Hi Paul

In response to your recent blog regarding moodboard contracts and royalty percentage to photographers, please take on board the facts below!

moodboard is a macro library not a microstock library
Our 20% royalty to photographers is in line with industry standards for Royalty free content.
All our photographer represented content is currently placed under the royalty free licence with prices ranging from $105 to $550 and moodboard+ (packaged rights) with commercial pricing ranging from $510 to $2125 and editorial pricing from $135 to $875. We are offering 20% of something not 80% of nothing!
Our experienced creative team invests heavily in developing quality content with photographers. Royalty or represented content is acquired via two routes: existing / archive material (this is edited, scanned if analogue, post produced, keyworded and captioned (where necessary) by us but the majority of represented material is developed by our creative team with the photographer who identify the commercial drivers, brief and present shoot lists, help produce, art direct on site or long arm art direct, edit, do all the post production, keyword and caption. At our discretion we also front some of the shoot costs by way of an advance to the photographer which is recouped against royalties enabling talented photographers, whether newcomer or professional, to move forward. We also actively market/ sell to buyers directly and through a network of 150+ distributors worldwide with whom we maintain relationships on a weekly basis. That combined offering is, I believe, justification for that ‘whopping 80%’.
We offer a quality microstock licence to buyers which is at ‘midstock’ prices ranging from $15.00 for xs to $100 for xxl; not the usual $1 a pop!
The content currently in our quality microstock range is all wholly owned and shot by us.
Any future royalty material which we may wish to place under the quality microstock licence would not be done without discussion with the photographer.
We have an area on our site where photographers can upload samples of their work for review purposes only. Photograhers producing quality content are then contacted by our creative team. There is no automatic feed through to our website as with microstock libraries.
The only aspects of the moodboard model which are similar to microstock are the ‘midstock’ pricing for its quality microstock and its openness to representing talented amateurs as well as its rostra of professional photographers.
A lot of photographers ‘in their right mind’ have signed with us because we offer considerable experience and investment in developing projects through to viable quality, commercial photography which sells and from which photographers can earn a very good living.

I hope this clarifies our position Paul! And, I’m sure the Queen will reward us somewhere down the line as she did with a previous company many of us at moodboard worked for, Digital Vision, with the Queen’s award for enterprise and export.

With kind regards
Kate

Kate Stevens
Creative Director/moodboard

Dear Kate,

Indeed, “industry standard” for material that you produce and for the content of a whole photo shoot. Your contract was offered to a photographer that had just return from a very expensive trip, self funded and from which you would have taken maybe 10 to 15 images. Furthermore your 150 distributors worldwide certainly all take a percentage of any sale, off the top, making the final commission to the photographer even lower.
Your are not helping photographers make a decent living, unless if they live in Togo, maybe.
You do what you think is right for you business, Kate. I do not have to agree. I am not interested in entering a long debate on how your company is the best thing that ever happened to photographers worldwide. You obviously do not subscribe to fair trade and rather would bite at the long tail as many others like you are doing these days.It is your choice and I respect that. You should respect my right to disagree.
And for your marvelous Queen, we all know she is not a friend of photographers.
Best
Paul M

i’m not touching that debate above with a ten foot pole.

interesting pickup on Corbis moving to Ireland and the tax benefits. that is exactly why they did it in my opinion so great pickup. My whole family who is from the emerald isle kept telling me to do the same with my business but I decided to stay in the USA.

As for the contracts, it’s amazing some of the terms they place on contributors, the same people, who are supporting their site. It’s confusing sometimes how much sites like the ones you mentioned think they can get away with because only a few people read the terms before they sign up at the site and it isn’t until there is a problem that they read the fine line.

Companies have to do a better job for their contributors by clearly outlining, breaking up the different clauses in the contract to managable reading sections i.e. so they aren’t bored to tears and bolding areas that are important in these agreements. It’s for everyones benefit and its better to know these going in then to find them out when there is a problem. Transparency in markets is key and the way forward.

In the end, a lot of this responsibility will fall on the submitter to actually read the terms and make a stink when things don’t smell right.

thanks paul,

john g.