Some of you may be interested in this: Stocksy

I'm a HUGE advocate of co-ops, so this caught my eye. Stocksy is a stock photo co-op. Artists get 50% of sale and 90% of site profits are split with everyone at end of the year. "It's an artist owned co-op with a curated royalty-free collection."


Bruce Livingstone created iStockphoto from the perspective of a photographer. Initially designed as a community for trading photos, the site only began selling photos to pay the hosting bills.

So it's easy to imagine that in 2013, years after having sold iStockphoto to Getty Images for $50 million, Livingstone is a bit disappointed with what iStockphoto has become. Getty discontinued the system that allowed photographers to earn a better royalty rate by selling photos over several years (Getty defended the decision by saying the model wasn't sustainable). Meanwhile, a flood of contributors have made selling photos a more competitive venture, and shifting formats and licensing deals have made some photographers feel cheated. Getty recently, for instance, made an unpopular licensing deal with Google that paid photographers a small one-time fee for photos that Google Drive users can now insert in their own work within the product however they wish.

“It’s hard for me to criticize their corporation,” Livingstone says. “They’re responsible to their shareholders. They have to keep making profits and keep having growth. I totally get it. I don’t fault them for that.” But within his photographer network, it seemed like what started as a friendly business had grown up to become a monster. "One of the most depressing ones for me,” Livingstone says, "[were] people who I had helped change their lives--real estate agents or veterans or policemen who had quit their jobs and had focused on making stock photography and were earning a living--suddenly saying, I’m going to have to go back to my old job.”

Stories like these inspired Livingstone to take another stab at building a stock photo site. His new site, called Stocksy, focuses on paying photographers as much as possible.

FULL FAST COMPANY ARTICLE