The social network for photographers, 500px, has closed its community marketplace, and removed the option to distribute photos under a Creative Commons license.
500px gives a couple of reasons for the closure of its stock photo platform, saying it wants to give photographers more options, and admitted that its marketplace "hasn’t performed as well in the stock photography space as hoped".
Instead, the site will sell stock photos via Visual China Group (VCG) in China, and Getty Images in the rest of the world. It says royalty rates for photographers will stay the same, and they can opt out of global distribution if they want.
500px has partnered with VGC since 2012, and was acquired by the company in February this year.
Creative license
When it comes to Creative Commons, 500px told The Verge that many of licenses are out of date for photographers.
500px isn't providing a way for its users to migrate their Creative Commons photos and has removed the ability to download them, but says it might look at ways to reintegrate licenses in the future.
Not all photographers were happy with the decision though. After the news broke, 500px co-founder Evgeny Tchebotarev, who left the site in 2016, tweeted: "Creative Commons is critical to the growth and support of the open web."
When asked what he thought of 500px's decision to abandon such licenses, he replied: "The decisions of the last few years perplex me greatly."
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Via The Verge