We knew it was coming but it wasn’t just the expectation that made the announcement from Flickr such an anti-climax. The declaration that the photo-sharing site will now provide its own way for members to license their images, following the end of its agreement with Getty, was also disappointingly short of details. Flickr’s members can sign up for the program at www.flickr.com/marketplace where the site’s “curatorial team will provide assistance, outreach and connectivity to help you get your photos licensed.” When those curators have found “exciting and credible opportunities” they’ll send a Flickr Mail to give the photographer details about the licensing program.
In addition to licensing opportunities with photo agencies, Flickr is also promising to showcase images on the Flickr blog and across parent company Yahoo’s properties. The sign-up page includes logos from the BBC, Reuters and The New York Times, as well as Gizmodo and Monocle.
At launch, that was all the information that Flickr made available. A discussion on Flickr Central, the site’s forum, was ignored by Flickr’s usually active community organizers even though participants talked favorably of car payments and vacations that the old Getty agreement had enabled them to fund. Few other details have been released so we don’t know how much photographers will be paid; how large Flickr’s own commission will be; whether images have to be exclusive; how they will be used; or what sort of photos are most likely to sell.
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