POND5 Theft & Fraud

You may have noticed some underhanded tactics with your footage sales recently and I just wanted to break it down for you.

Here is a duplicated response message from Ryan (not sure who it is but sounds like a spokesperson from POND5) making the rounds throughout the forums as to justify theft and fraudulent behavior.

"Hi folks. Yesterday many of you may received bulk payouts, which included some very low priced sales. The vast majority of these (including those referenced by folks here in forums), were related to low priced Adobe subscription sales that occurred over the last 4 months since their subscription launch in March. As you may know, we have now terminated our partnership with Adobe as of July 29th, and this was the final payout of those licenses issued by Adobe. Apologies for the disappointment this may have caused."

"Folks" = (Implies a lesser being) Sorry but I'm not a folk, I'm a contributing partner who does the majority of the work for you to earn your millions.
"Very low priced sales" = understatement of the century. $97 - $5 = approx 95% discount. What???
"Adobe subscription sales" = I would have never agreed to this race to the bottom mentality to sell my work and they know it.
"over the last 4 months" = So they've been hanging on to our money and didn't think to tell us for 4 months. Seems fishy.
"terminated our partnership" = Big deal! I still do not justify selling my videos for pennies.
"Apologies for the disappointment" = This does not and should never excuse theft and fraud. Where is your solution?

As a contributor were you informed about these sales and would you have agreed to it at those prices?
If not then POND5 is fraudulently changing the terms of your contract with them without your consent. They are also stealing your profits for what? To keep Abode (an anti-human conglomerate) happy?

A lot of things could be happening here but one scenario could be (but is only a speculation) is that POND5 wasn't going to pay the contributors for this sale (considering there was a 4 month delay) and since the acquisition from Shutterstock, they would have had to make sure all their contracts are fulfilled before the sale so they paid off the contributors with a pathetic excuse saying... Oops sorry for the disappointment of our giveaway prices of all your hard work. Here's a couple of bucks to satisfy any legal terms... "Well your honor, we did pay them for their videos"! See how it works?

If you are not happy about this behavior what I would suggest to do is to calculate your commission from the actual cost you set of the videos that were sold and send POND5 the invoice. It's not as if they don't have any money as they were just taken over by Shutterstock for $210 million dollars.

I would send them a message like this...
Thank you for your offer of (what they want to pay you for the sale. i.e $134.16) but I decline your offer. You have sold 8 of my videos priced at $97 each = $776. As a exclusive artist I should receive 60% of that amount = $465.60 so therefore you owe me $465.60 and would appreciate to see that amount in my next pay schedule.

If they don't pay you then they are involved in theft as well as fraud and may be liable for a class action suit against them. Chances are they will probably remove this discussion but by grace of God if it remains then make sure you reach out to me in some way. azjacksongallery@protonmail.com

If you do nothing this sort of behavior will only get worse and it will decimate the entire industry and you will no longer make any money from your profession. This is what a race to the bottom looks like. If you value your time and effort then make some noise and call out this sort of wrong behavior on YouTube and other platforms. This is a fight for our very right to earn a living from our profession.

Was just going to mail them to ask what the heck happened when I saw the sales report yesterday.... as we specifically went exclusive here to avoid this happening.
Thanks for the pointers, you raise some excellent ones @Az_Jackson and I don't think they will remove this discussion as I've only had a positive working relationship with P5 and I personally have found them always willing to hear our gripes, unlike other agencies we've been with. But yesterday was eye-opening and they will be getting a mail from me, because if I wanted my footage on Adobe, I would've put it there.

We probably need to move this thread into the artist area.

Az_Jackson, I agree with you on many points.

Unfortunately our agreement with P5 is not a contract, and is "terms of use" meaning they can change the rules at any time, and you agree to them by using the site. It's terrible, but that's the way it is. I hate and resent that, but as they have worded it well, you are not in position to cry "theft".

Hear me: I do not think it right and wish for a better resolution.

