Author Topic: Pond5 Limited Licensing Program (Read 23813 times)

cfhdesign · « **Reply #25 on:** November 08, 2017, 12:13 »

As I understand it, the LLP is as follows :-

1) It is NOT available to standard customer/clients/via the website.
2) It will ONLY be available to curated, selected customers who work in time sensitive fields (projects that have limited life spans - one day, a week etc)
3) The LLP is AUTOMATICALLY available to ALL POND 5 contributors AS STANDARD. That is, you don't have to do anything, you are opted IN as part of the new contributor agreement (which was linked to in the email sent today (Nov 8th)).
4) The prices for these sales have NOT been revealed. Only that the Contributor will receive the usual 50% of whatever price they get. But, since these are one use sales, any further use (in a different project?) will require the client to make another purchase, giving the contributor another 50% of whatever the rate is.

In my opinion, since this LLP is NOT available to just anyone directly through the website and the new clients they are going after apparently don't use normal footage clips anyway due to volume and cost, opting in to this scheme shouldn't hurt anybody's regular downloads and may even be beneficial..

I will keep opting in and see how it goes.

Sstr · « **Reply #26 on:** November 08, 2017, 13:36 »

The membership is expanding!

What about the existing Pond5 Membership?
Our Membership Program will sit alongside these new opportunities and continue to serve its segment of the Pond5 buying community. Opting in to LLP also makes your content eligible for inclusion in Membership. We will notify you if and when your content is selected as part of an expansion of the Membership Program

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #27 on:** November 08, 2017, 18:11 »

I sell next to nothing on Pond 5 (I just have a small subset of my photos there) but I opted out.

I am curious to know more about this but I do not care for these "black box" deals where the agency tells the contributor next-to-nothing about what's being sold and for how much. In this case the big missing piece is the price - 50% of 3 cents isn't interesting, so telling me 50% royalties is completely unhelpful.

Also, 50% for contributors in other cases - Pond5's Extended License - is 50% of the net proceeds where Pond5 takes out the legal guarantee fee first. They don't even say how much they'll take in the contributor agreement.

Saying that they're marketing only to people who don't currently buy from them is daft - if the new customer comes back for a second round of purchases from this new program, will Pond5 turn them away as they no longer qualify? If an existing customer hears about the program and wants in, will they really refuse them??

This is akin to the stinking pile of trash arguments that we hear so often about the new lower subscription prices attracting new buyers versus just cutting the price and royalties for existing customers (Shutterstock is the most recent peddler of this rubbish). It's something you tell contributors to get them to go along with your plan.

Without knowing anything about the details, it's possible these deals could include upfront payments to buy into the arrangement (of which contributors get nothing) along with the very low per image/clip payments. Keeping the deal hidden from contributors is just bad policy, and even though Pond5 isn't the only agency to do this, I'm opting out until they tell us more about the arrangement. If big contributors go along, then it won't make any difference, but if they get too many contributors opting out, they may get a clue and explain themselves more fully.

Mantis · « **Reply #28 on:** November 08, 2017, 19:14 »

Quote from: angelawaye on November 08, 2017, 09:19

It is under Account > Preferences
I'm not that special so I assume everyone has this option ...

Interesting. I do not have those options in my preferences.

pancaketom · « **Reply #29 on:** November 09, 2017, 00:03 »

Quote from: Mantis on November 08, 2017, 19:14

Quote from: angelawaye on November 08, 2017, 09:19
It is under Account > Preferences
I'm not that special so I assume everyone has this option ...

Interesting. I do not have those options in my preferences.

Neither do I , however I only have one video (and over 3K photos).

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #30 on:** November 09, 2017, 03:46 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on November 08, 2017, 18:11

Saying that they're marketing only to people who don't currently buy from them is daft - if the new customer comes back for a second round of purchases from this new program, will Pond5 turn them away as they no longer qualify? If an existing customer hears about the program and wants in, will they really refuse them??

Well marketing to, and allowing somebody to buy from them, are two very separate things. Horse and Hound magazine may market to the upper and upper-middle classes, but they're more than happy for some unemployed labourer to buy a copy. And as marketing doesn't equate to an ability to purchase... they don't really need to 'qualify' for anything, aside from having a functioning payment source. Wanting to bring in new customers means just that... it doesn't mean that once they've bought something, they are then an old customer, so are no longer wanted.

All they're saying is that they're not promoting this offering to those who use the current marketplace, but new customers who probably have never used P5 before... but I'd be very surprised if they turn anyone away who happens to find out about it.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #31 on:** November 09, 2017, 09:19 »

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on November 09, 2017, 03:46

... but I'd be very surprised if they turn anyone away who happens to find out about it.

of course. Which is why trying to make the program more acceptable to contributors by saying they won't market it to existing customers is misleading spin.

scrub · « **Reply #32 on:** November 09, 2017, 10:33 »

I'd say this a great move in the right direction for Pond5 and their contributors.

No really. The problem is that there are at least 2 quite separate markets for stock video - big broadcast/content/whatever and small youtube/intra-corporate one. Pond5 pricing is a double edged sword in that if you want to stay profitable in the broadcast market, which has much lower number of sales, you have to price yourself out of the youtube arena. And if you go the other way and lower your prices $25 is not really low enough to appeal to small fish and you seriously damage your profits with traditional big buyers. (Not to mention feeling like excrement for undercutting prices).

