Flickr starts charging for uploads

[Travelshots]

I know this is not about Alamy but it is a relevant piece of news in the stock photo world, which many of you may have read. . Flickr agency is now limiting uploads to 1000 images unless you buy an annual "PRO" account (50US$)  and deleting images over 1000 if you do not  pay up.  My sales seem to have plummeted recently on Alamy  not for any particular reason that I can find.  There are now millions of images that are uploaded by non professionals some of which are excellent , and many are rubbish and lots of duplicates.  Alamy  surely needs to prune it's collection , one to save  storage and two to make the many  similars and duplicates to be removed. I think this strategy would be a good idea,  and if implemented  I would be quite willing to pay  an annual fee to have  a large collection online. Alamy is great agency but dilution of content  must make searching more time consuming. for clients.  Alamy   would gain something over Shutterstock etc if the collection was tightened up and advertised as such.  Would Alamy like to comment ? 

[Colin Woods]

While there is undoubtedly lots of poor stuff on Alamy there is also so much of the weird and wonderful that a traditional agency would never touch. And which sells. I think a large part of Alamy's draw is the fact that it is unedited and hence a source of really offbeat images. While we all groan when we see a really poor shot or, worse in my opinion, lazy and unthinking keywording we all profit from the attraction of this enormous pool of photos to image buyers. Plus, I can't imagine how long it would take to sift through 160 million photos. If you could edit 10k photos per day, it would take 16000 days or 43.8 years. 160 million really is a very large number. 

[njene]

Flickr starts charging and there’s a sucker born every minute.

I would never pay any fee for an agency to have my images posted. They make at least 50% of royalties taken, and in many cases much more, with customer deals that we are not privy to.

If an agency can’t make a profit with 50 % of the take then they shouldn’t be in this business.

 

Certain agencies will always be pushing the envelope to keep the bottom line up, whether that would be to lower commissions, give away our images to ‘drive’ sales, or now to charge a fee (for storage or whatever else) and its only when we as a collective take action to make a statement and have some pride and value for our work!

[Rudix]

2 hours ago, njene said:

Flickr starts charging and there’s a sucker born every minute.

I would never pay any fee for an agency to have my images posted. They make at least 50% of royalties taken, and in many cases much more, with customer deals that we are not privy to.

If an agency can’t make a profit with 50 % of the take then they shouldn’t be in this business.

 

Certain agencies will always be pushing the envelope to keep the bottom line up, whether that would be to lower commissions, give away our images to ‘drive’ sales, or now to charge a fee (for storage or whatever else) and its only when we as a collective take action to make a statement and have some pride and value for our work!

FlickR is not a traditional stock agent. They do not sell photos, there is no QC and you can upload anything at any size. It is a place to store photos, create albums and share photos with friends or the world. You can also make photos private that you, or people you define can only see. 

 

It is a popular place to upload photos that you can then share via links on the internet and social media. Most people also put copyright signs on their photos. It is similar to sites like Photo Bucket.

 

Since FlickR does not making any money on sales I do not think it is unfair of them to charge to store the photos.

[njene]

3 hours ago, Rudix said:

FlickR is not a traditional stock agent. They do not sell photos, there is no QC and you can upload anything at any size. It is a place to store photos, create albums and share photos with friends or the world. You can also make photos private that you, or people you define can only see. 

 

It is a popular place to upload photos that you can then share via links on the internet and social media. Most people also put copyright signs on their photos. It is similar to sites like Photo Bucket.

 

Since FlickR does not making any money on sales I do not think it is unfair of them to charge to store the photos.

 

I stand corrected, I thought Flickr was another stock site.

However, my views expressed still stand for stock agencies re: commissions,charges etc.

[Rudix]

1 hour ago, njene said:

 

I stand corrected, I thought Flickr was another stock site.

However, my views expressed still stand for stock agencies re: commissions,charges etc.

 

I fully agree, there is no way I will pay an agency to sell my photos!

[Starsphinx]

I still think Flickr is going the wrong way about things putting a limit on the number of pictures rather than the amount of storage used.  My photos on Flickr are small low-resolution files - look fine on a screen good luck printing - to limit their attraction somewhat to image thieves (yes I know not a lot but every little helps).  So my just over 1000 images (which I will now be removing from Flickr) take up far less space than someone else who has uploaded 500  shot straight out of the camera full sized.  If Flickr had come up with a size limit I probably could have accepted it - but number of photos no way.