One thing though: Ryan is our friend and should be treated with fairness and respect. I'm not brown nosing .. you'll find I've said accusatory things, and been angry and stuck my foot in my mouth on many an occasion. But Ryan does not deserve such abuse. He is in the hard place of helping us be heard by Pond5 upper echelon corporate types and also deciphering their decrees and decisions to us, and trying to make it work. I hope to hell there is always Ryan, or someone very like him, in such a position, as otherwise we'd be truly in a crappy position, with no voice.

The fact that he has stepped forward to put out fires means that they do care, at least somewhat, and have some interest in keeping us rabble mollified.

I appreciate you bringing this to my attention Mizamook and can see your point but I wouldn't be so quick to yield.

I'm not crying "theft" IT IS THEFT! and if you cannot see that then you may need take off your rose colored glasses for a while because we are all going to need better foresight from 2022 onwards to navigate through this legalese deception all companies are implementing. According to the https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/safeselling/terms/ "terms of use" is still a legally binding agreement recognized by a court of law and if one party changes the terms without ample notice to the other party and with no way to opt out then it could be seen as unfair consumer trade practices and therefore enforceable.

If you do not think it's right and wish for a better resolution then you have to act. We all have to call out this underhanded behavior otherwise it will spread like a cancer. If they know they can get away with this behavior then what's stopping them from pushing those boundaries?

What is the point for setting our own prices and what is the point for going Exclusive if they can just be changed at will by subscription models that suits only one party? All this does is prevents me from earning anywhere else, cheapens my work and cheapens POND5 and ultimately putting me out of business.

I'm not happy because I would not have agreed to this as it wasn't just by a little bit it was the majority... 95%. If you were running a shop would you sell an item with a 95% discount? More than likely No because you'd go out of business. That's exactly what's at stake here. I can't even believe I have to justify this and spend my time writing these messages but if this behavior continues WE WILL ALL GO OUT OF BUSINESS. Is this sinking in to anyone yet? Barely anyone is making any noise about this.

Microstock, free stock and subscriptions = death of photography and videography as a profession. Plain and simple.

I have nothing against Ryan personally and I'm not treating any honest human being with unfairness or disrespect. I don't know you or him and you say he's a good guy so I'll just respect your opinion and take that on face value. The problem is the cookie cutter "Oops, our bad, sorry" response with one hand while decimating the industry and stealing from exclusive contributors who don't sell their work anywhere else with the other hand. POND5 should feel privileged that so many good producers are willing to sell their life's work exclusively through their platform. I think I can speak for a lot of the professionals here that the reason we joined this platform is because of the higher commission and the greater price controls despite the lower volume of sales.

"The fact that he has stepped forward to put out fires means that they do care". Yes it could mean that and I truly hope that is the case because compassion is sorely missed in todays society. It could also mean they know they've done something wrong and that they know the contributors would not be happy about it so they're relieving some of the backlash they expect to ensue. Ryan cannot go against the will of the company otherwise he would not be in that position. What is the will of the company? Well look who owns it now. A billionaire globalist who is enforcing the will of evil throughout all of his companies.

I like to think of people in positions of authority as good natured and act in a benevolent way but unfortunately that's not how the world works. The sad reality is that the stock industry is trying to implode itself because evil is behind it forcing its will. Regardless of how you take that it is happening and will continue to happen unless we, the people act!

Mizamook has it right. This wasn't theft, they were partner program sales. Agree or not, believe it or not, like it or not, this was legally within the terms and conditions that we all agreed to when becoming contributors. Ryan chiming into the forums was a courtesy that most other stock companies have long given up on, and a sign of some lingering respect for their contributors. When those posts stop, we're in the end times.

The break with Adobe marks a bad sign moving forward. They're clearing the way for the new owners to get what they payed that $210 million for. If you get this fired up over numbers in that last partner sales report, you better re-up on the blood pressure meds before the first Shutterstock partner subscription sales start rolling in. We'll all be fondly reminiscing of the good old days of getting a whole $2 per sale.

