I knew microstock was suffering but...

[Karl Johnston]

Doing Bad enough to negate a decent spellchecker? (http://www.arcticstockimages.com/photographer-qa/)

Sheeesh...so I started to look into stock. Was recommended here by a friend and it looked not bad, till I read the TA (all half a page of it) and hit this:
You have the option to accept “exclusive” and/or “partner” sales during the upload of an image. If your image sells in any of theese ways you will have to remove that image from all stock sites or anywhere else you have the image for sale. The image is automatically removed from Arctic Stock Images. The buyer has comlete rights over the image and can use, modify or resell it anyway they want.
Run? Exclusive license or exclusive copyright?:confused: Why would anyone bother?

We are working on this, but don’t hold back if you have a signed model release form. Trademarks will most likely be okay.
Uh..huh.

[AlphaChicken]

I am confused about what you meant by the text of your link.

And also about what you are getting at by the post. Maybe I am dense. Care to explain to me please? :)

[Karl Johnston]

Well I was getting at that they want full rights for the photo when they say exclusive rights...when I say exclusive rights I mean client 1 is the only client that gets the list of rights decided for them. Not copyright for literally $50-300. On top of that they take a 50% commission...how cheap can you get?

I was getting at it looks like a real crappy place to sell stock :D..point of Microstock is to sell multiple times for big dollars, right?

And throughout the site there's numerous spelling mistakes.

[AlphaChicken]

Gotcha! :) Yeah, I figured you were talking about spelling errors on their site. Caught a couple myself. Thanks for taking the time to explain! :)

[harroz]

hey, lets start up a microstock business! cool, we can charge 50% for nuts, live in the Bahamas, it'll be sweet.....

um, just one thing... can you spell?

:D

[Imagix]

Hey guys,

It's a little embarrassing reading your posts - and please forgive any spelling errors :-) - I thought I had corrected them all. Of course if photographers make errors in their description of images - that isn't always caught.

First, the prices. On Arctic Stock Images they are way above almost any other microstock site. So is the commission from sales. I believe that's acceptable be course it's a niche agency with very unique content.

On other sites you can buy an image of a Polar Bear for instance for 1$ - on ASI it costs a minimum of 10$ and normally images sell for 30$ - 50% of that goes to the photographer and that's a lot more than what you would achieve from a sale on for instance iStockphoto. You may think the ASI fee on sales are high then, but trust me it no where near pays for my time. Photography (and ASI) is more of a hobby for me.

By default images are sold under a RF license. But like on many similar sites the photographer has the option to allow individual images to be available for exclusivity as well. They can still sell it under the RF license on ASI and anywhere else until it sells exclusively - it's the same on other sites. For clients "exclusivity" really isn't correct then - but the exclusive price reflects that. Of course if they are quick to buy when a image goes online it could be a very good deal.

I have removed the text about trademarks and recognizable faces - that just not good enough - I know!

If you wan't to read a little background info on my site please have a look at this article... http://www.isyndica.com/blog/2009/8/10/the-story-behind-arctic-stock-images.html

PS. I'd be very happy if you can tell me where those spelling errors are!

Besr regards,
Anders

[Mark Anthony]

PS. I'd be very happy if you can tell me where those spelling errors are!

Besr regards,
Anders

Please tell me that was deliberate

[Imagix]

Damn - I just tipe to fast

:-)

[Imagix]

(that was in case you are wondering)

[Karl Johnston]

My concern is the copyright, it reads like you sign that over with exclusivity. Is that true? I don't know but that defeats the point of selling stock doesn't it? It just doesn't give me very much confidence...we're all businesspeople too, right? If there's a weakness in presentation or a facet of our businesses then we can expect not to get paid, but what about with the people representing us? If the printing house we're at messes up an order, or it takes too slow, multiple times, we're naturally going to try somewhere else as consumers....though not entirely consumers, because we owe that to our consumers.

I can understand businesses continually evolving, but it just doesn't give me the confidence it should do if it's someone else handling my money.

Much more important than attracting contributors..what about the views of the buyers of the images?

The issue behind trademarking and model releases is rooted in legal, for us, if the agency doesn't seem either way about it....well it's kind of like getting advice from your accountant that isn't completely sound.

"I want to buy a phase one p.60, do you think I could write that off as tax for my ....whateverido business?"
'Hm not too sure but why not eh?'

See what I mean?

[Imagix]

Only if you have made an image available for exclusive purchases and it is then sold under these terms. The price is $290 and the photographers commision is 75% from exclusive sales.

[Karl Johnston]

Ahhhh okay I understand now, apologies. I read it wrong.

[Imagix]

That is some amazing northern lights images you have by the way. I would love to see some of them on Arctic Stock Images!