This guy’s argument is old: you get the exposure here for free so that people can hire you in the future. Yeah, that’s not how it happens.

I don't think Mr. Cho has a clue about the depth of the subject or any of the legal ramifications.

The problem isn’t necessarily Unsplash, it’s the photographers that are willing to post their work onto the site. It’s like people who are willing to work a wedding for $50, it’s going to cut prices across the industry.

Dude, this is Napster all over again.

Had some photos up on Unsplash. Cringed to see how they were used and where. Pulled them off and deeply regretted using it.

Unsplash is a shining example everything that's wrong with today's free for all feel good society. At the end of day those of us whose work is good enough to make a living from it will continue making a living come rain or shine, while those who wish to be held liable for lack of releases and licences will simply appear unprofessional as well as callous and accordingly suffer the inevitable consequences.

If there were any, as Zach called it, symbiotic benefits for photographers, then Unsplash would be a great idea. It`s pretty simple. People say: "There are too many pictures out there, and clients spend less and less money on images, so the business model "being a photographer for a living" is dead, and things like unsplash are the future." Well, I guess we are mixing cause and effect here. Yes, no one is forced to give something away for free. No photographer is lead to believe he could make money with Unsplash. The thing is: Projects like Unsplash are not the result of clients spending less and less on pictures- they are the cause. Projects like Unsplash facilitate the already wide spread perception, that in the creative ecosystem, comprised of designers, film makers, photographers, writers and so on, there is 1 service, that should be free (while all others should continue making money as they please), and that is photography. There is exactly 1 product, that should come for free: Pictures- while all other products, like design work including images, films, commercials, advertising, should continue to cost money. People, even large companies today think: "Photographs must be for free. There is absolutely no need for a photographer to charge for his work- look at Unsplash, there you see that it`s perfectly fine for photographers giving the work away for free- and living off of that business model perfectly. In fact, it`s a ripp off to charge for pictures. It`s an honour for every photographer to provide images for my company (that is forced to make money) / my project (I am forced to make money with) , and the honour is pay enough. Period." And that in fact is the reason why companies spend less and less for images, why budgets for images are shrinking. It`s not that images were of no use for clients anymore- in fact we live in a world where more shitty images are produced than good ones, and where good images stand out of the background noise more than ever. Where good images do so much good for companies / clients. There is only one reason why image budgets are shrinking: Because projects like Unsplash, which have nothing to do with "giving back" or such well sounding BS, lead clients to believe: Images must come for free, and anything else is a ripp off (and when we are successful spreading that perception, then there is more money left for us designers and our business model). This is by far no natural evolution of an industry, it is the forced destruction of something that was working perfectly for all sides involved, out of pure greed induced from one side.

Ironic that he should say that “photography is the loss leader”. When a grocery chain uses a “leading loser” to attract customers, the producer of that particular product still gets paid. The grocery chain takes the hit in revenue from that individual loss leader, knowing that they’ll make it up from the sale of other products at regular pricing. He says, “I understand” a lot, but there’s not a lot of understanding going on. Hope someone from Coca-Cola’s legal department watched this video. ;)

This is really, really interesting Zack, even as a purely hobbyist photographer. A few thoughts to those saying that photography is an art forms and they don't want to make money on it... First, I agree it's an art forms, or it can be. I'm a hobbyist. I've been offered paid work, and to this point haven't really taken it, because that's not why I do photography. However, it is also an industry. There are many photographers who have spent a lot of time and money learning, purchasing equipment and establishing their business. Just because I don't want to do photography professionally does not mean others shouldn't either. More importantly here is that free photography diminishes the value of all photography. Think of it like this... If I post an image to a site like Unsplash, and maybe it's pretty good, not something that a pro would do, but decent overall... Then some small mom and pop company sees it and says, "We can't pay a lot of money for this advertisement. Zack Arias charges $X for his photos. This one is free. Zack does great work, but we just can't afford it so this one will do." So they use the free photo. So now, everyone who sees that ad sees that free photo, and it's not great, but it's okay so they get used to "okay". Then a medium size company comes in, and they've got the money to spend, the money that most small professionals would normally nake, but mom and pop company used a free image and it worked for them. So now medium-sized company says, "What's the point in paying all this money? People are fine with "just okay". Then huge, multinational company comes and they have a huge budget that really sustains the industry, but now they're saying, "People don't care about great photos. "Just okay" is good enough if we can save all this money and put more in the pockets or our share holders and increase our margins. Fuck the industry. Fuck the artform. Go grab a free image and we'll save tens or hundreds of thousands." Now photos, good, bad, great and lousy all have the same value. None.