It's just the reality of where we are now. We collectively did this to ourselves by still contributing to companies that continually dropped royalties, devalued the product and dehumanized the contributors. Pond5 was all that was left, and we're lucky to still have them up to now.

Thanks for your perspective Atomazulx. I guess if we can prove intent then we'll leave it up to a judge to decide. I'm not fired up, actually I'm calm and seemingly one of the only ones calling out immoral behavior. Why do you or does anyone accept being treated this way? Lack of courage... don't want to offend.. think that it's rude? Well any type of complacency like this will result in decimation of our profession.

Amateurs or one-off'rs may not see the writing on the wall or even have too much of a stake in the outcome to care but this is a clear sign of the end of producing stock footage. You do realize this dystopian world we find ourselves in of uninformed consent and removing our rights and freedoms only ends one way... death and destruction!

So the way I see it is if we don't start raising concern over these seemingly small but insidious changes (that have major repercussions if you look at the bigger picture) then why do we even exist only to be treated like cattle and harvested at will?

Uninformed consent? Nope. The writing is on the wall, as it is in the agreement you signed when you signed up. You did read that, right? Oh .. me neither. But I know enough of it to know I'm not happy with it, but what's the point of disagreeing?

The simple answer is that the only way to put our money where our mouths are is to leave with our collections. Many of us are, quite literally, at the end of the stock road, so, unwilling or unable to commit to that. If Pond5 dies, we are most likely doomed. Are you so willing to leave? You just got here! But ... that's really your only bit of leverage, and facing the hordes of willing contributors (for pennies or other) you and I are as motes in a dusty warehouse.

I appreciate the vim, vigour, and complete sentences. I do. But these expressions of alarmist accusations against us cowardly sheeple, calmy lying down in the blood of our brethren while the slaughter continues unabated around us, seems, perhaps, a bit uninformed. The changes have been accruing for years. The fight continues. But it's hard to strategise without intel, and it's hard to wage real war without some high ground, or even ammunition.

Sadly, some of that intel we so crave is hard to come by, and it really seems that the higher-ups in boardrooms bowing to investor pressure seem to be steering the ship, and all they know is numbers. To them, we may well be but numbers, not even cattle, people or, as they term it "Artists" ... but ... there may be more than we see going on, and no one has a better idea, and if they did, they aren't sharing.

What's your better idea? We're all ears.

@Mizamook: The fella has found a new platform to preach his doom and gloom in this dystopian world he describes.

His attack on Ryan was under the belt. Pond5 didn't go knocking at his or my door demanding we upload our footage to their platform. Nobody is happy with low priced sales, but it happens. I've had two $5 dollar sales since 2017, no complaints here, i can always leave!!!

So once P5 got bought and the opening page changed I seem to remember there was a subscription that touted the ability to download "exclusive" content paying some unnamed custom price

It's changed again to (can't upload the screenshot I took of it so just check out the opening page your own self) include a "Footage Plus" subscription. And that includes "Selection of 4.2M HD and 4K videos" and you have to actually buy that subuscription to see what that "Selection" includes

Which make me think that all of our Exclusive content is still not up for grabs at giveaway prices but maybe that's wishful dreaming

I still haven't had any of my videos downloaded via subscription yet

...Or maybe this preacher fella is sick of being treated like dirt after more than a decade in this industry and just pointing out some dodgy scenarios that have been personally experienced from all the major companies for others to be aware of. Of course, those who haven't experienced these things would probably find it easy to turn to ridicule against their own comrades rather than taking a stand against the machine that pays them pittance.

I'm not the enemy and I'm certainly not ripping people off. I am a defender of life, not an attacker so can you please show me where I attacked Ryan? Maybe that's the way you scanned it but if you read it properly you will see that I'm not attacking Ryan personally and I offer my sincere apologies to Ryan if any suffering has occurred as that was not my intention.

...Anyway I think I'm done with this insanity. I appreciate all of your perspectives and wish you all very well in your career. I sincerely hope that everything works out for you all.

Much love