Big Mistake if ya ask me.

Yesterday I found one of my images from DT in use on one of About.com's websites. All of the others with photo credits were freebies from SXC. What that told me is customers from SXC are not neccesarily being drawn into SXP to purchase images when they can't find one suitable for free, as is the intention. They are still looking elsewhere. The same image is available on SXP.

http://indianfood.about.com/ (mine is the apple cider shot).

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I quit doing it on Fotolia when they allowed you to check, allow free if rejected. then images that got rejected there and were free were being accepted and sold elsewhere.

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Indeed, very big mistake, they are not getting free pictures from me.
It they start deleting pictures that hasn't been sold over a year, i want them deleted, not in the free section. They seem to forget that those that don't sell with them sell on other sites... so giving them away for the free section could hurt sales on other sites.
It's a whole difference offering a free image for a week to get some portfolio exposure, then to have a whole bunch for free.

Patrick.

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I agree

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Just went back and looked at my Fotolia portfolio. There are 27 images in their free section from the short time that I allowed this. Remeber, these are images that they rejected for the pay site, but were just fine for the free site. Of these, 9 of them have been downloaded between 100 and 200 times each!

I will be deleting them immediately and probably re-uploading. If they're good enough that 200 people wanted them, they ought to be worth a few .35 purchases.

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Right, those free sections are only good for the site to generate visitors. I haven't heard of people having more sales because they had free pictures on the site.

And, it's no secret there are a lot of designers out there that search for free images only... one wonders why with the low prices these days.

Patrick.

ps : makes me remember when i had a free picture of mine displayed at canstock for a week... more than 400 dl on that one... not one single sale during that week.

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Seems to me there's something more devious going on. Several people have commented on, and I personally have experienced, wholesale batch rejections of submissions; i.e. submit 10, all rejected for the same "whatever" reason. The DT notice specifically requests "rejected" images. Along with their self-appointed elitist stance in the micro business, they seem to think we are all egocentric hobbyists who will be thrilled to have an image downloaded for free. Don't know 'bout you, but that ain't me.

P_

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Maybe I wasn't quite clear on the previous post. What I mean is they are rejecting images accepted on other sites that are selling well in the hopes that they can get them as free images and not have to pay the photographer/artist. That's the devious intent.

P__

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pelmof
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But if the photos are free, how do dreamstime profit from them? Wouldn't they be stupid to put photos in the free section unless they were genuine rejections?

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