A couple of years ago Getty partnered up with Flickr to License users images, I was invited to sign up and over a couple of years contributed a couple dozen photos for inclusion on the Getty website.
Theres a lot of debate particularly among amateur photographers on whether or not to sell their photos on stock websites, most of the complaining seems to be pointed towards the licensing split, where the photographer gets 20-30% depending on the licensing type the buyer takes out. Now I don't have a problem with that, the licensing site is where most people go to find their images, I did it many moons ago in my website building days.
They also host the image, good keywords, categorised, search engine, and all sizes on offer for the different needs, and have a very good billing structure in place. They also try and find and bill companies who are using (your) images without paying for it. So I'm ok with my 20-30%, its better than 0% of nothing!
But I have to admit this one did hurt! I got a whopping $5.70 for my family silhouette to be used on the History Channel website! I suppose I'm lucky they didn't just take it for free like an ever growing list of companies have and continue to do. Its licensing models and how prices can vary vastly I guess I have the problem with, but hey thats how it goes!
But that won't stop me from allowing the images to be licensed, I know no one knows its my image when it gets used somewhere, but its still nice to see them out there and not just lingering on Flickr or Facebook. I never took up photography to make money, I always wanted to keep it as a hobby, I don't have the back or knees to be taking photos at a wedding all day anyway!
One day all the $5 will add up and can go to getting a new flash card or something!
wow, five bucks is surprising, would have thought a couple zeros on the end!!
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