Photoshelter Policy Changes

Karimala · #1 (**permalink**) 05-29-2008, 06:15 PM

Photoshelter announced yesterday that it will no longer host images that are also on the micros or which sell anywhere for less than $50.

Quote:

Cross-listing live PhotoShelter Collection images with microstock sites is now prohibited. We will no longer allow photographers to sell images via The PhotoShelter Collection if the same image is currently listed for sale at a microstock site. We consider 'microstock' to be any image provider offering licenses for less than $50. This represents a change to your Contributor Agreement.

oboy · #2 (**permalink**) 05-29-2008, 07:46 PM

Do you think they did this because they have problems with sales?

schwarzwald · #3 (**permalink**) 05-29-2008, 11:51 PM

Looks like they are going the way of myloupe.com and Photographer's Direct, aka irrelevant players in the stock industry. To suddenly change their rules in the middle of the game is pretty strange. What are they going to come up with next? Panthermedia is smarter with their 50% and 30% rule.

Batman2000 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 03:38 AM

They are doing the right thing. It is not the same as PD or ML, these are just plain wrong... What PSC is doing is protecting the value of their collection with this. It is not excluding photographers from their business, what they want are images that have not been sold a gazillion times for a few dollars. The value of a collection lies not in its net number of images, but in the uniqueness of these and the "unavailability" of these at other outlets.

It seems that many people think that micros is the only way to do things. After the embarrasment of MSI and ASUS licencing the same RF image just a week ago (from Getty...) it has become obvious to many designers that one thing is a great price and another is to have the same image that everyone has. For a multimillion dollar company (and for a smaller company too) it is important to have the right image, even if it means to pay 50 dollars.

Micro images should remain micro. MidStock should do the same. Traditional agencies will expect (and demand) that images submitted to them are licenced as traditional images always, with no crosslicencing.

RacePhoto · #5 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 05:47 AM

Does anyone here sell anything on Photoshelter? If they are asking for semi-exclusive content, then I would suppose the justification would be, only if they actually sell photos. Otherwise it's just a pretty gallery and more work.

I can understand not wanting the same photos to be offered for $180 that are offered elsewhere for 35 cents. In fact I can't understand how any one of us selling photos, with any integrity, would put the same pictures up on MicroStock and the same photos on the mid-stock sites.

schwarzwald · #6 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RacePhoto;18199I

can understand not wanting the same photos to be offered for $180 that are offered elsewhere for 35 cents. In fact I can't understand how any one of us selling photos, with any integrity, would put the same pictures up on MicroStock and the same photos on the mid-stock sites.

I understand your point. So, do you mean one shouldn't submit the same images to SS and say Mostphotos or Panthermedia since they sell images for 100 or 200 times the price as subscription sites? It's all getting a bit confusing. What do you suggest?

Batman2000 · #7 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 03:04 PM

The main problem is that in this business there are no shortcuts. One has to consider that when time is invested in one site like PSC it has to be done in a way that is favorable to us, sellers, and the site. If PSC (or Alamy, or Panthermedia) is flooded with the same micro images in the long run buyers will stop buying there, the site loses and we lose. If we take this seriously I feel that we should run different portfolios at different price levels. And we shouldn´t (under any circumstance) submit editorial images to microsites, it is not worth the time.

LazyAnn · #8 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 03:19 PM

It is 100% understable that they don't want to have images that are being sold at a much smaller price elsewhere. That is very different from the "if you contribute at micros you are out" politics at PD. And yes, although I'm exclusive at istock and don't contribute at any other micro or midsite, if I did it, I wouldn't put the same photos on different prices, except if the difference was small.

nativelight · #9 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 04:20 PM

I guess I don't understand what all the hubbub is about. It just seems common sense that a person would not market the same images on PSC as they would on micro. I keep hearing the "exclusivity" term thrown about too. Unless I'm missing something here, they are not asking for exclusivity. You can still market the same images that you have on PSC on any other mid or trad site. Everything I have on PSC is also on Alamy and MyLoupe (although ML is looking like a big waste of time).

Batman2000 · #10 (**permalink**) 05-30-2008, 07:07 PM

MyLoupe IS a huge waste of time... No sales in four years... And I have seen lots of forums and only one sale reported, for 35+ dollars...