We have upload over 100 images to PSC and it is much better than IS by leaps and bounds IS has one of the worst upload systems.

Agreed. They also have that stupid upload limit that is fine for people with constant net access, but nor for me. I'm lagging behind there 400 images and I will never catch up. I also can't afford to do the cumbersome disambiguation process online. They should have an offline application for that.

ust remember you cannot upload images to PSC that you have on microsites, PSC is traditional stock pricing, we use them and Alamy for our RM stock.

That isn't in their user agreement, as far as I could read. They are non-exclusive. I will upload some selected shots on PSC that are on micro too, and then see. If they sell, I can always disable them on micro. Eggs and baskets.... After all, they are just beginning.

just a thought...

what is terms of the rf license? is it a restricted license like with most micros or the more general like alamy (allows unlimited print runs etc etc)?

if it is like alamy, then that is a microstock extended licence, so pricing at $50 for full size is the same as a luckyO or dreamstime and cheaper than stockxpert or Istock for the same license

Phil

Do they have a decent watermark?

Regards,
Adelaide

Hi all,

Did anyone already go through the hassle of Photoshelter's tax form submission ?
It seems that even non-US-residents have to request a US Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) in order to claim a reduced rate of withholding under a tax treaty. Otherwise, PS will withhold 30% from all payments.

Does it really have to be that complicated ?

See : http://psc.photoshelter.com/mem/learn/payment/tax
(you may have to be logged-in to access this link)
 

Hi all,

Did anyone already go through the hassle of Photoshelter's tax form submission ?
It seems that even non-US-residents have to request a US Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) in order to claim a reduced rate of withholding under a tax treaty. Otherwise, PS will withhold 30% from all payments.

Does it really have to be that complicated ?

See : http://psc.photoshelter.com/mem/learn/payment/tax
(you may have to be logged-in to access this link)
 

I encountered the same problem after all the hassle to get one (1 !) photo accepted. I am not a US citizen, I don't live in america, I don't intend to... I don't see why I should register with their tax offices. I quit.

I read it too. If you don't register with the US tax office as a non-US resident/citizen, they withhold 30%. That's a bit crazy and it's even against their own constitution: no taxation without representation.

I submitted 10 images a while ago out of my last months' batches, that were accepted everywhere (DT,SS,etc...): 5 models and 5 nature/urban shots. I took the occasion to check what happened and all model shots were rejected because the poses and the expressions were unnatural. Have to add those were isolated, so the PSC doesn't want isolated shots.

My waterfall shots were soft rejected because they belong to the news and not the creative category. Well, those waterfalls have been around for some thousands of years I figure, so I can't see what news value they have. Also, PSC doesn't like vibrant colors, so slide that saturation slider in PS way down to B&W.

One shot was accepted, a bunch of guitars on a street sale. But it wasn't live yet since I needed to fill in first a bunch of things I don't understand. If you need to fill out that stuff for every photo, it's even more time than Istock.

Then I did a search on "Asia Waterfall" to see how my competition was doing, since I regularly get EL's on my Asian waterfall shots. Just 23 matches, and in one third, the waterfall was not really visible. Came across a plain women with her back in the sun and blown-out highlights in a jungle scene that was totally shadowy but popped up clearly with a shadow-recovery procedure. She was feeding the ducks in a pond. The waterfall obviously was 1km down the road. A mediocre snapshot.

I asked for the license price of that shot in one European country for one year and it was above 2,000$. But what a bargain! Incorporate it in a corporate presentation and showing it once was only 200$. Boink.

Finally I checked their watermark. One small line on top and on the bottom, and a giant clean "thumb".

Can't see who's going to buy there, and who's going to upload. Me thinks its an undercover operation of the American IRS to get money in ;-)

In short, I deleted my one approved shot, and will just keep my account in case the site takes off. Sometimes, miracles happen.

How is sales at Photoshelter?

Have anyone here got any sales recently

It may not be in thier user agreement but if you upload them as RM there could be other issue plus ethically it is just wrong to sell an image as both. 

No it's not.

Rights Managed is that you are managing where the image is used.  Rights Managed is traditionally cheaper than Royalty Free because you are only allowing that image to be used X amounts of times in X countries on the front cover of X magazine.

Royalty Free is a license for the end user to use the image as many times as they like.  You no longer have control over the image.

So of course you can sell an image as both.  What you cannot do, however, is offer an image EXCLUSIVELY to a client (be it industry, country, continent) if you have sold it Royalty Free.  You can only offer exclusive deals to clients on images where you have monitored the usage through Rights Managed sales.

