Pond5 Global Partner Program and what it means for Music Artists

Hi there,

I received Pond5's news today that they signed up a couple of big numbers for their Global Partner Program (https://global-partner-program.pond5.com/) - including Adobe. This is quite amazing and I am looking forward having my music exposed to many more potential customers.

I went ahead and studied their Contributor Agreement because I wanted to know what my rights are and what I will have to keep in mind.

One thing that stuck with me was this paragraph:

5c.:
You may not take any action on or with respect to YouTube (or other networks that allow for the so-called "claiming" or "monetization of content") that would interfere with the ability of Content Users to monetize or collect revenue from any such network with respect to their works.


Since all of my music is registered with Adrev, my music will constantly be scanned on Youtube and monetization will automatically be claimed. While it's possible for licensee's to opt out of that monetization by simply using the claim function in the Youtube backend and a copy of the original invoice, I see a problem that Pond5 will be having with this.

Lot's of artists have their music on Adrev or similar monetization services. Most of them sell their material on multiple marketplaces non-exclusively. In order to prevent piracy and to get the most of our royalties, we are forced to use services like Adrev. The revenue we get through Youtube, for example, is not even remotely what we should be paid. Here is a still relevant article on the whole ordeal of musicians and Youtube by Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/youtube-shouldn-t-be-bragging-about-what-it-pays-musici-1789839441

In my opinion, Pond5 should quickly amend their contributor agreement and allow external monetization providers to help us generate more income. Leave it up to us and to the clients what we do with it. This is not the business of Pond5. You can add a disclaimer to warn the licensee if a falsely-claimed monetization occurs and provide automated assistance.

I am pretty pessimistic about that my opinion on this will ever be heard and they will probably never change it. Luckily, I am not depending on Pond5 sales and I have barely sold anything this year. Most of my income comes through freelance assignments and ....tadaa: Adrev. Feel free to comment and share your view. I just hope Pond5 will not go the way iStockaudio went some time ago. They were in the end bought by Getty and the license model turned lethal to most contributors, which caused me to delete all my stuff there. Please don't let it happen here!

Peace out!

Hi @dreikelvin,

Thanks for this post - you make some really great points. However, I do want to temper expectations from music and SFX artists.

Adobe is a high-profile partner is our Global Partnership Program, which is why we're notifying our entire contributor base.

While inclusion in the GPP is being rolled out for visual media types only to start, we’re planning to make audio available for these partners down the line...but not just yet, as there are more specifics to be ironed out here (dealing with Content ID being one of them).

Thanks for your concern and we'll keep you posted.

Thanks for your response! Some guy on your twitter also responded with this:

We actually have a close relationship with them and when our buyers write in, we help remove those auto-flags. 😀

(https://twitter.com/pond5/status/856899712158400513)

Another suggestion would be to co-operate with sites like Adrev and integrate their id-system into your platform for quicker management. Just an idea!