Good to see your juices flowing in the middle of winter Zack. Keep fighting the good fight

I loved that you took the time to do this!! This is how we move forward in society. Talking directly with the person/company/industry that frustrates you. So much more effective than response in a “reaction video”. I groaned when I saw almost hour long... but it was a much more enjoyable use of my time than a scripted tv drama I would have otherwise been watching. You sir are a class act.

Thanks for your work, time, and effort on this topic Zack.

People shopping images on unsplash are vastly more likely to continue unsplash shopping than they are to hire someone from unsplash.

He is a businessman, so he understands money, but he talks in fuzzy concepts when it comes to other people's livings. In today's society we really need to be more cognizant of the consequences of our actions in the longer term and not just be selfish.

Okay I have a new business model. I am going to sell all my camera gear. Then just take peoples photos off unsplash, post them on Instagram as my own. Build a following and get paid as an influencer.

It is a dilemma: 1. As an image user, Unsplash is easy and a fantastic. 2. But as a photographer, this is the same model that has destroyed Independent Music ... everyone plays music on iTunes Radio, Spotify etc and get very little for plays (and recently they are in court for not even paying what they should). Thanks Zack for addressing this head on. A clean resolution is needed! Please find a way Mikael!

Of course it's not only photographers who are getting increasingly screwed. The director of marketing at one of the last companies I worked for crowd sourced the design of a new logo for the company. Dozens of upon dozens of designers, many from poor countries, submitted their designs for free. The designer who had their logo chosen was paid, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't close to what they should have received. The director of marketing claimed that everyone in silicone valley is doing this type of crowd sourcing. I told him it doesn't surprise me if his claim is true, since tech companies often show a complete disregard for the work of content creators such as musicians, graphic designers, photographers, etc...

Wow! I can't believe people are that desperate to be recognized, that they are giving away their work for free. I am going to download a lot of their images, print them and set up a gallery and start selling them. I don't have to give anyone or anything credit. It will be an interesting experiment. As a photographer, I cringe on the thought of doing this, but it's all for science.

Hi Zack, thanks for this video. I liked what you said about your kid wanting to become a photographer. Yeah, man, that's where our soft spots are, isn't it. Look, here is, how I stumbled unto Unsplash. I was listening to a sermon one day and the preacher used some awesome pics to underline his message. So I approached him afterwards and he mumbled some word I'd never heard before. Googled it, found the site, downloaded a lot of stuff for my own presentations I have to do professionaly. Didn't think much about it. Took a picture of a rose with my iPhone, uploaded it, thaught, man, I can upload a pic, awesome, forgot about it, the lonley rose stood there for a few years. Rediscovered my hobby about photography, in analogue times, got myself a digital camera and thaught: Well, I can give back to these Unsplash guys a little, after I downloaded so much. Uploaded some pics and a few of them - boom - where downloaded a thousand times. So here is, what this platform did for me: Telling me, that my pics have value. Telling me, what kind of pics are in demand. Helping me understand the visual of topics I am working on myself. Giving me a live experience about what the market is up to. Both on what others are doing and what I want to to. That's something, isn't it? So here is, how I use the site almost any time I visit it: I like one pic, also trying to reach out to the photographer. I love doing this because what is a photo. phos in greek means light. So it is a moment of light in another persons life. And I am able to see it. Man, this is awesome. I know there is an inflation of photos. And we all suffer from it. But in Unsplash I get a venue to this original purpose of photography. I liked Mikael Cho saying that his view of photos is connecting people. I think he's got a point there. Well, Zack, that has become a long commentary. In case you have read it, thank you. Keep up the good work. Georg

Zack, you need to go check out Imatag. They're embedding tracking into images - effectively an invisible watermark that their webcrawler can find so that you can see every time an image appears on the web. At the moment you have to upload but they're working on Lightroom plugin so that it can be incorporated into your workflow. And they say that using a blockchain is not the way forward.

Zack - I notice that Mikael uses the word responsibility a lot yet he seems to believe that he is operating in an unregulated world in which his business has no relation to the laws, regulations and rules that the rest of us have to comply and live with (whether we want to or not). When he, his colleagues and investors eventually realise that there are economic, legal and reputational consequences of their "We win, You lose" model then there may be change. It seems to me that all of his answers to your points and questions are based on some as yet unmapped future vision of their business. Thank you for the great work. Stephen

I could only watch this for 50 seconds and my heart sank. What is our art worth? apparently nothing.

Regarding his comment about people not understanding licensing... Ignorance is no defence in law.

Thank you for doing this Zack!

This was a really good video. Especially that both of you guys didn't interrupt each other. I can really respect that.

Wow zack! I just want to thank you as a fellow photog for taking this issue head on. If I were able to handle things as elegantly as you have I would totally be sending this guy an email my self. But that being said if you ever need me to help out with this whole unsplash commercial licensing debacle please contact me .

PS. Unsplash is not a "community". It's a website.

