The iPhone application Foap says $10. Actually…$5 after they take their cut. Here’s the rundown…
Foap is a micro stock photography app made exclusively for iPhone photography. You upload your photos for review using their app, and then when/if they’re approved they become available for purchase in their market for editorial or commercial use by third party companies. There’s no end to the number of times a single photo can be sold (at the fixed $10 rate), so there’s a lot of potential to earn money ($5 per sold photo) if your work is popular enough.
So what do you think? Sound like a good deal? Personally, I’m torn about whether or not I like this concept. Photographers get an incredibly easy way to put their photos on the market, buyers get super cheap images, and Foap gets to split the profits. So who wins in this scenario? Have any of you used this or other micro stock photography services with any success?
If this sounds intriguing to you, check out the Foap site for more information, or better yet, take the app for a test drive.
I just had a look at this one here
http://foap.com/market/stock-photo/4faed0875f5e88503b000a8b/girl/smile/hair
It is listed as Commercial. There is no disclaimer as to the released status of the image. If I buy this image for a client, I cannot assure them that the image has been indemnified by the agency as Released. A look at the TOS tells me that their release system is an “honor thing”. Sorry, not acceptable. Having been in the stock business as an administrator, I will tell you for a fact that submitters lie, cheat and steal.
And while I’m on legal and TOS, this is troubling:
“C.4. BUYER’S OBLIGATION TO ARRANGE ALL OTHER CONSENTS
Apart from the Model Releases detailed above, the Buyer is responsible for arranging any and all consents required for the Buyer’s intended use of the Content, including but not limited to any consents required from trademark owners, building or land owners or owners of other intellectual property included in the Content. The Seller shall not be responsible for obtaining any such consent, unless otherwise agreed in writing directly between the Seller and the Buyer.”
So that it means is if you want to use an image of that Car Tree Freshener
http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2011/10/getty-images-facing-upwards-to-80-million-trademark-claims.html
it is the BUYER that needs to clear the content. While art directors know about product clearances, today’s bargain basement stock photo buyer does not. And it is very doubtful that they will take the time to read and understand the TOS. Misuse, even seemingly innocent enough, will likely land them in court in the US.
Agree with Neil Watson – I really see the service as a legal hornet’s nest.
I just read about this app on fstoppers.com literally 10 minutes ago before visiting chase’s blog for the day. It seems interesting. I downloaded it and willing to give it a try. Fstoppers also wrote about scoopshoot.com another great app with the potential to make money. I’m going to check them both out.
To answer your question chase I think all parties win. If I’m uploading all my awesome pix I might as well get paid for if I can instead of all my rights automatically benign handed over to instagram, Facebook, etc.
Erik,
I recently got the Foap app on my iPhone 4S and started uploading some photos.
The app is better than I was led to believe from some of the comments on iTunes & the web – I guess they updated the app to fix some of the issues.
I’m a fairly active photographer (Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr etc.) and I know I’ve gotten some good shots from my iPhone (usually processed via Snapseed). I only uploaded about 7 images to se how this works out – and I’ve no problem with the $10/$5 split if my images actually sell, bearing in mind that they are more casual style images shot on an iPhone and do not have the time overhead of a big set-up.
So far though no sales. I expect, like many of these services, one has to commit a considerable amount of time in acquiring followers to get to a large enough tipping point where one may actually have some sort of market, but I don’t know how much time this particular service needs for that.
It looks pretty good to me though, as a more serious effort to make a business out of mobile photography (for Foap and the photographer) and I do like their advice to ‘play down’ the ‘art filter’ effects, it makes sense.
Another nice touch is the Foap ‘Missions’ – which are briefs for photographers to work on, I think that’s one of the best ideas I’ve seen in this line of business yet.
Maybe you folks have something in mind for the future of ‘Best Camera’? I always liked the way it worked.
Cheers.
Stock photography has been a race to the bottom for some time, I wonder who will actually license these images when stock agencies are chock full of professionally shot pictures for tiny amounts. I suspect it will also get so full of garbage images no one will even look in the first instance anyway. Happy to be proved wrong of course.
agreed on all counts.
I tried the app out when it first came out. It is a horrible app that is halfway functioning and they couldn’t care less about who uploads what.