FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

You might not know the real value of your scoop, but you can be sure that our clients do! In the past, many amateur photographers or video directors thought they were getting a good deal when selling photos or videos directly to buyers in the media...images and videos that could have been worth much much more.

By selling your images with Citizenside, you automatically guarantee them exposure to media houses around the world.

Thanks to our network (300 clients in France, 7000 in the world) and the Citizenside exclusive auction system, you will be sure to sell your images to the highest bidder IN EACH COUNTRY we have clients and to maximize your earnings.

The more your picture is worth for a particular client, the higher your income. If your photo or video is sold to many buyers, you will receive a percentage from each sale.

When you send Citizenside an image or video, you automatically grant us an exclusive worldwide license to market that document for a period of three months. During this three-month period, you agree not to publish the document anywhere else. When the three months are up, the license becomes non-exclusive. We will still try to sell your images but now you can also publish it yourself on a photoblog or a picture sharing site -- anywhere at your whim.

If we consider that your document might not sell immediately (a.k.a. it is not a scoop), we will tell you within 48 hours and your picture will be treated with a non-exclusive license and sold at fixed price from our image bank (which means you can publish your document outside Citizenside).

We appreciate that you should have the right to share your work; we only ask you to understand that we MUST have an exclusive license for really newsworthy images in order to obtain the best possible deal for you.

To understand this, imagine that all we had was a non-exclusive license. Let's say you take a 'hot' photo and send it to Citizenside. We then sell it to a newspaper to publish the photo on the front page of tomorrow's edition.

Naturally, the newspaper wants to keep this scoop all to itself. Indeed, that's precisely what it's paying for. But unless we have an exclusive license, we simply can't guarantee this. If you or somebody acting on your behalf were to go to another newspaper and sell the same photo (or a similar photo, if you took several of the same event), or even if you were to upload it to a photo-sharing site, the newspaper "X" would lose its scoop and will probably refuse to pay for it.

If we consider that your document is not so hot, we will tell you within 48 hours of the upload and your picture will be treated with a non-exclusive license and sold at fixed price on our image bank.

No. When you join citizenside.com and send us a photo, you automatically grant us an exclusive worldwide license for three months.

This is a legal agreement that cannot be revoked even if you leave citizenside.com. After this three-month period, the license becomes non-exclusive but perpetual, meaning the image will remain in our image bank.

Citizenside is a market place working on a consumer to business (c to b) principle. It means that anyone over 18 is allowed to sell his or her images, but only professionals can buy them.

If everybody could see the scoops you send us, they would lose their value because they wouldn’t be scoops anymore!

Nothing easier! Just join in as a buyer. It will only take a few minutes. You will be able to access all our scoops, our databanks and contact us immediately.

Right here (Only in French for now) You must read these and agree to them before you join citizenside.com.

We only accept photos from Citizenside members. Click here to join in. After confirming your registration, you will have access to all the details on how to upload a document in the member part of the website. To send us your photos or videos, we advise you do it from your computer to make the identification of the images easier. You can also send them by phone, check out our iPhone app that lets you upload directly to the site!

It is possible for you to send your videos and photos from your cellphone (or digital camera) to a computer. To upload now, click here.

You just have to use the Send Photos or Send Video button to upload your content. It's as easy as attaching a file to an email. You can also provide full information about a photo right as you’re sending it to us, which saves you time and hassle later and maximizes the chances of a quick sale.

We accept heavy files, up to 200 Mo. Do not compress your videos or photos before sending them, we prefer an optimal quality.

Sending your video or your photos can take some time, depending of the size and your internet connection. Sending a video of 5Mb with a DSL connection at 512k can take as long as 5 minutes. If your video is too heavy, you can also cut it in parts.

Most scoops represent three to ten photos. It is important for the Citizenside community, as well as for our journalist clients, to get straight to the point and see precisely what the documents are about.

Nonetheless, it is necessary to be able to chose between all the pictures you took of the event. Don’t forget to take different angles, close-ups as well as wide lens shots where you see the whole scene. Only one photo is often not enough to form one’s opinion or to convince a buyer.

If you have a big series with over 20 photos to offer, write this down in the description when you upload the photos, and send it in two parts to Citizenside.

We accept most formats in common use.

For your photos: JPEG, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIF, TIFF (RAW files will soon be accepted).

For your videos: MP4 (H264), MOV, WMV, AVI (and many other formats)

Video resolution: preferably 640x480 or 320x240

You will receive an email confirming our editorial committee validated your documents.

The chances are that you haven't followed our submission procedures to the letter.

If you use a different mobile phone or if you haven't registered your mobile phone number with citizenside.com, we have no way of knowing who you are.

With email, the problem is even trickier because an email sent from a mobile phone does not carry details of the sender's mobile phone number.