Photoshelter's rules state that you cannot list an image as RM on Photoshelter if you have ever listed it as RF on Photoshelter or anywhere else.

Sorry, I should have cropped that quote a bit further!

I was disagreeing with the bit it's ethically wrong to do, not the specific TOS of PhotoShelter.

Any agency that says that is a little backwards, since I could have it RM on Alamy, and it then PhotoShelter could still sell it in a competing market, which is what I guess they want to avoid.  They're trying to offer some sort of exclusivity illusion, which in fact they're not managing to do.

From all that i gathered that there is no rules against selling an image on Alamy as RM and on the micros (or elsewher) as RF.

NO NO NO Leaf you are completely wrong!!! I'm a little bit shocked you really should know better! Alamy has a clear policy that a picture must be under the same licensing model at any other agency. Please contact Alamy-Support directly if you don't believe me your account will be closed if you selling the same picture as RM and elsewhere as RF. As a moderator you shouldn't spread wrong information!!!

Quote from: leaf on April 11, 2008, 02:46

From all that i gathered that there is no rules against selling an image on Alamy as RM and on the micros (or elsewher) as RF.

NO NO NO Leaf you are completely wrong!!! I'm a little bit shocked you really should know better! Alamy has a clear policy that a picture must be under the same licensing model at any other agency. Please contact Alamy-Support directly if you don't believe me your account will be closed if you selling the same picture as RM and elsewhere as RF. As a moderator you shouldn't spread wrong information!!!

Well I was in the opinion for a long time that it was not possible to list the same image as RF and RM .. but then after reading all those links i attached I wondered this morning if it IS possible, just really foolish, or should NOT be done.

alamy says

To ensure customer confidence in your images and avoid potential legal problems you must not submit the same or similar images as different licence types.

link


I am not selling any images with two different license types, so I don't have to worry.  I am just trying to clear this up, as there seems to be an awful lot of confusion.. if you read the links I mentioned earlier you will see how many people have as many different opinions.  With something as black and white as this there shouldn't be any confusion (but perhaps i am not helping at all)

perhaps this blog then says it best

The RM model is selling managed rights. The RF model is not selling managed rights. By their very defintion to any rational person they cannot co-exist for the same image.

By definition you cannot sell an image saying the right are managed, and then turn around and sell it RF saying the rights are not managed.....

I think I know what Leaf is trying to say.  I'll try and put it in simple terms, because the two terms "rights managed" and "royalty free" are confusing.

Imagine I have one picture, and three customers.  I sell the image to the customers as follows.

Customer 1: I sell him the rights to use the image on front front page of his magazine, but only in Australia, and only for the June issue.  He pays $100 for these rights.

Customer 2: I sell him the rights to use the image in his travel company broshure for the whole of 2009 and 2010.  After that he needs to contact me to keep using it.  He pays $500 for these rights (because he's getting more than customer 1).

Customer 3: He just loves my picture.  He wants to use it all over the place, on his website, in magazines, as advertisement and on postcards and calendars.  I figure "woah, I can't be bothered to deal with all this paperwork" so I sell him the rights to use it anywhere he likes for as long as he needs for $1000 (because he's getting way more than both customer 1 and 2).

I just sold customer 3 a royalty free license, but I didn't break my "rights managed" terms with the first two customers.

Traditionally rights managed license sold for less than royalty free licences because the customer gets less (unless they want exclusive use of an image for one reason or another, but that's different and totally separate).  This is the beef that most traditional stock photographers have with microstock.  We are letting people use our images for anything they want FOREVER for a buck.  Traditionally a licence like this would have cost thousands.

So yes, you can sell images both rights managed and royalty free at the same time.  The simple reason is, you don't have to tell your clients who you have sold the image to previously, at what price, or what license, unless they want some sort of special exclusive deal.

It's not unethical, royalty free is just a different name for a type of managed licence.  It is still "managed" in a way, because the end user can't use it for deflammatory purposes, and they have to pay more if they want to print X amount of copies, or use it for print on demand.  So it's still "rights managed" it's just a very, very liberal license.

The reason that people like PhotoShelter don't want royalty free images on their site, is to keep the microstock images away.  They rightfully understand that their customers would be pissed if they found the same image with a better licence deal for so much less money.  Of course, if you're negotiating with customers privatly, it's not a problem.