Great video Zak. I appreciate how you conduct yourself as a professional. Your Onelight workshop taught me everything I needed to know about moving from working as an available light photographer, at the beginning, to having the confidence to accept any work that comes my way. I'm a single parent with a young child, working as a full time photographer. I recently received a transplant, and being self employed while being very ill and looking after my child, was hard, but incredible for me. It allowed me time to be there for my child, be ill, and be able to follow my passion as a photographer. I'm 10 years in now, and as a little business really feeling the ever limiting budgets. So again, I appreciate this interview. I appreciate how this has prompted me to think laterally to try and maintain an income in this industry. ...I'm glad crew is doing well off the naively kind backs of photographers though ;) Again, cheers sir. Thanks again.

I feel every inch, of every knife going in your chest, going in mine, and I have no fucking idea what to do about it. The struggle has already been real for many years, this just puts a bullet in its head.

Thank you Zack, I'm a professional photographer, I live from photography to eat, but nowadays it seems that there are people who either eat likes or pay bills with visualizations. There are people who do not understand what experience and knowledge deserve to be paid, and that photography is also a profession. Any day there will be people who are amateur dentists just because they bought pliers. Hug from Portugal

Thanks for how much you care for our industry, and your willingness to engage in educating to protect it Zack.

Zack, Thanks for conducting the discussion. You handled it so well. As a full time pro for over 32 years I too am worried about the future of our industry. I also took offence at the 'loss leader' phrase but as your discussion went on I came to see a positive in that way of thinking (perhaps). As photographers we grow attached to our images. I always found it hard to let them go - but the client was paying and I needed the dough! Mikael put into words (if a little clumsily) what I had come to realise as my pro career evolved. Each commissioned image I make IS a loss leader. Perhaps it is better described as an 'introduction' to my next job. Once it has done the job for the client, and I have been paid fairly for it, it's main purpose is to remind that client to hire me again. Or, better yet, encourage a new client to hire me for the first time. Each strong, creative, hardworking image I make helps strengthen my relationship with my client. I intend that my last image was perfect for the last job but not nearly good enough for the next one. Unsplash is a model that is badly flawed in many ways and the talent / property release issue is a time bomb - as you so well explained. If the existing (bad) business model continues to give away images for free without an organised way for photographers to gain paid work its contributors will begin making images like the ones that have the most downloads. It becomes a numbers game - as you point out - and eventually the majority of images will all look the same or follow a series of trends. Just like Instagram has evolved into. If a paid license facility is incorporated, a benefit for creative and hard working pros may be that our work will stand out, will be usable (ie the highlights won't be blown out ;-) and will have talent/property releases. All of which clients (with reach and budgets) see value in. I understand your fear for your son's photographic future. No doubt you recognise his talent and don't want to discourage his dreams. The thing is, though, when I got started in this game, digital wasn't even on the radar. My Pentax SP 1000 and scrappy 400mm lens was all I needed to start taking slides of my mates surfing. The changes since then have boggled this man's mind (and I've been diligent in keeping up with the changes). Photography as we know it now won't be the same in five years, let alone 30. And that will likely be the same no matter the career path. You son may as well face the inevitable changes doing something he loves. And, with your guidance to call on he will have plenty of advantage. Again, thanks for the discussion, regards paul lightmoods.com.au paulfoley.com.au @lightmoods

I'm curious to know how he plans to keep unsplash from getting sued into non-existance from, for example, companies like Coca-Cola.

Aren't any "Professional Photographer's Association" organizations earning their dues and addressing what Zack is doing on his own?

Thanks for doing this. You are far more calm than I am. I wanted to punch my screen a few times.

All it will take is a few people getting in touch with Apple, for example, and pointing out that their logo is all over Unsplash and being used commercially without their permission, and the whole enterprise comes crashing down.

Good discussion. Food for thought. And, Zack, I like that you try to find an idea to create a positive angle: "...more of a symbiotic kind of nature. Photographers helping designers and designers helping photographers - and other creatives adding in to the creative pot..." If that was the case, I could see something like Unsplash being advantageous for the creative community.

My late father told me that any idiot can bend down and pick nothing up. The only thing a working man can sell is his labour and he has to get the best price for it.

Many times people do something which is stupid and nonsense . Majority of the time those photographers have no clue about the chain effect they are causing . Because they never had a photography business or to get their wages out of their images . I do understand that they think that this is a good way to get discovered because it look`s cheaper than building a website and SEO optimize that site and so on so on . But this is a boomerang which will hit back sooo hard that it will transform the whole industry . But it will be too late to do anything . Thanks for uploading this . I really miss your videos man.

FFS!!!!! finally someone sees the thing for what it is. A race to the bottom with "free" and we get little if anything for this so called "exposure".

