News
Photolibrary responds to allegations related to Index Stock royalty payments
Responding to recent allegations of foul-play made by the the Stock Artists Alliance (SAA), a trade organization for stock photographers,The Photolibrary Group has issued a statement in an effort to “set the record straight on Index Stock legacy royalty payments”. Photolibrary’s chairman Tim Moore states “Photolibrary inherited (and willingly accepted) its obligation to pay outstanding royalties to IndexStock contributors when the Company purchased IndexStock in late 2006. However, until we assumed control of the business we had no real understanding of the complexity of this task. Years of poorly-kept or non-existent contributor records meant that it became extremely problematic and time-consuming for us to match royalty obligations against IndexStock contributors, who in many cases had changed addresses or become otherwise hard to locate”.
In response to the recent concerns that repayment efforts have been half-hearted, and that photographers can be easily contacted through IndexStock’s records, Moore states “All of these assertions are simply wrong, to the extent that industry association involvement has prompted IndexStock artists to contact us we are grateful. Given that we are making payments to artists on a systematic basis, it can be mere coincidence (not causality) if payments are made at around the time of industry association contact.”
The company cited a letter to contributors from February 2008, outlining that contributos will receive royalties according to the following priorities:
1. Top-earning artists in the past 12 months.
2. Artists who submitted images to IndexStock who are not in group 1.
3. Top-earning artists over the last two years that are not in group 1 or 2.
4. Artists owed $250 and below with EFT details (with no review of account).
5. The remaining dormant contributor base that does not fit into the above categories
“We continue to work on reviewing accounts and scheduling payments and we still anticipate this review process being resolved before the end of this year,” said Mr Moore. “However, the current payment schedule stretches well into 2009 and may extend even further. While many people may have preferred this process to be faster, we have chosen to proceed in an orderly manner that ensures that the payments we promise are sent according to the schedule we have communicated directly to the artists involved. We appreciate the patience photographers have shown while we work through this very difficult and labor-intensive process at Index stock.”
The company further stated that so far it has already paid $1.96 million (more than four times the amount being incorrectly circulated) in IndexStock royalties. This cash injection is incremental to previous amount of $3.7 million detailed in our media statement of December 2007. In addition the company has stressed that “the matter in question pertains only to Index contributor commissions from before photolibrary took over. There are no issues or problems with payments to photolibrary contributors. Further, there are no issues or problems with with Index contributors pertaining to sales that took place after photolibrary took over Index in November of 2006.”
Web: www.photolibrary.com - www.stockartistsalliance.org/photolibrary-info
Posted in: News, Stock Artist Alliance - SAA, Stock Photo Companies
