Commercial Photo Delima

nine22

I take photos at events that bloggers and newspapers often ask for photos, to streamline this process I want to allow commercial photo downloads, however, one thing I noticed is that this will make the photos available for ALL commercial use.

The thing is, I've also had global magazines contact me for photos which obviously have a different audience then a blogger has however if I enable the commercial option, it seems like the blogger who gets maybe 100 views pays the same prices as a magazine that gets thousands.

At this point, should I just not have commercial downloads and just have them contact me individually? or is there a better solution?

The bloggers are usually the same people, is there a log-in i could give them or something to where only they could access the commercial license?

Thanks

MomaZunk

With SM there is not a way to manage your licensing for downloads. This has been a request for awhile.
In your situation, I recommend requesting that they contact you for downloads, and then you can manage the licensing based on use.
Zenfolio does have the ability to customize licensing, BTW.

OffTopic

Yep this has been a big issue for those of us who license RM images for many years now. I wish we at least had the ability to sell a download with no license so we could still handle the financial transaction through SmugMug and send the customer the appropriately worded license ourselves, but in order to 'sell' the download we are forced to choose an inappropriate license. The cumbersome method I've been using is to put a stock request form on my site, contact customer directly to discuss requirements and quote fee, create a private gallery with the requested image(s) and enable original download, then send the client the link to the gallery after payment arrangements have been made...which right now is either billing large reputable company or collecting via paypal invoicing for others. NOT an ideal solution.

The other thing you should be aware of is the 15% commission that SmugMug takes is pretty steep for digital download of RM stock. It makes sense for people who are charging a buck or two for a digital download, but on a $500 license fee SmugMug would take $75...bit steep in my opinion for just handling the financial transaction when other hosts charge half as much. I don't mind 15% on print sales because that comes with a lot of backoffice service but it's too much for this purpose.

I got tired of waiting five years for a solution and had just decided I need to do my licensing with Photoshelter again (have used them in the past), but now with the increase in price for the Pro (Business) account, it's even tougher to justify two separate hosts. Thing is, most of my online business is licensing, not print sales and as much as I love SmugMug I feel like my hand is being forced.

We really need a workable solution to this issue SmugMug!