Anyone else getting emails from PicsaStock?

[Steve Russell]

I keep getting emails from Elena a photography scout at PicsaStock, anyone else getting these?

[Jack Simpson]

Obviously, she's seen my photos  … so, nope 

Seriously, Steve, here's a link to a forum/photog or two
who don't seem to interested.  Is the wording similar?

http://www.ephotozine.com/forums/topic/experience-with-picsastock---105738

Cheers,

Jack

[Lars Hagberg]

Yup, I got two. One two weeks ago and one today.

[Don Denton]

Yes, I've had two so far. Anyone know anything about them?

[Jimmy Jeong]

This is the info they sent me after I inquired about their contract terms:

Let me just explain briefly about us :
PicsaStock is a place to upload photos into your individual gallery, share them with other passionate photographers and sell them to creative professionals around the world. As Elena mentioned, we would be highly interested in working with you to set a premium collection in PicsaStock.

A Premium collection will contain 20 images from 2 - 3 photographers, for a total amount of 60 images per collection.
They will all share the same category and will be marketed to PicsaStock’s network of buyers using our sales department.
You earn up to 35 euros/40 $ every time a collection is sold.

Alternatively, your images may be sold through our standard or extended license. On an extended license an image sells up to €60, and on a standard license up to €3. There is also a revenue share option chosen by our clients, which means you may continually profit from your image depending how successfully it sells on our partner sites. An artist earns 50% of each sale.
Withdrawal is done using Paypal or Skrill payment systems.

Concerning the license type: you will be selling your pictures under a RF (Royalty-free) standard license, which means you will be retaining the full rights on your pictures and buyers have to credit your work each time they use your images.

There is no contract for our photographers, you may remove your images or delete your account at any stage.

[David Lipnowski]

I got two messages as well.

[David Buzzard]

Got a couple and dropped them into my spam folder.  Sell my work with an unlimited license for pennies, not likely.

[Warren Toda]

Sell my work with an unlimited license for pennies, not likely.

How can you pass up an opportunity like that?! The photo buyers also have to give you a credit line!! It can't get any better than that.

[David Buzzard]

If you want some adulation, post your pics to Facebook and you'll get a lot more attention than working for those dudes.  Otherwise, have some self respect and don't give your work away to a multi-billion dollar company. 

[Jack Simpson]

If you want some adulation, post your pics to Facebook and you'll get a lot more attention than working for those dudes.  Otherwise, have some self respect and don't give your work away to a multi-billion dollar company. 

Well stated, David, and true, to a degree, for Facebook

Cheers,

Jack

[David Buzzard]

The stock photography model is based on high volume, automated sales.  If someone buys a stock photo for $5.00, it's probably an automated sale where the transaction is either on an account or credit card, the search is done by the client, and the delivery is also automated.  All the actions taken by the agency are completely automated.  Of that $5.00, the agency will give the photographer who travelled somewhere, set something up, hired some models, etc, between $2.00 and $.50.  Make a thousand sales, which takes a lot of work on the photographers side, and you're making $2,000, tops.  The agency, that might have 10,000 photographers who sell a thousand images each, makes a minimum $30,000,000,for what is a totally automated business.  If you buy into that system, you're a fool.

I have a friend of mine, David McColm, who's built a pretty good business in art prints, and now photo tours, based pretty much on the work he's posted to social media.  You can check his stuff out at http://davidmccolm.smugmug.com

There's a lot of photographers who are working on projects that will never get printed, or get poorly treated if they do.  The best you're going to make is a couple of hundred bucks, so why not just create a gallery and post the photos there?

[Tijana Martin]

Yeah, I received a couple of emails from Yuval in the summer. 

[Warren Toda]

...have some self respect and don't give your work away to a multi-billion dollar company.

Exactly true. Two days ago, one of these cheap stock agencies was bought by Adobe for $800 million. So now, or in a few weeks, a multi-billion dollar company will own a cheap stock agency that sells photos for $0 to $5 each. No mention what percentage of that princely sum goes to the photographer.

The current owner of the cheap agency is quoted as saying that they "aim to ... become the best place for artists to build a business..."

When I refer to this agency as being cheap, I'm not editorializing. The company, in its own advertising, calls itself "cheap".

[David Buzzard]

I know I go on about this, but 20% of $5 is a dollar.  That's six minutes of work at the Canadian minimum wage.  That won't buy you a cheese burger at McDonalds. 

[Kenneth Armstrong]

Good for 1/250 of a second of work though?