Fractal artists: submit your work to Illusion Industry, stock imagery site

[zsalman]

Calling all fractal artists:

My name is Zaid Salman. I am the founder and president of Sight No Sound, Inc, which is a company that provides image creation and distribution services to a variety of industries.

I would like to invite you to contribute images to my stock imagery website, Illusion Industry, located at www.illusionindustry.com. Illusion Industry is a stock imagery licensing and distribution site featuring specialized imagery in the areas of bodypainting and body art, 3D computer-generated imagery, and fractals. When I first started the site, I thought I could populate it with content all on my own. However, I soon realized that I was missing out on a huge pool of artistic talent and creative content so I've since opened it up to anyone who wants to contribute who is capable of providing high-caliber images to the site.

High-quality, rich and detailed fractal images tend to sell very well in the realm of stock imagery as they appeal to a wide variety of industries and can be used in a large range of applications.

Contributors who host images on Illusion Industry can receive a royalty of up to 45% of the image price whenever an image is downloaded. Images on the site are priced from $29 to $299, so you can make up to $134 every time your image sells.

Take a look at the PDF document located at http://www.illusionindustry.com/pdfs/illusionindustry_contributor_info.pdf for all the details on royalty payments, samples of acceptable images, and information about image sizes and formats.

My contact information is given in the PDF document. Feel free to call or email me with any questions.

I look forward to expanding the site with your work!

Zaid

P.S. You can check out some of my personal work done with the aid of Ultra Fractal here: http://www.surrealscapes.net/gallery_lumens.html

[Sockratease]

Well, let me be the first to say, Welcome and thanks for offering.

Sadly, I'm probably also the first to say "I'm Not Worthy!" - but I'll give this a try anyhow   

I noticed that there was no 3D Fractal section in your site, so I am assuming you are primarily interesetd in those Psychedelic Hippy Long-Hair Fractals that most of us love, and the new wave of 3D Mandelbox, Mandelbulb, and Hybrid Friends are not of primary interest?

If you see anything in this gallery - http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=myimages;u=162  I can easily re-render any of them in High Resolution and save in a lossless format.

Otherwise, I'll just see what I can find and read that pdf you linked to so I can know what you're looking for.

Meanwhile, feel free to join in on any discussions here that catch your interest!  Even old ones.

See you around the webs...

[zsalman]

Hello Sockratease,

I'm looking for all kinds of fractal imagery, whether it's generated via 2D or 3D software. Don't take the categories on the Illusion Industry too literally: when it says "Fractals", I mean fractals of all kinds. Also, the site is just getting started so the categories are getting filled out, so don't assume that if it's not listed there already that I'm not looking for it.

Please do take a look at the PDF file for more information. You definitely have some good material and I would be happy to add some of it to the site!

Zaid

[Sockratease]

Hi again.

I read your pdf and was not impressed.  First thing you need to do is change that phrase "you make up to 45% on each sale."

Up to??

That almost made me delete the pdf on the spot!

I spent over 15 years as an Art Dealer, traveling to conventions and having a storefront.  I took stuff on commission and consignment, and I can assure you, regardless of what other stock image sights pay, that ANYTHING less than 50% going to the Artist is an Insult (and the 25% you use for "lesser works" is something I can not describe my reaction to without using Profanity!).

Even 50% is barely acceptable, but possibly something I would consider.  Should be 60% to 75% depending on the quality and asking price.  That even holds true in the collectible toy market.

I know all about cost overheads - often I'd sell a piece at a convention and not even cover my cost of setting up!  That meant I took a loss, but my customers who gave me the pieces to sell always got paid fairly!  My overheads are not their problem.

But you have no set up costs comparable to a convention (often hundreds of dollars for an 8 hour show!), and frankly - I just can't understand how anybody would be gullible enough to think you deserve more than half the purchase price (up to 75% of the purchase price going to you is ...  WRONG!).

If you ever reverse the terms, and give the Artists what they are worth, I'd consider submitting some of my better work.  As it is, you may get some submissions, but nothing I feel is my best stuff.  I wont put it on the market under those conditions.

Sorry if that sounds hostile, but I am offended.  Shocked at the whole state of this "Stock Image" Market.  It is abusing Artists, and I don't like it, nor will I support such exploitation (even if it is "Industry Standard) with my best work.  I may, however, submit some of the above average - but not Exemplary - pieces to see if enough sales are generated to make reconsidering my position an option  (I am always open to reconsidering my decisions, but my initial reaction to this is Extremely Negative!).

Regardless, I wish you luck in your efforts. 

[reallybigname]

A lot of artists are technically skilled enough to host their own websites, order prints themselves, and keep the profits.  However, most don't have the ability to promote and actually sell their work.  So, that would have to be the benefit, in order to consider a service like this.

