Another blow to commercial photo biz came today

The NY Times reported today been a release of yet another microstock site. No doubt this will further drive down what clients expect to pay for an image. Today, Corbis announced the release of SnapVillage a new site which allows amateurs and semi-pros to sell their images for $1-$50.

The rate SnapVillage pays the photographer? 30% of each image sold. So when buyer pays a maximun of $50 for an image, the photographer would receive a whopping $15. Once you reach $10 in royalties owed, you would be paid on the last day of the following month.

They also offer buyers subscriptions. From their site:”SnapVillage makes purchasing images simple and easy. Images can be licensed either individually or as part of a subscription. Individually-priced images are available at price points of $1, $5, $10, $25 and $50 (depending upon the price selected by the Photographer) in multiple file sizes. The price of the picture is the same regardless of the file size. The subscription offers a maximum of 750 downloads at $199 for 30 days.”

That meansif you allow your image to be downloaded on subscription, you will receive 30 cents [!] per download.