've submitted 123 images with one rejection, so I certainly cant complain about my acceptance ratio.
The upload servers seem pretty fast with no upload limits and the option for multiple uploads either via browser or FTP. All my images have IPTC data which was nicely placed in the title desc and keyword boxes. They have categories as well, but it's a simple drop-down menu like SS has, so final image submission is fairly quick.
I see I have 24.40 in m account balance from my accepted images, so I say so far so good with depositphotos. I think I'll be asking for a payout once I have 500 images accepted just to make sure they honour the whole thing.
One stipulation however in this program is that your images remain with them for a 6 month minimum. Fair enough sice they paid you to upload them.
Anybody else giving them a try?

LSD72 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 16, 2009, 15:39 »

I have not tried this but it sounds a little interesting. the 500 deal....if you dont have 500 images (thats me) you still get the money or does it have to be for 500?

Also, what is the payout on there and do they payout through Paypal?

melastmohican · « **Reply #2 on:** November 16, 2009, 15:57 »

I got less than 50 accepted and they keep adding money while I am increasing number of files. Interface is kind of cumbersome so it will take a few days to reach large number of submissions. I wish they got some sort of batch submission tool ;-)

elvinstar · « **Reply #3 on:** November 16, 2009, 18:11 »

I've uploaded well over the 500 and found their site to be one of the easier places to finish up at. I've requested payment and will let you know how long it takes to come through.

Quote

if you dont have 500 images (thats me) you still get the money

The way I understand it, they pay $0.20 for EACH image UP TO 500, so you should get something!

melastmohican · « **Reply #4 on:** November 16, 2009, 18:17 »

Minimum payout is $50 so I have to reach at least 250 images to get paid? Or maybe it's just excluded from general rules and you have to have 500 online?

eppic · « **Reply #5 on:** November 16, 2009, 18:29 »

I suppose if you don't have 250 accepted images, then you'd have to rely on sales to take you up to $50.00.
Here's the commission rates:
http://submit.depositphotos.com/pages/seller-price

One kind of weird bug I found when uploading a larger batch of files (like 40), that some seem to get lost in the process. They usually take a little while to show up in the "unfinished files" section, but it seems that for some reason not all of them find their way over, so I have to re-upload those that didn't make the first time around.

LSD72 · « **Reply #6 on:** November 16, 2009, 18:39 »

Thanks for the info everyone. I will look at them tonight sometime.

KB · « **Reply #7 on:** November 16, 2009, 18:48 »

No one else is worried about some of the things I mentioned in the other thread (poor English; copied iStock photographer's manual)?

I'm tempted to take advantage of their offer, but I'm worried whether or not they are actually a legitimate business.

eppic · « **Reply #8 on:** November 16, 2009, 19:20 »

Quote

No one else is worried about some of the things I mentioned in the other thread (poor English; copied iStock photographer's manual)?

The poor english is kind of strange I admit. I guess we'll wait and see if Elvinstar gets paid out in a timely manner; that will help tell the tale. This is also one of the reasons I wanted to begin this thread; if anyone's finding anything else kind of fishy, it's good to let others know.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #9 on:** November 16, 2009, 20:32 »

This all sounds really familiar. Albumo?

sharpshot · « **Reply #10 on:** November 17, 2009, 03:24 »

This does feel similar to albumo and even though I made some money uploading there, I didn't enjoy the experience. I will be more cautious this time, it is tempting to try them but something is telling me not to. They need to fix the problems, like the poor English and convince me they are genuine.

PixelBitch · « **Reply #11 on:** November 17, 2009, 20:54 »

They don't seem like the real thing to me...tried doing a simple keyword search for 'business' and also 'teen girl beach' which should bring up many images...but all I got was a 0 images screen.

Has anyone really checked them out...or are you all blinded by the quick 20 cents per upload...

PixelBitch · « **Reply #12 on:** November 17, 2009, 21:25 »

Has anyone checked out if they are the same outfit, or owned by the same people as depositfiles.com?

eppic · « **Reply #13 on:** November 17, 2009, 21:25 »

Quote

.tried doing a simple keyword search for 'business' and also 'teen girl beach' which should bring up many images...but all I got was a 0 images screen.

