"Cost per image" is a real charge whether you fail to see it or not. Money
that you advance or it is deducted from your income is a real charge.
A lower percentage on sales would therefore constitute a real cost. Just
because you never see the money does not mean that it is not a real cost.
after all, it goes into a company I do partly own myself, when I am a
contributor. <
When you invest on shares from an Electricity company, for example, you
partly own it. Together with millions of others. The more others own a part
of it, the smaller becomes your participation and therefore your possible
control over the money you invest.
Another forced and weak analogy. When you invest in an electric company
you do it as a pure investment not because you make electricity. When
you purchase a share of stock in Creative Eye you own a piece of, and
become a participant in building a company that is also distribution
channel for your own work. The rest of the owners are also photographers
with similar goals. Each one of them can own one and only one share
which can not be sold to any third party.
Therefore, no owner can accumulate a greater share of control than any
other. This equal ownership in a company in which all owners have a
mutual interest, protects the company from being bought once it becomes
either too threatening or too attractive to a competitor. The MORE
quality owners there are the stronger the company becomes and the more
each individual owner stands to benefit.
It is simply put an investment into my own business to develop it...<<
Your "own business" is something different than to be "part" of a business.
Your "own" business is semantically a business that is only yours and be
"part" of a business means that you share the property with others that
could be many others.
So you "own" AGE, right ? Which semantically speaking means "only
yours". As in, Alfonso owns AGE and has total control as opposed to the
photographers who contribute to AGE who own and control nothing
regarding the company. Your semantic gymnastics illustrate Axel's
point wonderfully.
While you can vote, the possibilities that your vote
will eventually change something in the direction you wish are slim.
Since photographers have NO vote at AGE it would be reasonable to assume
that the chances of them changing something in the direction they wish
would be considerably slimmer there, correct?
Creative Eye member/owners are currently in the midst of an election
that will add four new seats to the Board of Directors. All of the
candidates are also owners and photographers with a vested interest in
the well being of Creative Eye and in the health of this industry from a
"photographers perspective".
The candidates are not just unknown names on a proxy ballot sent to
shareholders, they are names who the owners have come to know through
the Creative Eye members forum and through their service to the industry
at large. David Riecks, a frequent contributor here is one of those
candidates. James Cook and Peter Bennett are current CE Board members
that are also well known to this forum. I would suggest that the CE
member vote does indeed stand for something powerful and important. The
ability to elect a Board from amongst your colleagues, who will then be
charged with protecting and promoting the concerns of the shareholders
as well as those of the company.....two sides of the same coin really.
Of
course you can always sell your shares of the Electricity company, but if
you have "invested" money that has not been reflected as acquisition of
shares, the moment you live the company you loose your investment. Maybe you
can recover the scans though.
The big, huge,.... enormous point you are conveniently missing here is
that Creative Eye, the company the photographers have invested in and
built, can not BE SOLD. This is the real investment danger that we have
come to know all too well from first hand experience. You spend years
investing images in an agency, even a "photographer friendly" one, and
then it gets sold. All the more likely if that agency requires an image
exclusive. Apart from Mira all the other options including AGE, can be
sold without photographer consultation or a share in the profit. I'm not
suggesting that all agencies are therefore bad, only that this
significant investment risk does not exist with Creative Eye.
and I like this thought much more than image exclusive agencies getting a
higher percentage.<<
You may like this thought, however what is undeniable is with "image
exclusive agencies" you don't risk your cash savings that can be producing
money in another place, you risk only the images you wish to leave with them
and just for a number of years, normally three. But no cash needs to be
risked.
Of course it does. By far the biggest cash expense of getting a highly
marketable image into an agency is the time and money it costs to
produce it. By comparison a $4 processing fee represents pocket change.
To commit that image exclusively and deep freeze all similars means that
the image needs to sell extremely well at that agency or your upfront
cash investment and time, becomes a loss.
John Greim
Creative Eye Chairman
www.creativeeyecoop.com
www.mira.com
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