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Posts Tagged ‘contributors’

Dreamstime increases royalties for stock photo contributors in response to COVID-19’s economic impact

09 Jun

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have impacted everyone, including photographers. Many photographers have lost revenue due to canceled jobs, fewer events to photograph and potential clients, including commercial clients, not having the revenue to spend on photography. Stock photography website Dreamstime has launched multiple initiatives to help photographers and others impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including a newly announced increase in royalties.

As of June 1st, Dreamstime is rewarding contributing photographers with a 10% increase in the royalties value for all downloads, including those with exclusive or non-exclusive status. As Dreasmstime points out, this means that a download that previously would have awarded 50% royalties will now award the photographer 55%. Dreamstime itself has been impacted by the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak, so while they aim to offer the increased royalties for as long as possible, they are unable to make any guarantees about the eventual timeframe.

‘This means that financial aid will be now employed for a more community-centered strategy. For you, this means that all purchases beginning with June 1st will reward an extra 10% increase in the royalties value for all downloads, regardless of the exclusive or non-exclusive status.’ – Dreamstime CEO, Serban Enache

In addition to offering photographers increased royalties, Dreamstime has also worked on creating new tutorials and guidelines for photographers trying to stay financially secure during these trying times. Clients have also been offered relief in the form of a free two-month pause on subscriptions.

Further, Dreamstime has been contributing 5% of its sales to the World Health Organization’s Solidarity Response Fund since March. Additionally, active non-government organizations in need of visual content can contact Dreamstime for a free subscription.

As PetaPixel pointed out, the timing of the royalties increase is interesting. In late May, competing stock photo company Shutterstock announced a new earnings structure for its contributors and the response was very negative.

For comparison, Dreamstime’s new structure has been met with a very positive response. In the comment section on the company’s announcement blog post, many users have not only expressed gratitude, but some have even mentioned specifically that they have either shut down their Shutterstock accounts in response to its change in royalty structure.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Shutterstock announces new earnings structure and contributors are anything but happy

28 May

Stock photography company Shutterstock is taking heat after announcing in a post on its contributor forum that it’s putting a new earnings structure in place starting June 1, 2020.

Under the new structure, photographers and videographers will get compensated via a percentage of the sales price based on the ‘level’ their photo and/or video are rated, with the level being determined by the number of times their content is licensed. Previously, there were lifetime earnings tiers, which took into account total sales made during the lifetime of the contributor, but Shutterstock will do away with that and instead reset all contributors to ‘level 1’ for both images and videos every year on January 1.

Shutterstock breaks down what the various levels consist of in the two graphics below — one for photos and one for video, each of which are calculated independently of one another:

This effectively means that no matter how many sales a contributor has made, on January 1 each year, said contributor will always be demoted back to ‘Tier 1’ wherein they only receive a 15% commission on sales.

Shutterstock says it’s ‘making this adjustment in order to reflect changes in the market for creative content, help to create fair opportunities for all our contributors, and reward performance with greater earnings potential.’ But contributors aren’t convinced and are voicing their concerns and frustrations in the announcement forum post; especially members who have been long-time contributors with massive lifetime earnings numbers, as they will be most affected by this change.

Shutterstock member Richard Whitcombe, who’s been a member since 2010 and has posted more than 3,200 pieces of content, replied to the announcement post saying, ‘Just when you think Shutterstock couldn’t completely and utterly screw the contributors more you’ve gone and done it.’ He continues, ‘Effectively with a January reset everybody gets a cut of 20% or more of earnings to a new laughably tiny amount and it’ll take months to claw back the level they’ve been earning previously. So most people are going to go most of the year for half or less than they currently get.’

He shared in a later post that a Shutterstock team member sent him a private message suggesting they will be moderating his posts for his feedback. The private message read:

‘Hi Richard,

I know you have a lot of questions and you’re fighting for clarity. But you are refuting and questioning everything I post today, and not very constructively.

I’m going to start hiding your posts.

Thanks,

[Shutterstock team member]’

Other members have also chimed in on the changes, echoing Whitcombe’s concern and disbelief about the new earnings structure. As of publishing this article, there are 66 pages of replies to the original forum post, few of which are positive.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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