That is a bit odd considering that there's a few thousand images in the "business and finance" category. Maybe the keyword search needs a bit of tweaking.

eppic · « **Reply #14 on:** November 17, 2009, 21:31 »

Quote

Has anyone checked out if they are the same outfit, or owned by the same people as depositfiles.com?

I did a whois lookup on both domains. While each is registered under a separate company and country, both have "Moniker" as the registrant.

stormchaser · « **Reply #15 on:** November 17, 2009, 21:37 »

Domain info for anyone who is interested

Registrant [2083484]:
   DepositPhotos Inc. DepositPhotos Inc.
   DepositPhotos Inc.
   110 E. Broward Blvd. Suite 1700
   Fort Lauderdale
   FLORIDA
   33301
   US

Administrative Contact [2083484]:
   DepositPhotos Inc. DepositPhotos Inc.
   DepositPhotos Inc.
   110 E. Broward Blvd. Suite 1700
   Fort Lauderdale
   FLORIDA
   33301
   US
   Phone: +1.9549900075
   Fax: +1.9549900075

I have no other comments other than I'm not in the mood for another Albumo at this time. Address looks like another mail drop.

LSD72 · « **Reply #16 on:** November 17, 2009, 21:55 »

I dont know about the Mail Drop thing. Here is a Aerial View of the Building... Across the street from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court...lol. In the same building as Scottrade and Wachovia Finance.

Nevermind...linking did not work. Try clicking this link then input this address...

110 E. Broward Blvd. Suite 1700, Fort Lauderdale, Fl 33301

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&layer=c&cbll=40.758437,-73.985164&cbp=11,42.04,,0,-6.66&ie=UTF8&om=1&panoid=s_TY766yv4kWDddHKN8OVQ&t=h&ll=40.75844,-73.985195&spn=0.042649,0.174923&z=13&utm_campaign=en&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bk-svn&utm_term={keyword}

PixelBitch · « **Reply #17 on:** November 17, 2009, 22:02 »

Proceed with caution!

FD · « **Reply #18 on:** November 17, 2009, 22:52 »

Quote from: stormchaser on November 17, 2009, 21:37

Registrant [2083484]:
   DepositPhotos Inc. DepositPhotos Inc.
   DepositPhotos Inc.
   110 E. Broward Blvd. Suite 1700
   Fort Lauderdale
   FLORIDA
   33301
   US

That suite 1700 must be huge. Loads of businesses have their "operations" center there. Look here, at Google.
"Results 1 - 10 of about 16,800 for 110 E. Broward Blvd. Suite 1700 Fort Lauderdale".
It's obviously a mailbox address with shared telephone/secretarial services to give operations anywhere in the US or in the world a legitimate US business address and contact point.

On the other hand, the site is programmed very well, the watermarks on the thumbs are pleasing and not too obvious, and I didn't see any bad English. The phrases on the contributor page are unique for them on Google so they don't seem to be "borrowed".
Judging from the overabundance of Russian locations on the "architecture" page, my bet is that the site was started by a group of Russian photographers with a clever approach, but it would be more reassuring if they gave their real info.

Update: I sent them a site mail inviting them to intervene in this thread to clarify some of the questions.

KB · « **Reply #19 on:** November 17, 2009, 23:48 »

Quote from: FD-amateur on November 17, 2009, 22:52

On the other hand, the site is programmed very well, the watermarks on the thumbs are pleasing and not too obvious, and I didn't see any bad English. The phrases on the contributor page are unique for them on Google so they don't seem to be "borrowed".

What I mentioned that appeared to be "borrowed" was the programmer's training manual. If you bring up iStock's in one browser and DP's in another, there is no doubt that one came from the other. It wasn't directly copied, but it was clearly used as a template, with just some of the words and phrases changed (but not even the order or numbering, for the most part).

As for poor English, I hate to cite examples since my own use of English isn't always the best. But here are just a few of dozens that seemed odd to me:
Our photobank is being in accumulating state and we welcome photographs and illustrators for cooperation.
We’ve put together several plans to serve your Biggest projects, your smallest needs, and Everything in between. (Odd capitalization; lots of similar examples exist.)
DepositPhotos gives you the option to Buy for your images by SMS.
Each Image is moderated and after that appears in your account and at the pages of our stock

And one odd example of what seems to me (based on their commission schedule) of strong hyperbole:
DepositPhotos is the internet’s highest-paying stock Image website you’ll find!