[Sockratease]

A lot of artists are technically skilled enough to host their own websites, order prints themselves, and keep the profits.  However, most don't have the ability to promote and actually sell their work.  So, that would have to be the benefit, in order to consider a service like this.

Agreed!

But the situation is no different than a customer bringing me a piece to sell on their behalf when I ran a store.

They didn't have enough stock to justify buying a table at a show for $200 to $300 per day and so they put it in the hands of a professional who would treat them fairly.

I agree on the premise of such sites, but I find the 75% Take on the part of the seller to be inexcusable and I am insulted by the very existence of such a market.

As should be anyone with any experience buying and selling Art.  Especially taking Art on consignment or commission!  The hosts of such sites deserve to be compensated for sure, but NEVER at more than half the purchase price!


EDIT - Furthermore, I don't think the images used in the pdf are being used legally.  He states:

"I have included images in this document that represent the kind of imagery that
Illusion Industry hosts. I have found these images on the web and I have tried to properly credit
every image author. None of these artists currently have images up on Illusion Industry."

Crediting an artist is not enough.  You need their Permission too!!  Using their artwork to promote your own, for (obscene) profit, site is NOT "Fair Use" of such imagery.

I personally know one of the Artists whose work is in the pdf and I will be asking him if he gave you permission to use the image in this fashion.  I certainly hope you didn't just steal his work for use in promotional material for a commercial effort.  That is in violation of copyright laws, and does not promote a feeling of trust that you wont disregard copyright laws with works submitted to you in good faith.

[The Rev]

Sockratease, if you ever get back in the business, I have some lithographs I'd love to give you to sell.  I have a Chagall, and a few lesser artists that my parents collected, and have no idea how to sell them or how to find someone I can trust to get me a fair price for them.

/off topic discussion

The Rev

[zsalman]

Hello Sockratease,

Thank you for your detailed comments. I apologize if I have offended you, or anyone else for that matter. For the record, I am an artist myself, my work is here: www.surrealscapes.net.

Firstly let me respond to the copyright issue. No, indeed I did not contact the artists directly whose images I referenced in my PDF document. My PDF document is not used as a marketing tool but rather for information purposes. In that respect, I thought that I was acting in good faith by providing credit to their images, and based on my understanding of copyright laws. I have gone ahead and removed the PDF document from any public view and I will go ahead and contact each of the artists I reference individually for their written permission to use their images that way.

Okay, regarding payment... I offered two levels of royalty, 25% and 45%. If an artist submits an image to Illusion Industry but reserves the right to license that image to anyone else or submit it to any other stock imagery site, I offer a royalty of 25%. I think that's certainly reasonable given the fact that the image could be sold in multiple places and thus a customer need not obtain it from Illusion Industry, so the profit potetional of that image goes way down.

If the artist chooses to host his image exclusively on Illusion Industry and not license it to anyone on his own, the the royalty offered is 45%. You feel that this level is way too low and you're very upset about it, considering it to be an exploitation of the artist. I don't see it that way. No one is forced to host their images on my site, they do so of their own accord. And the details of product pricing and royalty payments are specified clearly upfront and nothing is hidden. You can choose what images to provide on the site, maybe they're not your best work, and you can reserve your best work for distribution and sale elsewhere. I have been told by many people who are connected with the stock imagery world that my royalty levels were way too high, but since I am an artist myself, I believe in getting paid for the images artists make. And there are obviously many millions of artists who are hosting their images on stock imagery sites, or else those sites wouldn't exist. Are they all being "abused" or exploited?

Keep in mind this is a stock imagery site, not an art piece selling site. Illusion Industry provides image downloads, not print or canvas sales. There's a lot of time and money spent on running this thing. The people who would download these images are using them for commercial purposes and will be putting them into magazine ads, billboards, product packaging, and websites, among other things. There's a lot of marketing effort involved in finding those people and convince them to pay $299 for an image download of print resolution. And if you are concerned about copyright violations, those people are even more so, which means that I have to maintain huge liability protections to run a stock imagery business. For any artist who submits images to Illusion Industry, I have to run a check to verify that the artist indeed owns the copyright to that image, or else I open myself up for a lawsuit if that image gets downloaded by Time magazine, run into millions of magazines, and then Time gets sued for using an image without permission. They're going to come back to me. I have to have a lot of liability insurance to cover myself in that situation, and that costs money. That's quite a different situation that if you're selling limited edition prints or gallery wraps.

The funny thing about all this is my original vision of Illusion Industry was that it contain only images that I personally created, precisely because I didn't want to deal with all this stuff. But I soon found that I just didn't have the time to put the volume and variety of content up on the site that would be required to make it viable, so I decided to open it up to other artists. Perhaps I should reconsider that decision.

