Subscription earnings

Today I have noticed some subscription royalties, on exclusive account, but as far I know I haven’t ever participated on any of those… what is happening…?

It's the new pond5 where they can sell your work at a price they think is right, out of interest how much was the commision compared to what you should have received ??, i take it by the number of videoes you have in a couple of years you are a video agency ?? if not how did you manage to upload 30k of video in a couple of years ?

… no, no video agency here… :) I think that I’m behind the mine projected (crazy) schedule right now… I’m having backlog of files and have invested mine time and in equipment… but those subscription earnings scared me… I don’t think that those are part of regular discounted sales… those appeared in subscription part in financial section…

When you go to upload there are new terms and conditions and you should have received an email about this as well, shutterstock bought pond5 they are famous for their subscription service, I know that they pay as low as 0.12 cents to artists for images probably a couple of dollars for video, unfortunately the market has hit rock bottom and like yourself I am exclusive but if I receive a few dollars for a video I will remove all my work, I been on pond5 for a few years and my uploading has been slow as i mainly sell stills on other sites, my work is mainly aviation to go to Heathrow airport costs myself around 20 dollars in train fares and a 3.5 hour round trip so why would i feel its ok to have to sell 6 videoes to get my expenses back while corporate companies get exclusive footage for almost nothing instead of the 99 dollars i price at, time will tell but look at the new terms and conditions and you probably will not be happy

Below is the new agreement so basically pond 5 can sell your work on subscription or at any amount they deem fit

3. Pricing and Your Share of Net License Revenue
You have the option to set the price of your Content. However,

we will have sole discretion to adjust the price of any Content to maximize your overall revenue performance or comply with our minimum pricing guidelines;

we will have discretion to charge additional amounts for Extended Licenses;

we will have discretion to offer flexible subscription plans and/or discounts, at prices determined solely by us, in connection with special promotions or to optimize total revenue on your behalf by targeting customers who we believe will make high volume purchases or commitments with short duration, digital/social formats, small audience, ad-supported models and/or other needs to which we will offer more narrow license rights or collections of limited content for materially reduced pricing;

we will have discretion to (A) market, promote, and distribute any Content in geographies, markets, and to customers and Distributors (as defined herein) that our traditional marketplace may not reach as optimally and in such instances your license to us includes the right and license throughout the world to do all of the foregoing and to authorize such Distributors (as defined below) to grant perpetual and term non-exclusive licenses to the Content to their customers under the Distributor’s own license agreements, which may include some or all of the rights that may be granted in the Website form of the Pond5 Content License Agreement and (B) facilitate all of the foregoing we may set the price of Content and/or agree to compensation structures in an effort to maximize overall sales of Content and revenue to our contributors and license Content to customers as part of a pool of works, in which case, we will have sole discretion to allocate the amounts paid by the customer among Content and the other works licensed to the customer on a basis that we in our sole good faith discretion determine is fair; and

notwithstanding anything to the contrary provided in this Section 3.a., you shall not set the price for an item of Content that is higher than the lowest price for which the same (or substantially the same) Content item is offered by or on any other media marketplace, agency or other redistribution arrangement (each an "Other Marketplace"), and if we discover that the Content item is offered at a lower price by or on any Other Marketplace, we may lower the price in our marketplace to match or beat that price.

Except as expressly provided below, we will pay you the following percentages of all Net License Revenue (as defined herein) and we will deduct and retain the remainder of Net License Revenue:

For video, if you are enrolled in the Exclusivity Program described below, your share of Net License Revenue will be 60%.

For video, if you are not enrolled in the Exclusivity Program, your share of Net License Revenue will be 40%.

For Music Tracks and Sound Effects, your share of Net License Revenue will be 35%,

For photographs, illustrations, 3D models, After Effects and other templates, your share of Net License Revenue will be 50%.

"Net License Revenue" are license fees collected by us from resellers and other redistributors (collectively, "Distributors") and customers for Content accepted by us, subject to the following:

We may also exclude or deduct any of the following from the calculation of Net License Revenue and the net amount payable to you: (A) taxes or other withholdings paid by the customer or that we determine are required by applicable law; (B) refunds, chargebacks and uncollectible sums; and (C) fees, charges and/or costs payable to or deducted by financial institutions for the processing of any credit card, debit card, e-check or alternative payment method and/or currency conversion for payments received by us or paid to you in a currency other than U.S. Dollars.

In cases where a customer purchases an Extended License, we will deduct from Net License Revenue and retain a portion of the additional fees charged for the Extended License as a "Legal Guarantee Fee" to cover our self-insurance costs as determined by us in our sole discretion for providing the customer with additional legal protection. For avoidance of doubt, you will be paid your share of the net Extended License fees collected by us after such Legal Guarantee Fee is deducted. Refer to the Website Contributor Portal Payout Overview for further details.

We may from time to time offer you participation in one of our free download promotions. If you opt in on the Website to be part of such promotion and we include your Content in the promotion, the terms on the Website regarding the promotion will apply thereto.

Payments by us are subject to the Website Contributor Portal Payout Overview as modified or supplemented by us from time to time, the terms of which are incorporated herein by reference.

… I totally understand how discounted sales worked in past and have been around for a while… but, this is something else: cumulated statement without any number of downloads and downloaded files… few bucks cumulated in subscription section…

Thats correct as soon as people buy subscriptions that subscription money is in bank of pond5 and the artist will be paid literally nothing, in fact if its 3-5 dollars per video then your earnings will be less than any sweated labour in a third world country, i was wrong about shutterstock they pay as little as 4 cents per image, being exclusive should have meant we are protected as exclusive is well exclusive, :) but someone can now obtain that footage for peanuts I feel for you because you must have spent many hours over the last couple of years uploading tagging and titling

funny thing is that a lot of my airliners are now historical IE scrapped so that xclusive Boeong 747 video and all the rest will be pulled as soon as i receive a low commision, ironically there is a minimum you can price your work at but commisions will be a fraction of that

Honestly, this is not really new, Pond 5 has been discounting media for a long time. I have read the agreement, nothing stands out. I have sold videos for a few dollars and videos for ridiculous amounts and same for images, it is like this on all of the platforms. I figured a while back that in order for me to combat the low sales I need to upload more.. and more.. and more.. this has made the low sales fade into the background and I can continue to focus on creating content, all kinds of content. I do it all, in fact I film what most are scared to, that is how I wn!
I am going out on a branch here but the slow sales could be all these laid off (fired) tech people are trying to make money doing this, I have noticed this happening every time there is a shift in the economy. That being said, the more media the better. To compete you need one hell of a portfolio. Mine is still a baby, 28,000 in 3 years of a 5 year hardcore grind. My goal is 100K assets.

Sadly, it's literally the same with all of the agencies... I just got 30 cents each for 5 HD video sales on Shutterstock. Adobe subscription sales are slightly better at $2.80 per sale. Complaining about it has done ZERO (Zip, Nada) to change policies or prevent them from getting worse. So either set up your own web site and do all of the marketing and work that the agencies do to bring in clients, or just keep producing more knowing how things are going.