Zack nice to see you back on KZfaq...where ya been?

He' snot "changing an industry"; He doesn't have a clue about the legal basics of what they are doing."The industry" is going to come back and shove his website and contributors into a costly legal shredder.

That was a wonderfully respectful discussion on both sides kudos to you both, that said it still leaves me sad. I'm an amateur photographer from Scotland, even although I am amateur I have sold some of my work including to an international Park Avenue branding firm in NY. Yet I still would not put my images into stock photography let alone unsplashed, it is just a race to the bottom and that's the sad part. I do it for the love of it and and value what I create even if no one else does, if they do and wish to licence or buy it's a bonus better than going for peanuts or nothing at all.... even amateurs can put untold hours into capturing that special image. edit: It has become easier to track your photos so armatures embed your copyright in the meta data and even if they strip the data that helps to prove they knew they were using the image illegally if you take any legal action.

Is it legal to download photos from Unsplash and then sell them as prints?

I'm glad you addressed this. Thank you

Here's the email I sent to Mikael... Hi Mikael, Thank you for taking the time to read this email. My name is Zack Arias and I am full time commercial and editorial photographer based in Atlanta. I have been pursuing photography for twenty years. I love what I do for a living and I deeply care about my industry. For the past ten years I have been fortunate enough to teach and speak to photographers all over the world. I first learned of unsplash a few weeks ago and I might need to get some blood pressure medicine. I have had many expletive filled exchanges with peers of mine in this industry. I’ve read everything you have posted about Crew and Unsplash. I know the history. I know how it started. I went so far as to contact Patient Zero, Alegandro Escamilla. I assembled a team of fellow creatives and we have dived deep into the unsplash community and have talked to people who are pro and con. I’m working on a video / blog post about my thoughts on the platform and I want you to know something. While I am very opinionated and I am holding to a pretty strong conviction about how unsplash is hurting our industry I want you to personally know that I’m not speaking about you or your team in a personal way. I have talked to people who know you. They have all expressed that you are a bright, young, talented man. The feeling I get from reading your posts online is similar. I think you and your team are all lovely people. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my thoughts about unsplash and similar free photography platforms. I have experienced two massive sea changes in my industry in the past twenty years. The first was the move from film to digital. That was a massive change that effected the lives of many people. Both for the better and for the worse. I used to be a studio manager for a large commercial studio and we went from spending $10,000 a month on film and Polaroid to zero dollars a month on film and Polaroid once we went digital. The retailer we used eventually went under. The lab we used eventually closed as well. The change happened so fast many were not able to adapt quickly enough. When you have millions of dollars tied up in film processing equipment that no one is using any more there’s only so much you can do before you succumb to the change. The other huge sea change was after the professionals moved to digital, photography also became more accessible to the hobbyist. Gone were the days someone would take a few photos every now and then and everyone seemed to become a photographer over night. Professionals were now competing with hobbyists. Hobbyists had a day job and enjoyed making a few dollars on the side with their new camera. A good friend of mine was in business for 15 years as a photographer. He is now the produce manager at his local grocery store. He wasn’t able to adapt. I have asked myself many times, “Am I not seeing the good from this platform?” Am I being the crusty old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn? God knows I confronted some of those old folks when I was coming up through the ranks of the industry. I gladly welcomed the switch to digital. I embraced the web very early on. Social media has been great for my business. From myspace (remember that site?) to Facebook to Twitter to Instagram. Here’s my old man rant, Mikael. You have no skin in this game. You have not worked as a photographer. You yourself are not a photographer. Armed with other people’s money you have stepped into this industry to create something that has HUGE value to YOUR industry, namely designers, tech companies, etc. Pardon my use of metaphor. I mean, I’ve never met a phor I didn’t like! 😛 #dadjoke I liken the photography industry is an ecosystem like a forest. The forest has taken a long time to grow and has weathered many storms. It’s the home to a lot of people. It’s my home. It gives me shelter and provides for me and my family. Unsplash is like a foreign timber company coming to the edge of the forest and says “Look at these trees that no one is using. Let’s take them and help our other company make a profit with them.” For what I do in photography, unsplash doesn’t directly effect me. I’m pretty deep in these woods but I’m starting to hear the chainsaws. People I know who live at the edge of the woods are calling me saying “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?”. Defenders of the logging company hand them a copy of “Who moved my cheese” and simply tell them they need to adapt or die. The logging company says words like community, inspiration, giving back, views, downloads, relationships while they chip away at the trees. I spend a lot of time educating my clients and other photographers about the value of photography. Why they are paying me the rates I am asking for and under what terms those rates cover. I understand the long term licensing model is confusing and antiquated. While I would like to find a better way to speak about usage and still get the rate I need to pay my bills, feed my kids, and employ the freelancers I use… Licensing is still important. This email and the blog / video that I’m working on is me coming to the edge of the forest to confront unsplash… who I see as the foreign logging company coming in and eroding our ecosystem. It will also be my statement to photographers who support unsplash. As I said. I speak no ill of you personally Mikael. Or of your team. My ultimate goal in all of this is that maybe… just maybe…. you and your team will step back for a moment after reading and hearing my full thoughts on this… and maybe. Possibly. Take a breath and say to yourselves… “Yes we are disrupting and changing the photography industry but MAYBE not for the better. Maybe our actions are causing harm where we don’t mean to cause harm. Maybe there is more we can do to support our photographers. More we can do to educate them so they can become sustainable. Maybe we can build resources for them that aren’t just empty views and download numbers. We’re feeding their ego. What can we do to actually help them eat?” I take it that you are a smart and creative person surrounded by other smart and creative people. I also think you are blind to issues you are creating in this industry and, at worse, naive. I’m working on this video this week. If for any reason you’d like to do a Skype interview and we have a professional and respectful debate on this issue, I would love that. I will put my studio manager on guard and as soon as I start pounding the desk or screaming expletives, I’ll let her zap me with a cattle prod. 🙂 I know you have gotten critique. I know that you’ve probably received a lot of hate mail, vulgar tweets, and so forth. I get it. I’m going to get hateful messages once I release my thoughts on all of this. I just want you to know that I’m not personally after you. I wish you no ill will. You’re a business man in a free market. I get it. I’ve sat here thinking…. “Damn. That’s a lot of traffic. Maybe I should upload some photos. God knows I have a shit ton of them laying around.” Thank you again for taking time to read this. I appreciate it. Let me know if you’d be up for talking about it more. I’m sure you get tired of defending it to people like me. I get that. I would too. Cheers, Zack Arias