All the best,

Zaid

[Sockratease]

I have been told by many people who are connected with the stock imagery world that my royalty levels were way too high, but since I am an artist myself, I believe in getting paid for the images artists make. And there are obviously many millions of artists who are hosting their images on stock imagery sites, or else those sites wouldn't exist. Are they all being "abused" or exploited?

I knew I should have slept on it before posting.

I guess I wasn't clear!  I stated that I felt the entire stock imagery market was exploitative, not you individually.  If your royalties are, indeed, much higher than others - that's great!

But I am still put off by the whole structure of the stock imagery business in general.

If expenses are that high, then I suggest even higher asking prices such that a fair royalty would still yield you the same dollar amount, and you can cover expenses exactly the same way, but be giving Legitimate Artist Rates in an industry that obviously does not think that is needed.

You could even make your own works cheaper (because there's no liability and no chance of fraud!), thus making them more attractive to buyers.

I didn't mean to sound quite so hostile (and even said so), but no calmer way to express my concerns and outrage (at the stock image industry in general - not at you in particular)  (except about using images by people I know without asking for their permission) came to mind, so I spoke out in my usual blustery, over-dramatic fashion.  But the core points I made are still what I believe, even if they were phrased a bit harshly.

And I still wish you luck with whatever course you choose to follow.

And about the use of other people's work - that is definitely an issue.  I'm glad you took down the pdf and will reconsider asking first!  I know you may think that the pdf is not promotional, just informational, but that's debatable and it really gave me pause when an owner of a stock image site chose to use people's art without asking.  You show strong character by pulling it and I respect you for that action.

[David Makin]

Anything less than 90% of the retail price to the artist from a purely online 3rd party gallery is an unethical rip-off.
Even the top real-world galleries rarely give less than 70% of the retail price to the artist.

[reallybigname]

"real-world" galleries sell "real-world" art...  which can only be sold once.  So, that's hardly a fair comparison.

I still insist that sales are what could make a deal like this feasible.  In other words, you can sell some of your art yourself and make some money.  But, if this guy's site can sell 10x more than you, then isn't it worth taking a smaller percentage?

I am not saying that this guy's site CAN sell more than you.  In fact, I doubt it.  The site hardly has anything on it, and it obviously not a well established site that people know, like DeviantArt, CafePress, etc...    I'm just saying that this pricing structure isn't necessarily bad, depending on the quantity of sales generated by it.

[zsalman]

Sockratease, we are in agreement about the issue of using other people's work. I had taken a more liberal interpretation of the fair use laws than was warranted, and I won't make that mistake again. By the way, your comrade contacted me about the use of his image. I apologized to him and told him that I had already taken the PDF file down. Ironically, he was one of the first artists I was planning to contact directly about hositng his images on the site.

Regarding the stock imagery industry and the state of the world, it is what it is, whether we like it or not. Are there zillions of stock imagery sites out there now, selling high-resolution files for very cheap? Yes, there are. Does that dilute the market for good art by flooding the marketplace with low-caliber images? Yes, it does. Does it make life exponentially harder for someone like me starting a brand new stock imagery site and trying to command real value for images? Most certainly. Do I even think I can compete with the likes of Getty, Corbis, and iStockPhoto? No, I couldn't' compete directly with them if all I wanted to do was to offer images of people walking on the beach, talking on cellphones, or gathered around a conference room tabke. I intend to offer images that those sites don't, to keep the site focused on specific niche content, and to target customers who are specifically interested in consuming those images. Could Getty or Corbis pick up the kind of content that I'm focused on? Sure they can, but that content would get lost among their millions of other images, such that a customer interested in that type of content would have a hard time finding it.

Unlike someone who would buy a piece from an art gallery who does so because he likes that piece and wants to add it to a collection, a customer at a stock imagery site is looking to get images for a specific purpose, usually a commercial one. They intend to use the image to help them make money. And that's the good news: if a stock imagery site offers images that are effective in making money for clients, then that site will be succesful because those images will sell. They key is to identify the kinds of images that are effective in making money and generate those. Images of bodypainted people is one such type. Bodypainting has rapidly become a common device in marketing and advertising, especially in Europe. Images of bodypainted people, especially women, command attention and keep viewers looking. The image doesn't even have to be related to the product or service being sold: if there's a painted person in the image, it's going to attract attention. And that's precisely the point.

