I sure hope it doesn't come to this.
From the way I, and many other contributors, interpret the usage rights in the Photos.com deal it appears designers will get rights reserved for an EL license by a simple 30 cent subscription purchase. They will be able to put our images on t-shirts and mugs for resale.
This is terrible news, and it has been confirmed as true in the official thread:
http://www.stockxpert.com/forum.phtml?f=showtopic&n=15291&p=2Steve,
I know you frequent this forum. I have to believe there are a lot of large contributors who will pull out immediately if these license terms are allowed to go through. I enjoy working with Stockxpert, but I won't hesitate to pull out if we are going to be giving up so many rights on our images for a lowly subscription payment.
I can't help but wonder...WHY? The RM folks have been saying for years microstock was nothing but companies racing to the bottom. Price increases in recent months have gone through rather well at Shutterstock and iStock. Clearly designers are willing to pay up for our images. Why in the world would any company, let alone SXP, desire to basically give our images away? Don't you profit considerably more by selling an Extended License than a sub sale? I just don't get the logic in this at all.