If you are a photographer and want to make a quick buck from your photos, 500px is about to make it easier for you. The online photo community (and Flickr competitor) announced it would launch a marketplace called 500px Prime – allowing people to easily license your photos for their projects.
“Prime is a convergence of the growing demand to be able to license the amazing photography on 500px and a growing demand for a way for our photographers to be paid for their work. Our vision is to fundamentally change the way photos are licensed. A big part of this is changing the way photo licensing companies work with photographers,” the company said in a blog post.
However, there is a big catch. For every image licenced, 500px will only give you a 30 percent commission regardless of the licensing terms. For the professional and seasoned photographers, this will be a huge slap in the face as, according to Engadget, it is a “considerably smaller cut than some pros are used to.” But, if you are a hobbyist photographer, this might be a good way to earn some extra cash.
In contrast, if you licence your photos on Flickr – who have a deal with Getty Images – your commission will be somewhere between 20 percent and 30 percent, depending on the licensing terms.
Either way, both deals suck if you are a photographer. You invest your time and energy trying to get a good shot and you only get a 20-30 percent of the revenue? Even Apple doesn’t take that a substantial cut of the money made from app purchases (it takes 30 percent, the rest goes to you).