Coming back to the point of pricing and all that, there will always be debate about it, and everyone will be divided on the issue. You have artists who think "I should get 99% of every sale because I created the product that is being sold in the first place and without that, there would be nothing to sell! Those !$@&% business people are ripping me off!" And you have business people who think "I should get 99% of every sale because I provide the environment in which the product can be sold in the first place and because I am the one pounding the pavement, doing the marketing, sending out mailings, and cold-calling customers so that they can place an order and complete the sale, and if those !$@&% artists were so good at sales why do they need me anyway? They chould just sell their stuff themselves and keep all the profits that they're complaining about me getting!" And then you have everything in between. Being both an artist and a business person myself, I'm trying to strike a balance. Both sides have done work to make the sale happen, although technically the artist does the work only once while the selling agent does it continually. But to be totally fair,  in my opinion it should just be split right down the middle: 50% to the artist, and 50% to the agent that brought the sale, whether it's a gallery owner or a stock imagery site operator.

It's a question of exposure: if you're a well-established artist and you have people beating a path to your door to buy your art, whether it's actually art pieces or downloads of your art files, then you don't need any sort of distribution agent and you can sell your stuff and keep 100% of the proceeds. Of if you've got the wherewithal to do all your own marketing and promotion and you can secure sales, then you should sell your stuff directly and keep 100% of the proceeds. But for everyone else, selling an image via a stock imagery site and getting 55% of the sale price is better than no sale at all but getting 70%, 80%, or 90% of the sale price. 90% of zero is still zero. At the end of the day, if it turns out that you sold more of a given image at 55% profit than you did at 90% profit, you're out ahead. In this particular case, you only have to sell 0.9/0.55 = 1.636x more units at the 55% level to equal the total dollar profit at the 90% level. That isn't much and is certainly doable via a stock imagery site. In fact, you could probably well exceed that factor.

My hope with Illusion Industry was to bring together a collective of artists who could populate the site with high-caliber computer-generated imagery and thus have a compelling and competitive site with which to aggressively attack the market for such material, resulting in profits for everyone. The overall response to my invitation so far has been mixed, roughly half and half in favor of what I'm doing and against it, but I didn't expect to be met with such resistance on the side of people against it.

In any case, all this is now water under the bridge as I have reverted to my original plan of having Illusion Industry host only my own content. It will take a lot longer to fill out the site having to create all the content myself, but then I don't have to deal with any irate artists accusing me of ripping them off or being unethical or whatever, and I don't have to worry about the logistical nightmare that having multiple artists might create. I realized that even if I had 50 artists who each contributed 10 images, that's only 500 images more on the site, but that's 50 people that I have to keep track of and make sure that they all get paid what they're owed. And that's 500 different ways that a copyright could be violated and I could be sued. Heck, if I, a person who is making a business out of selling images and is supposed to be well-versed in copyright law and application could make a mistake and push the limit, someone else who isn't as well-versed could make a bigger mistake, or perhaps someone could even be purposely trying to pass someone else's images off as his or her own. In any case, it's my tail on the line. At this point, it's not worth it. I will slowly but surely be filling out the site and expanding its content, and perhaps when the site is big enough and getting good business, I could hire someone to help out with the legal and logistical stuff and it might be worth expanding to other artists. If someone contacts me and wants to contribute, I'll gladly consider it (and I'll offer 50% royalty), but I won't be actively soliciting people as I have been doing so far.

This has been a lively discussion. Thank you all. It has helped make things clear for me.

By the way, no one in this thread, with the exception of David, seems to like posting their real names. Just happened to notice that. ;-)

All the best,

Zaid

[Sockratease]

Glad it's worked out then.

My issue was only with royalties of under 50%, not the rest of the nature of the stock image industry.

I will always consider that exploitation.

As for;

By the way, no one in this thread, with the exception of David, seems to like posting their real names. Just happened to notice that. ;-)

Many artists refuse to use their real names.  It happens everywhere from Fine Art to Movies and TV to Comic Books.  In my case, I do a lot of work for Naughty Adult Websites, and in that business real names are a Protected Commodity!  Even some of my 3D and Fractal work can get involved, so I use my "Professional" name on such sites.

I've even gotten work before people knew my real name.  It usually doesn't come up until it's time to talk about payment arrangements  

Regardless, we will continue to disagree on many points about such things.  Good luck with your site, and have fun doing it!

[Tabasco Raremaster]

Question 1 : No matter price and percents , if this site is selling to industries, does the artist get paid once for a sold image or for every time the sold image is going to be used ?


Some products are produced by the millions and even more dollars are made on them so even 10 cents per product would be a fortune.

Question 2 :Who checks or proves how many times and for what price an image is sold and how many times it`s used ?



It would be cruel for an artist to see that the sold image is used as texture for curtains and because they become hyped fashion being reminded for the next 30 years that the victory of making a 100 $ was an Illusion of industry.