I'm amazed you were able to keep your cool considering it must be very threatening, indeed. And thanks for the very good points you're making and for letting Mikael make his. Lots of food for thought.

Copy right is and intellectual property is going away. I have recently been contracting to a Chinese company and was surprised to see this huge Government owned corporation using all cracked software. Photographers are feeling the same pain that Bands felt with mp3 sharing, and Hollywood felt with movie sharing. It's way beyond Unsplash. It's the brave new world we are heading in to.

Interesting how Cho went into developing Unsplash without any prio knowledge or care for liabilities BEFOREHAND. It's only a matter of time before Cho and the photographers on his site are sued. WOW, I'm agast. Thanks for posting this exposé.

How is anyone profiting from this? If the end user does not pay how is Unsplash making any money? As far as the photographers posting, most are hoping to make money from their work when doing this is just shooting the whole industry in the foot. As a business model this is going to fail. Thank you Zack.

I feel he has approached it from a Graphic designers problem he needed to solve. Sure it helps say graphic designers but it doesn't help photographers. I think it is assumed that if it helps one set of creatives then it will help all creatives which is not true. Yes there is big changes happening but education is key, the lack of knowledge on all sides with the advent of being able to grab a camera, or learn how to be graphic designer on your own breeds a wild west free for all mentality. Also the mentality of putting something out there and figuring it out, is something new of today's day and age. In the past you had to have a finished product for it to be viable.

13.14- best excuse ever !! "I didnt live that history"- try using that explanation in a law suit !! -

I somehow feel quite sad after watching this.

Thanks Zack for initiating an interesting discussion. This is a great example of civilized discussion on social media. Its becoming so common now a days, for people to hide behind anonymity and spread hate and anger. Its fresh and to the point. Your video is definitely "More Signal, Less Noise". I am a hobbyist, who likes anything related to photography. Love to take pictures, learn from great photographers like you and many others. Still I find myself getting bothered by the visual clutter and noise around me in my virtual social world. I guess its about the seer numbers of photographs being created and thrown around and consumed which is making it painful for a viewer (a photography enthusiast) like me to take in even good photographs. My attention span of looking at a picture has reduced. Only when I intentionally want to enjoy a photograph, I go to known resources (photographers like you), other than that its all scroll up and scroll down.. I think the present day challenges have same basic underlying causes... the issue with abundant supply... Demand did not increase in proportion to the Supply. Digital medium and technology (social platform and camera technology) helped so many people to enjoy this art but also created lots of headache for many others. The issues can range from monetization for commercial photographers..to basic headache of storage management for home users... We are creating pictures using iPhones (or any other smartphones) and filling up the drives and never getting a chance to look back at those memories.. Living in some future..."Ohh I'll look at these pictures when my kids grow up and move out of the house and we are retired...it will be nice to have these memories.."... Forgetting that the number of years of our lives getting reduced handling this pressure of managing storage and worrying about file-format changes.... I have started de-cluttering my life by staying away from social media and being conscious of my time and energy spent on virtual Vs real social world.. and consuming internet junk consciously.. Zack... I don't know how to add to your discussion and thoughts about making a living of photography. But I wanted to acknowledge you, and couple of other photographers, for the contribution you all are making to my virtual social world and helping me enjoy the process of creating pictures when I feel an urge to create something.. Good luck!

