For at least the past 10 years there have been people giving their work away online, and since CC and then flickr came along it's made it even easier.

There is still a huge gulf between 'decent' photos on microstock sites and the kind of unique, stylish and thought provoking subjects you can find on the full price stock sites. There will always be a market for your full priced photography if you are good at what you do.

Microstock came along because there is just no justification to charge 250 dollars for a photo like a picture of pen laying on a listing of share prices.

We allow photographers to sell prints and stock at any price, giving power back to photographers.

You can request an invite on the site (it is currently in private closed beta as we iron out the bugs).
- Krista

Microstock is here to stay.

Hell, it's even possible to find decent photos available with CC licenses that allow commercial use FOR FREE, as more and more photographers release bits of their collections to gain recognition and sell other photos.

If that trend continues, we'll start to see FREE stock collections popping up, supported by keyword-driven advertising.

- Eric

Down with Microsuck!!!

If your making a few thousand sales per month from you collection, that means that the stock agencey is more than likely making many more thousands of sales at $1, $2, or $3. When you consider the amount of money that is garnered (people are 10times more likely to but a product with a picture attached than not) from the use of you images don't you feel a bit ripped-off??

Oh lets do the math (.30 x 3000=$900) the rate that the "critics" refer to $900/month is not a good living by any means in America.

The high end of the scale (1.5 x 3000= $4,500) is shameful considering the billions or revenue that is generated for those using the images.

The end user is not really to blame, they are just responding to an increase of cheap images flooding the market. The blame rests soley with those greedy indiviuals who manage microstock. Shame on them for cheapening an artform. With the increase of Royalty free comes even more abuse of photographer's copyrights the posting of unprotected content is a common practice and many people simply save a photo off a blog and post it to their own. I think we can look to the music industry (and napster) for an example there.

So I ask you... Do you know where your images are? How much have you lost in revenue? And Mike, what image in this world has sold enough (at the generous .75 per sale) to make "several hundreds or thousands of dollars per year" ???

And obviously $0.30 is the low end of the spectrum. Critics will always refer to that rate while ignoring the higher end, at sites that pay higher commissions and generate higher per-image returns. Some microstock sellers report averages of $2-3 per sale (yes, averages).

As long as profits continue to rise in microstock, as they have for me and many many others, I see no reason to ever leave this business. Long live microstock.

Microstock companies are the greedy parasites of the photography industry. Their standards are low but occasionally the law of numbers prevails and great images are discovered. The companies themselves profit only if high volume is achieved. While the "photographers" make very little. All the while flooding the market with mediocre imagery and siginificantly lowering the value of the great ones. While this is great for those companies that buy images to sell their products it is hardly fair to the photographer who created the image.

Since the poliferation of high quality cameras many advanced amateurs are encouraged to try and turn a hobby into a income stream. Many do and contribute to the artform. It would be great if they also educated themselves as to the true value images have to those buying licences to them. Many great images are licensed for far less that they are worth. Everyone would do well not to accept contracts from companies the want to give you 30 cents for an image. Why should someone use your image to make thousands of dollars while you only get 30 cents???

What's wrong with microstock??? Greed that's what...

It's only a matter of time before people (amateur
photographers) start to relize that they are being ripped off by microstock companies and the clients they service.

Yuri also made an interesting comment in this thread
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,3278.0.html
which perhaps proves the macrostock photographers point of high budget shoots just aren't worth it. They are likely correct. The majority of microstock however is low budget shoots, and rightly so.

When quoting Lee Torrens earnings you make .30 / image sound quite small. The reality however is that the 30 cents was monthly/image from one site. His images in total are earning (accroding to his figures) $1.50/month on average each, or $18 / image / year which is quite a successful amount according to an average macro stock photographer.

The quality of microstock is rising rapidly, but photographers producing images in the upper quality levels are looking for faster ROI than what they can get in microstock. This is why many photographers and agencies are moving into the 'midstock' middle ground.

As for sustainability, did you read the profit figures from iStockphoto earlier this month??

-Lee