Stocksy United, also referred to as Stocksy or Stocksy United Photography, is a

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

based

platform cooperative A platform cooperative, or platform co-op, is a cooperatively owned, democratically governed business that establishes a computing platform, and uses a website, mobile app or a protocol to facilitate the sale of goods and services. Platform coopera ...

that accepts and provides

royalty-free Royalty-free (RF) material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales. Computer standard ...

stock photography Stock photography is the supply of photographs which are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, ...

and stock video. Stocksy uses a curated editing approach to select useful and authentic photos. The co-op differs from other stock photography firms by its stated focus on fair pay and creating sustainable careers for its members.

History

Stocksy United was founded April 20, 2012 and publicly launched on March 25, 2013. It was started by

iStockphoto iStock is an online royalty free, international micro stock photography provider based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The firm offers millions of photos, illustrations, clip art, videos and audio tracks. Artists, designers and photographers worl ...

founder

Bruce Livingstone Bruce Livingstone is a Canadian entrepreneur who founded Calgary-based iStockphoto, an online distributor of stock photography. Livingstone started iStockphoto in 2000 as a project offering stock photos for free over the internet. In 2002, hig ...

and co-founder Brianna Wettlaufer. At the time of launch, Stocksy had about 220 contributing photographers, with plans to grow to approximately 500 photographers in its first year. Stocksy now has over 900 contributing members, selected from over 10,000 applications. Its revenue doubled from 2014 to 2015, to $7.9 million. For 2015, Stocksy paid out over half of its revenue as royalties to its contributors, totaling $4.3 million. Revenue for 2016 has grown to $10.7 million, with $4.9 million paid out to contributors. Total for the first four years of business, Stocksy has paid out over $20 million to their nearly 1,000 artists during the period from 2013 to 2017.

Cooperative structure

Stocksy is a platform cooperative with three classes of

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

s. Class A is made up of advisors, including CEO Brianna Wettlaufer. Class B is made up of staff, and Class C is the artists who contribute content. Currently there are around 980 photographer shareholders in this category. Each member co-owns the cooperative and has one vote. Each class has at least two directors on the board.

Contributors

Contributing photographers live in 65 countries. After two years of closed membership, Stocksy's Call to Artists is now open. Achieving membership into the cooperative is a single step process whereby interested artists submit a portfolio using Stocksy's Call to Artists webpage. Accepted members license creative content and receive 50% royalties on standard license sales, 75% on extended license sales, and year-end profit sharing in the form of patronage returns.

References

External links

Official website
{{coord missing, British Columbia Stock photography Photo archives in Canada Cooperatives in Canada