Photography is dead. Long live the photograph.

This reminds me of the Taxi drivers and taxi companies who fought against Uber and Lyft. Naturally and inevitably the Taxi companies had to evolve or just deal somehow with their decrease in profit. Regardless, business models and revenue models are innovating.

It's likely already been said, but you could definitely have a second career as a Lawyer Zach :) You do such a phenomenal job of explaining your concerns and responding to Mikael's responses.

I'd imagine companies like Coca-Cola, Nike etc. are well aware of the existence of those images on Unsplash. I expect their lawyers are straining at the leash for the very first moment that Unsplash attempts to monetise itself, at which point they will unleash the hellfire on them - unless Unsplash does a very good job of scrubbing itself of those images first and keeping any more from appearing.

I was a photographer from the film area (20years ago)... switch to a webdesigner for 10 years... and i'm now a backend webdevelopper. Each time the "Free/Digital" option was the reason why i switched. I think it's mostly because people are tired of paying premium rates and/or doesnt have project big enough to justify the cost of hiring artist. Don't get me wrong, i hate FREE. But at the same time, i understand at some points why it is like that.

I think the thing that seems to be bothering you the most, as well as those who have built photography businesses like myself, is that Unsplash, like many other companies are being built and succeeding off the work of hard working people that are being enticed with the idea of exposure. But for those of us that know, that has no value and will rarely ever bring you clients or much money. People that are digging through free stock sites are not the type of people that are looking to be paying for what they want. And these companies seem to be unapologetic in their blatant greed and the reason why is they have no idea how much work it is to create a photograph, especially a large body of work, and so they have no respect for it. Dear photographers: If you want lot's of free exposure build your own social media channels and post regularly. You'll get better exposure running an ad on Facebook for $10 a day then free stock sites, blogs, etc. All those types of companies are using your beautiful imagery to attract people to their websites, run ads, build partnerships and sell their data base of user leads to other companies. And you get nothing. Stop doing it. I personally don't care if you want to share your work for free. But stock websites will scan the web and take ownership of your image and charge people for it. If you don't take ownership and distribute it correctly, someone else will because they know how to value it. Cheers

So, it seems we have a problem; or rather, some people have a problem. But nobody talking about this problem seems to be offering any solutions. “If you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out… Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.” - Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Being a musician and getting offers to work for free for exposure every day of my life I just cringe at the people that are willing to give their hard work away for free. And a business model that is essentially legitimizing stealing photographs is just wrong. People already steal images from Google photo so now they can take images from us legitimately ... not really a good plan. And the argument that once a designer makes a relationship with a photographer on Unsplash they will hire them is complete rubbish. No one is going to pay for something that they got for free ... sure it might happen but it won't be the norm.

He is very generous with other peoples valuables...I hope someones robes him for every penny he is worth. If ever anyone ever deserved the gutter, congrats Mikael!

Its not the ones that crumble that cause the problem its the ones that will come later with a better model. Over 70% of new ventures fail.To your point the cat is out of the bag. Our world is full of class actions and the only people that will win there are the lawyers. Im for delivering the value back to the person who created it. In the brave new world surely there must be a file technology solution to this that creatives could choose where and when they charge for an image. Putting it in to a presentation or to school work could be free if you so choose. Using it in an ad campaign or a corporate brochure has a rate. Make the person who uses the content a signatory and therefore when they unlock it they are liable....to your point this is what blockchain is all about.The business architecture and the technologies are there or there abouts it just needs someone with the passion and the problem

Good onya Zack.

As long as there are suckers who are more than happy to give their stuff for the sake of their fragile egos, there will be bottom feeders who will feast on them. A good law suit might put unsplash in disarray though.

This feels like a grubby land grab of the commons, taking the rhetoric of giving a damn as a veneer to mask the exploitation of creativity for their own gain. The commons could play a valuable role in how a creative photographer engages in society but the commons is not meant to be fenced solely for the benefit of an as yet not decided upon business model.

Maybe unsplash can morph into a credit system for reciprocation.

Unsplash gives amateur and pro photogs the mistaken impression that 1) they will somehow benefit from exposure on Unsplash, and 2) that they have no liability with regards to rights and copyright. It's a total shell game. Their foundation has no business model. It's a joke.