FD · « **Reply #20 on:** November 18, 2009, 01:21 »

Quote from: KB on November 17, 2009, 23:48

DepositPhotos is the internet’s highest-paying stock Image website you’ll find!

So what is it? Chinglish, Hinglish, Spanglish, Swinglish or Runglish? It's certainly not Floridian.

From the contributor's agreement:

Quote

After the registration you need to pass a formal examination test, during which you should upload 5 best photographs and a scan copy of the passport or other document proving your identity.

No way if they themselves hide behind a mailbox. A passport copy is OK when requesting a first payout, not while signing up to a new site.

Quote

The examination mark is an important parameter having influence on a inspector's loyalty to your photographs. If you are already working with other photo sites, we recommend you provide links to your portfolios. All these parameters – long professional experience, large portfolio – influence inspectors' loyalty.

It's certainly the first site where inspectors are loyal to the contributors.

shiyali · « **Reply #21 on:** November 18, 2009, 02:30 »

According to alexa.com, here is where most of the visitors to depositphotos come from

37.5% Belarus
21.2% Russia
9.0% Indonesia

Maybe that sheds some light on the origin of the site?!

leaf · « **Reply #22 on:** November 18, 2009, 03:19 »

Quote from: PixelBitch on November 17, 2009, 21:25

Has anyone checked out if they are the same outfit, or owned by the same people as depositfiles.com?

Yes, I have been emailing DepositPhotos a bit and DepositFiles and DepositPhotos have the same investors but are two different companies.

eppic · « **Reply #23 on:** November 18, 2009, 06:07 »

Well this is all very interesting! Hopefully a Deposit Photos rep will come to this thread to respond.

DepositPhotos/EN · « **Reply #24 on:** November 18, 2009, 07:07 »

Good day, Sirs!

I am charged to register an account on this forum and to provide necessary explanations concerning the new project on behalf of the official representative of the new photo stock, DepositPhotos. English is not my native language, so please consider it.

- DepositPhotos is the project of the Russian Americans, or the Russians who live on the territory of the USA (many of them live on the US territory for different periods of time). One may make an analogy with Google, for example, where the Russians are presented in the same degree

.

- The real office with real employees and phones is located by the address which is specified in the whois of the domain and on the website in Contacts. You may both call or visit our representation office in the USA. We also have offices in Russia, Ukraine, London, Cyprus. In the nearest future we plan to publish the pictures of one of our representation offices. We would like to compete with Facebook in this direction.

- The project development started in 2008 and within a year the team of talented managers, programmers, and photographers from the USA, England, Russia, and the Ukraine created DepositPhotos.com

- At the moment project’s beta-testing is in process; we try to attract the best photographers for cooperation with us by paying for their pictures from our own budget (frankly speaking, we have rather good investments for this purpose). The loyalty program will be in effect until DepositPhotos enters the market. In accordance with this program it is stated: “a stocker cooperating with DepositPhotos should not receive less than he/she receives from the nearest competitor”.

Concerning the mistakes:

- Probably, in the process of preparing the documents there were some stylistic mistakes in English, but we do not consider them to be serious errors (did you read the Russian or the French ShutterStock?

), and at the moment competent specialists are working on correcting them. Everything will correspond to your requirements.

We need to do a great job, and we have money and experience to do it.

- DepositFile.com and DepositPhotos.com are two absolutely different teams which have no direct connection and which work in accordance with different norms, in different countries, and in different offices. As far as I understand the situation, both projects work legally and fight against copyright abuse, but each of them bases on different regulating norms (for example, in the USA for hosting companies DMCA).

We guarantee that our cooperation with partners in the sphere of copyright protection will be our priority. We are able to track the situation in the net, and will do our best so that the photographs of our partners could not get into the file-exchange systems ILLEGALLY!

I hope that I managed to clarify the situation with the new photo bank. And I hope that we will both be able to make profit out of these initiations.

Please feel free to ask any questions

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Author Topic: Discussion for those submitting to Depositphotos (Read 43372 times)

eppic

LSD72

melastmohican

elvinstar

melastmohican

eppic

LSD72

KB

eppic

PaulieWalnuts

sharpshot

PixelBitch

PixelBitch

eppic

eppic

stormchaser

LSD72

PixelBitch

FD

KB

FD

shiyali

leaf

eppic

DepositPhotos/EN

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