I've been considering submitting to Envato for some time but their horrifying process has put me off. A lot of my stuff is ideally suited for that kind of usage, motion backgrounds and such - presentations, maybe greenscreens in youtube videos and so on. As a stock buyer as well as seller, I find myself buying much more often from Envato than Pond5 or SS... Vast majority of projects I do simply can't justify $70 per clip. It's just not that kind of market and not that kind of content. Profitable, sure, but it has a much faster turnover than your traditional media. On the other hand, as a seller I'm probably loosing a heck load of sales just because a lot of my stuff is simply too expensive for a guy just looking for some backdrop for his tube video or something to spice up his boardroom presentation... and the sales I do make to big buyers are not as profitable as they could be because I had to go low in the first place...

Imo, this is absolutely ideal. Now I can finally raise my prices to something normal (say 50) which will give me good returns from occasional sales to the broadcast market while not scaring off youtubers and corporate presentation people. I'm totally /thumbsup about this.

The only thing I'd like to see is the option to opt-out individual files. While a lot of stock stuff could benefit from this 2-tier model, there is content which cannot be sold for next to nothing, even on a limited basis. There are shots which sell and sell well for $500 and more, and with reason, and their exclusivity should be preserved.

Brightontl · « **Reply #33 on:** November 09, 2017, 12:38 »

Quote from: scrub on November 09, 2017, 10:33

I'd say this a great move in the right direction for Pond5 and their contributors.

No really. The problem is that there are at least 2 quite separate markets for stock video - big broadcast/content/whatever and small youtube/intra-corporate one. Pond5 pricing is a double edged sword in that if you want to stay profitable in the broadcast market, which has much lower number of sales, you have to price yourself out of the youtube arena. And if you go the other way and lower your prices $25 is not really low enough to appeal to small fish and you seriously damage your profits with traditional big buyers. (Not to mention feeling like excrement for undercutting prices).

I've been considering submitting to Envato for some time but their horrifying process has put me off. A lot of my stuff is ideally suited for that kind of usage, motion backgrounds and such - presentations, maybe greenscreens in youtube videos and so on. As a stock buyer as well as seller, I find myself buying much more often from Envato than Pond5 or SS... Vast majority of projects I do simply can't justify $70 per clip. It's just not that kind of market and not that kind of content. Profitable, sure, but it has a much faster turnover than your traditional media. On the other hand, as a seller I'm probably loosing a heck load of sales just because a lot of my stuff is simply too expensive for a guy just looking for some backdrop for his tube video or something to spice up his boardroom presentation... and the sales I do make to big buyers are not as profitable as they could be because I had to go low in the first place...

Imo, this is absolutely ideal. Now I can finally raise my prices to something normal (say 50) which will give me good returns from occasional sales to the broadcast market while not scaring off youtubers and corporate presentation people. I'm totally /thumbsup about this.

The only thing I'd like to see is the option to opt-out individual files. While a lot of stock stuff could benefit from this 2-tier model, there is content which cannot be sold for next to nothing, even on a limited basis. There are shots which sell and sell well for $500 and more, and with reason, and their exclusivity should be preserved.

Several good points.
Pond 5 seems to be willing to go for the Envato market, but it can be a risky game. P5 and VH are the totally opposite end of the market.
The main selling Point of P5 is that since sellers are allowed to set their prices (and get 50% commission), it has attracted a large number of top artist who only upload there and set very high prices. For this reason buyers with money go there.
If P5 loses this high end identity, there is no way it can compete in the mid-low segment with SS or AD/FT, who have much bigger marketing capabilities. Let's not forget that these two offer lower prices for lower resolution file, thus catering for Joe Youtubber.
I think a better move by Pond 5 would be to do just that, offer much discounted prices for lower resolution, with the possibility for the artist to opt out on a file by file base

Brightontl · « **Reply #34 on:** November 09, 2017, 12:48 »

On the other hand, and I know many will disagree, for several reasons I believe that the very low end market is not that big:
- the amount of low priced sales at SS is very, very low and at FT/AD almost non existent (from first hand experience based on my sales)
- In the last couple of months I am starting to see a big increase of 4k sales (and I am not unhappy at all about it)
- Regarding video footage sales VH is really a minnow. They are the only ones who publish the number of sales per file, so it i not difficult to figure that out.
Also VH utilise the same uploading system that was used by the Vikings, a medieval, barbarian, absurd, brutal form of torture banned by the Geneva convention. The only reason can only be to prevent people form uploading in big numbers.
They have only 1 reviewer (!). If you submit a file, the result will be notified to your grandchildren and 99% of files are not accepted without explanation. Basically they don't seem to be able to afford the bandwidth

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #35 on:** November 09, 2017, 12:55 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on November 09, 2017, 09:19

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on November 09, 2017, 03:46
... but I'd be very surprised if they turn anyone away who happens to find out about it.

of course. Which is why trying to make the program more acceptable to contributors by saying they won't market it to existing customers is misleading spin.

Only if you're still under the impression that marketing is the same as allowing people to purchase from them. They're saying that they're not marketing, promoting or attempting to sell to existing customers, and as far as I'm aware, there's no evidence to dispute that at this point.

Bart · « **Reply #36 on:** November 09, 2017, 17:54 »

Just opted out. Seems like few agencies are trying to squeeze video contributors (also mentioning recent 123rf "donation" program). This happened few years back with photo assets, and we all know how that turned out. I for one will be opposing any "revolutionary" "experimental" "feel-good" video licensing model. I removed all my video assets from Getty/iStock when few clips were sold for $3-$4 a pop. The equipment, shooting, editing and uploading is way time consuming. Let's stand firm and prevent our video assets slipping to stock photo price model. If a client likes a clip, they will pay for it. I work in the business, and have never heard a client say current prices are "too much", If buyer loves the asset, they will pay for it.