Announcements
A Few Updates to our Contributor Terms of Service
Posted by Shutterstock / 9.17.13 11:15 am
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At Shutterstock, one of our most important goals is to support your success by delivering healthy and reliable earnings to you. We do that by growing and investing in customer relationships. Over the years, that investment has led us to deliver record milestones of 750,000 customers, 300 million paid downloads, $150 million in contributor earnings, and royalties of up to $120 or more per download.
We also have goals to minimize changes and to be open and transparent when changes do have to be made. With the latter goal in mind, we’d like to explain a few modifications to our Terms of Service. A summary of the most significant changes is below; please consult the Terms of Service for the full details.
1. If you decide to remove more than 100 items or 10% of your content, whichever is greater, Shutterstock has up to 90 days to accommodate the request. With over 29 million assets, we’re seeing record levels of content growth and contributor activity, but also record levels of customer activity. As we grow, there are new technical, workflow and customer realities that we need to accommodate. Ninety days gives us some time to make sure images come out of search results gracefully, as well as handle other administrative and technical tasks. In practice, we expect this to go faster.
2. Customers that have shown a commitment to licensing an image can convert their “comp” licenses into full licenses. Some of our most trusted large accounts request unwatermarked preview images (also called “comp” images) in exchange for paying higher rates — and as a result of that, royalties – when they purchase a license. If you choose to remove your images, but a customer has already signaled the intention to license an image, they can complete the transaction and we’ll make sure that you get paid. This avoids any last-minute changes for customers when layouts have already been approved or a project is close to completion.
3. We can market your content via social media. We already market your content to customers through many different channels, and social media is one of the most powerful ways to drive customers to your work. This update formalizes our ability to use social media channels for marketing with the intention of growing sales for you.
4. Images used in commercial contexts related to “tobacco use” are now considered a type of “sensitive use.” Unlike many of our competitors who don’t give you a choice, Shutterstock puts you in control of whether your images can be licensed for “sensitive use.” In reality, “sensitive uses” are rare and a very tiny percentage of image uses, but opting-in gives you access to higher royalties and the highest number of sales opportunities. This minor adjustment brings our licenses in line with those of competitors and industry standards.
In addition, if your image or your description of your image already depicts a sensitive subject, you acknowledge that it’s appropriate for sensitive use (for example, a model-released image clearly depicting drug abuse being used for a poster campaign against drugs).
For a full explanation of sensitive use, see here.
5. If you are paid by paper check, $500 is the minimum payout threshold. We want to spend the majority of our time driving sales and royalties for you. In a digital world, relatively few contributors get paid by paper checks. We’re raising the payout threshold for paper checks to $500 to increase efficiency and decrease the amount of time we spend on paperwork.
6. Shutterstock has the option to control litigation and costs in the event of a legal complaint. “To indemnify” means “to protect against damages.” In this case, depending on which party has offered to protect the other from damages in a legal claim, there’s mutual agreement to promptly let the other party know about the complaint. The “protected” party also agree to cooperate in defending against the complaint. This clause also contains specific language with regards to the obligations of each party, including financial obligations.
7. Confidentiality: We Protect And Respect Your Privacy. Please Respect Ours. As an artist at Shutterstock, you’re in a position to acquire information that you would not otherwise receive outside of our platform. Your earnings information might sometimes contain data that can be used by our competitors to reverse-engineer our products and services. We work hard to both protect and respect your privacy; we respectfully ask that you do the same and keep specific information about your earnings private. General characterizations are fine.
These are highlights of the most important changes to our Terms of Service. Please consult the full document for additional details, and please let us know if you have any questions at submit@shutterstock.com.
Best Regards,
The Shutterstock Team