This is why it is crucial that you include your mobile phone number in the message, preferably as the subject line. We cover all of this in more detail on the HOW TO UPLOAD PHOTOS page, which you can read when you log in as a member.

To make life even easier, you can always upload photos directly to www.citizenside.com. Again, you'll find help inside.

Citizenside is an online community where you can share and sell your news documents. It is also a destination for buyers from the media interested in eyewitness photos. With that in mind, it is most exclusive, interesting, and descriptive images that sell the best. The topic can be along the lines of an event , a fire, an accident, a crash, a natural catastrophe. Or it could depict a protest, rally, or demonstration, a sports event, a celebrity, or a funny blooper.

Citizen publishes your most beautiful shots in the “Around the world” category and has a section especially reserved for automobile and bike lovers to show images and footage of the latest models.

We publish and sell old photos or videos, when they are exclusive, have an exclusive interest or when these images bring unpublished information.

On the other hand, the pictures taken during your holidays, that are a few years old and have no real interest or are bad quality will not be published on the website or proposed to our clients.

A scoop is only worth something if you send it in the following minutes or hours. The more you wait, the less your images are worth. In the media, time is money. Send your news images to have a chance to sell them to newspapers, magazines, or TV and web clients of Citizenside. Download our iPhone or Android app to upload your images immediately from the scene.

Avoid sending only one photo of the event. Just one image is often not enough to have a clear idea of the situation.

Send a maximum number of photos, with varied angles, wide lens shots where you see the whole scene, and close-ups, so the Citizenside community and our clients can understand the event.

It's quite possible that you'll take several photos of the same event. It is essential that you send us ALL your photos in the series.

Imagine that you send us just one photo from the series and we sell it to a newspaper. The newspaper publishes the photo on its front page believing it has a scoop (and paying for it accordingly). But unknown to us or to the newspaper, you approach a different publication and sell a similar photo that shows the same thing from, let’s say, a different angle. The first newspaper is going to be furious (the second one too!) and demand its money back.

This is why you must always send an entire series to us. If there are too many photos to send at one time, send us a representative example and tell us that you have more of the same.

As soon as you’re a Citizenside member, you can send as many documents as you wish. Your images will be displayed after being verified and vetted by our editorial committee, depending on their quality and news-relatedness.

Most scoops represent three to ten photos. It is important for the Citizenside community, as well as for our journalist clients, to get straight to the point and see precisely what the documents are about.

Nonetheless, it is necessary to be able to chose between all the pictures you took of the event. Don’t forget to take different angles, close-ups as well as wide lens where you see the whole scene. Only one photo is often not enough to form one’s opinion or to convince a buyer. If you have a big series with over 20 photos to offer, write this down in the description when you upload the photos, and send it in two parts to Citizenside.

An image can’t be validated if we don’t have all the necessary information.

Citizenside prefers good quality content to offer the best photos or videos to their members and to the media. div>

Citizenside sells photos and videos to media outlets around the globe. The content sold is categorized into various themes: event, accident, sports, people, short news item… Most often, they are photos and videos that are linked to news events. Content that sells the best is exclusive and sent it to us very quickly.

Often the images are the first and only ones of the event, taken as a series of photos (not only one) or many videos with many angles (images where you see the whole scene, then more with details, other characters, close-ups). They primarily are shots of good quality (and not compressed).

When you send us your videos and photos, they must be validated by our editorial committee (give us as many details as possible!). Once validated and if they are considered as a scoop, they will immediately be proposed to our clientele of media houses around the world. We will then negotiate the best price for you (and for us!) and you will earn up to 75% of the sale price.

If your documents are not considered as a proper "scoop", they will be added to our image bank, and made immediately available to our clients around the world. We'll do our best to sell the photo again and again on a non-exclusive basis to different publications, thanks to our image bank at a fixed price. The "scoop" effect may be over but a photo/video can still be valuable. How often have you seen the same photo appear in different papers or magazines? Each time it does, the owner gets paid.

When you join citizenside.com, that could be you.

Each and every time we make a sale, you get up to 75% of the proceeds!

[Strictly speaking, we don't 'sell' images at all. Rather, we are a broker between sellers and buyers. The seller licenses the buyer for publication in a number of different ways. This is an important distinction because it means the image remains your property at all times. In a legal sense, you retain the copyright.]

By putting your documents into one series, your scoop is worth more by offering exclusivity to one buyer. Indeed, if you sell photos or videos of the same series to many newspapers for example, it won’t be a scoop anymore, since many of them will share the information. What buyers are generally interested in is exclusivity and getting the best quality content, both aspects which can increase their sales.

We will send you an email every time we have a deal, to confirm the price, and will do our best to send you the intended publication date.

Sellers and buyers remain anonymous.