Good even-handed interview/discussion of an inevitable paradigm shift. What Unsplash are offering is a new digital version of communism (communism is not the dirty word capitalist propaganda would have us believe). It is a community (because that is the root of said communism) sharing it's work. As with actual communism as a political movement, it can only work if everyone is following the same ideal, which is where unlimited commercial usage could be Unsplash's undoing. Aside from the legalities of release forms, if people are exploiting the free labour of the contributors to make money, without sharing the rewards, that is base capitalism: capitalising on the efforts of others. If Unsplash were to develop their platform to embrace more of a barter system, it would possibly be more successful, as indicated by your example of the graphic designer wanting to charge his time to the photographer whose work he or she and taken for free. Personally, I work as a music/concert photographer, and even proudly call myself an amateur, as I love what I do. I mostly shoot unsigned/indie bands and will happily let them use my photos on their social media for free, because they have played their music for me for free, often without them even being paid for their performance beyond travel expenses. However, if they want to use the images for commercial purposes that is when we start talking about licensing fees. And I know I am not undermining other photographers as I am usually the only person shooting the bands at the time. It is on that basis, I doubt I would use a platform like Unsplash in its current form, merely because of the chance of being exploited for profit by an end user. Having said that, I'm sure that everyone puts their work on the platform fully aware of what they are doing (again, the release form legalities aside) and are not being forced to give away the rights to their images, like a lot of bands and their management do with concert photographers in order to shoot the concert.

Thank you Zach! It is wrong any way you look at it. Let’s start a site were everyone follows the laws and the wealth is spread accordingly. Then those fools would think twice about giving away their work.

Zack, to me Cho's electric car anology was good but still lacking, but maybe you didn't want to argue with him on it. Electric cars have changed only slightest to the minority of group of people. Who lost in that aspect? Oil company and its workers? To compare a billion dollar industry to working photographers is bit of a stretch. I don't think oil companies have lost any momentum nor started laying off people due to electric cars. Was the anology based on free energy? If that was the case unsplashed would have to change to a referral company and not make a single dime. I think Industry is changing due to technology that ultimately changed human behavior and measurement of self worth. People eat likes, followers and upvotes like candy these days. It's what's driving lot of new photographers and talented and sometimes inexperienced individuals. They thrive on it! I feel like even within lot of social media it is focused and driven based on how to improve your skills 95% of the time and often skims over the most important 5% of self worth and time. it's not to blame the people who are content creators but it is the fun part that people tend to gravitate toeards more so than the 5%. I too have no answer in the aspect of how to fix it since the fire had already stsrted and a simple bucket full of water isn't going to solve anything to stop a company to make money when people are giving them free stuff away. Do they have long ways to go? Yes. Will they stop making money until it is fixed or changed how they operate? No. Barf. After reading some of the posts.... Ivan Aleksic i don't think it's simple as categorizing photography as only as an art form as well as stating with a comment of who cares. There is the business aspect thst are existing behind people. However you are making a living, if your boss tells you that you are no longer being paid but getting big exposure within the company, would that sit well with you? There are people who care and that is why there is a discussion. To say who cares because you don't agree won't change anyone's perspective of an idea that you or anyone who agrees with you.

Insanity use my photos for free

Wow i do hope that all the people uploading pictures on unsplash realize that if there is going to be a lawsuit by people and brands, Now hearing it made so much money ;) unsplash will not be responsible for the damage you as uploader might face! just my 2 cents

Exposure is meaningless when your work is valued at $0

The philosophy behind Unsplash sucks big time. Its devaluing creative works and the artists/creators involved. Same thing is happening to music and film making.

Content creators are on the losing side. Nobody wants to pay for content. It's as if hospitals asked doctors to treat patients for free. The culture has grown too used to the DIY/CHEAPER-FASTER mentality.

I am just a hobbyist and like many spend way too much on the hobby but it is my creative release. This kind of thing will be the death of start up photographers when businesses can just download an image for free to use in a campaign then why use a start up pro? It won't affect the Zack Arias's of the world but it will affect people starting out. Unfortunately people have lost all self esteem and are so hungry to be recognised that they will give part of themselves away for nothing.

This is your life and it’s crumbling one photo at a time.

I don't make money with my crappy photos, but my head hurts for those of you who do. Ugh.

Regarding commercial use of images sans model release “There’s work we can do...” Dude. I hope this cancerous website gets sued into non-existence.

The times are changing very very fast. It's exponential change, not linear anymore. The digital age is turning everything upside down. It's all well and good to try & say that exploitation of artistic endeavor has been happening for hundreds of years. Yeah I know that Van Gogh and most of the impressionists died penniless - but they were talented. Bucketfuls of talent. And history has vindicated all of them. . In 2018 talent has become irrelevant. Its all about likes, shares and followers. A race to the bottom. Today's artwork has a lifespan of one click : a scroll down the page. Then it vanishes into the ether.. After a few seconds hanging on the facebook wall it disappears.

Suck for pro's ....Up to the Photographers that are uploading. No different than any other social media site, Unsplash are just higher res.

I first watched the follow up video. Mikael is either clueless or simply a businessman. Throwing something out which is not financed by himself and than looking who is going to complain and than react on accusations. But he is nor responsible personally for the consequences so who cares... This is how today's young people are taught that things work: simply doing something without considerations and be happy about that :D We are getting old yes...

Holy smokes this ceo guy is delusional.

This is a product of the digital revolution. Photography has been de-skilled and therefore become ubiquitous. Ubiquitous and without value.

I am fortunate that I can take photos at my own expense and do not need to make any money off of any photo: a true hobbyist. I am interested in the discussion of licensing and the use of various releases. Can I actually give a photo away with no restrictions on its use and no licensing of any kind? I make no claims to having model releases, property releases or trademark releases. These are all left to the user of the image to deal with, since I am not providing the releases as a service included in my agreement with the end user. In fact, I specifically tell the people I give photos to that there are no releases. Great video. Thanks.

Who moved my Cheese.........love it.

Zach how is this different from people on youtube who show and talk about products from various companies ( cameras and gear) and either tell us they are good or bad? If you make money from youtube is that not commercial use? Do you need a release to use the product in that way?

I wanted to hate Unsplash and Michael, but must give Mikael credit for sounding sincere and being informed. He does not come off as unlikable, so that's one thing. Still, as Zack pointed out, you can't just send warm fuzzies every photographer's way. Warm fuzzies don't pay the bills. Can I pay a multi-billion dollar company in warm fuzzies? Of course not. So why should photographers accept - even enjoy - being exploited? Why have photographers in this day and age become brainwashed to believe that getting beaten and raped is fun and pleasurable? Unsplash is not creating the world's most generous community of photographers, it's becoming the most naive.

Heard that Getty are buying Unsplash! No idea how that's going to work.....

this is all about the money!

What a racket. Get people to give you their work for free and then figure out how to make money off of the work of all these people.

34:37 The great Tragedy of photography today. More in demand more important - because everything online NEEDS an IMAGE - and yet the devaluing is in complete reverse to demand (because everyone is a photographer supposedly and massive supply of what-you-don't-really-need = supply..) And because, most people are visually illiterate anyway and don't realise. Just look at your not-favourite photographers on IG. All will be confirmed..

AI will be providing photos and videos and no persons will will be needed

This Unsplash guy said a lot without saying anything at all. I get what he is doing, he is a designer by trade and he has a bug with the image sites and having to pay for stuff, so he decided on a way to screw them, its working too. I was unaware of Unsplash and it appears to be full of images of street, architecture and landscapes etc. If you are a fully fledged commercial photographer, I am not sure this would affect your business so much? Events, high-end (anything), niche stuff that is where to go. If people just want stock photography, let them. There is still plenty of commissioned work out there that people who post on Unsplash would unlikely be able to do. The stuff on there is good quality for sure, but getting up at 4.00am to shoot a famous scene is one thing, setting up a full lighting rig on location with models, make-up and art directors is a totally different ball-game. As a hobbyist myself, I could easily do the former, but not the latter. Allowing someone to use my images, where there is a 60% chance I won't be credited just seems ridiculous no? What is the point.

.... a cold blooded millionaire. Nice and polite but ....

good interview, i'm on board with both side...

Zack. you might want to consider organizing what you want to say before you start and interview. there was way to much un-focused rambling and it took whopping 11 minutes to finally here the guest speak. i found the guy to be very patient respectful as he waited hearing you babble but geez...get to it organized for gods sake. couldn't make it thru much more of the video as it didn't appear you had any focus.

I post on Unsplash regularly. I post mostly nature, landscape, abstract, cityscapes, coffee-shops, food etc. All of these photos are are smartphone photos (using dual cam dof) and edited in the phone itself using free app called Snapseed. Some of my photos have been featured on the Unsplash front page and have gotten thousands of downloads. I post it there because I feel gettyimages other other stock photo sites are exorbitantly expensive without much justification in this day and age and many of those listed photos are really crappy! So when I found Unspalsh I found it very useful, and as I use it often I try to give back some photos to other people why may find some of them useful. I understand that the photographers are scared and frustrated - but had it not been unsplash it would be someone else. Everyone has a decent camera in their phone and along with that photography is now truly democratized. The difference with unsplash is that their photos are very well curated which makes them useful - that's what makes some photographer feel threatened - as the awareness increases, people may stop paying for not so good photos. Earning money out of not so great quality photo licensing that can't compete with phone camera users like me is not really a sustainable plan. There will always be demand for professional photographers for custom professional job - so the only those who depend on artificial scarcity to make money would be affected.