You will be informed when the picture is sold. Then, within 60 days of Citizenside being paid by the buyer, we will pay you at the earliest opportunity after this "safety period" (which is made to avoid any abuse of the agreement).

Congratulations, you made a sale!

Once the sale is finalized, the buyer pays Citizenside. We will pay you within 60 days after Citizenside gets paid.

As much as an editor is prepared to pay to publish it. Rest assured that Citizenside’s sales force is extremely efficient for getting the best possible prices for its members. It can be from a couple of hundred Euros up to thousands. Each time we license your content, you get up to 75% of the money.

Citizenside doesn’t keep any fixed fee. We keep a commission from 25 to 35% of the sale price. For example, if you sell a scoop for US$ 20,000, you will get paid up to US$ 15,000. If you want to know more, subscribe and check out our commission rate card.

If you want to know more, subscribe and check out our commission rate card.

To understand this, imagine that all we had was a non-exclusive license. Let's say you take a 'hot' photo and send it to Citizenside. We then sell it to a newspaper to publish the photo on the front page of tomorrow's edition.

Naturally, the newspaper wants to keep this scoop all to itself. Indeed, that's precisely what it's paying for. But unless we have an exclusive license, we simply can't guarantee this. If you or somebody acting on your behalf were to go to another newspaper and sell the same photo (or a similar photo, if you took several of the same event), or even if you were to upload it to a photo-sharing site, the newspaper "X" would lose its scoop and will probably refuse to pay for it.

We need an exclusive license in order to guarantee that a scoop remains a scoop. This is how you will make more money!

If we consider that your document is not so hot, we will tell you within 48 hours of the upload and your picture will be treated with a non-exclusive license and sold at fixed price on our image bank.

This is an important distinction. When you send a photo to citizenside.com, you give us a license to market that photo on your behalf. You also agree that for the first three months only, nobody else -- including you -- will publish that photo in any shape or form. That's what we mean by an exclusive license.

After three months, the license automatically becomes non-exclusive and perpetual. We will still try to sell your photo and continue to split the money from each sale with you, but you can now publish the photo yourself and/or agree to somebody else publishing it.

Of course, you just have to give us your contact details when you subscribe. You might enjoy a better commission rate, depending on the volume of the transactions you have made on citizenside.com. Citizenside works with different kinds of professionals:

Yes, please do. You'll find our postal address in the member's section.

Different crimes need to be treated in different ways. We will strive to retain your anonymity whenever possible but in some cases we might be legally bound to advise the police of your contact details.

However, even in such cases it may still be possible to publish a picture with incriminating details (faces, number plates, street names etc.) removed or pixelated out of the picture. Please note that we will have no hesitation in contacting the police if we believe that you have been involved in a crime yourself, such as a 'happy slapping' incident.

Citizenside only offers original, authentic, non altered photos to the media. It is useless to send us photos if you did not personally take them.

Also, don’t use Citizenside as a forum for free advertising. We do not wish to be the indirect spokesman of advertising agencies.

We welcome everybody, but you must be 18 or older. You can join citizenside.com no matter where you live, as we are interested in selling photos and videos all around the world. In fact, we currently have members from dozens of different countries.

Absolutely nothing.

We need to be sure that you are who you say you are. In some cases, we may need to contact you by email or by phone, particularly if our editorial committee has worries about the authenticity or legality of your photo or video.

Plus, of course, we have to be able to pay you!

Three reasons. Three reasons. First, if you want to send us uploads using email directly from your mobile phone, we must have your mobile number on record. This allows us to identify you as the sender when a photo or video comes in. (However, if you send an email from your mobile phone, we can't tell which phone it was sent from. This is why we ask you to include your mobile phone number in the subject line or message).

Secondly, we may have to contact you quickly, by way of SMS or phone call, if we need further details about a photo and if you don’t answer emails fast enough. This is almost always easier if we have your mobile number rather than trying to track you down at home or at work.

Finally, we might send a text message to your mobile phone when you join citizenside.com that contains details of how to send us photos and videos.

Rest assured that we will NEVER send spam SMS, MMS or email to your mobile phone, or allow anybody else to do so. We keep your number confidential and will not reveal it to anybody.

Never.

You can modify your address in the section « My account».

You can modify your password in the section « My account».

One you send us your documents, you can no longer modify them. We remind you that Citizenside only accepts authentic, non altered photos.

You can modify your personal details in the section « My account».

We would be terribly sorry if this was the case. But if you wish to leave the citizenside community, you just have to write us an email. We will answer to confirm that your personal information has been deleted from our member list.

Attention: If you sent us a document within the last three months, the exclusive license is still active for the initial time planned, even if you leave Citizenside.

This allows us to protect the clients that bought, or are in the process of buying, the documents.