FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

You might not know the real value of your scoop. You can be sure that our clients do! In the past, many amateur photographers or video directors thought they were doing a good deal by selling directly to the media their photos or videos ….that, in reality, were worth much much more.

By selling your scoops with Citizenside, you automatically show them to the worldwide media.

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 scoops to the highest bidder IN EACH COUNTRY involved and to maximize your income.

The more your picture is worth for a media, the higher your income. If your photo or video is sold to many media, you will receive each time an income.

When you send Citizenside an image, 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 scoop but now you can also publish it yourself on a photoblog or a picture sharing site -- or anywhere else at all.

Anyhow, if we consider that you might not sell your document immediately , we will tell you within the next 48 hours and your picture will be treated with a non-exclusive license and sold at fixed price on 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 photos in order to achieve 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 sell it to a newspaper to publish the photo on the front page of tomorrow's edition.

Naturally enough, 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.

Anyhow, if we consider that your document is not so hot, we will tell you within the next 48 hours 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.

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 scoops, but only professionals can buy it.

If everybody could see the scoops you send us, they will 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 quickly.

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 registrayion, you will have access to all the details on how to send a document in the member part of the website. To send us your photos, we advise you to do it from your computer to make the identification easier. You can also send them by phone.

It is possible for you to send your photos from your cellphone (or digital camera) to a computer. There are explanations in click here.

You just have to use the Upload Photos button to send us your photo. It's just 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 5Mo with a DSL connection 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 journalists clients, to go 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 events. 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 make one’s opinion.

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

We accept most format used nowdays.

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

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

Videos resolution: 640x480 ou 320x240, preferably

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 SEND PHOTOS TO citizenside.com 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 website where you share and sell your news documents. You witnessed an event, a fire, an accident, a crash, a natural catastrophe?

You film or photographed a specific protest, a sports event, a celebrity ? You were at the right place at the right time? You might be in possession of a scoop!

Citizen also publishes your most beautiful shots in the “Around the world” category and have some space especially reserved for the cars and bikes lovers to capture the latest models.

We publish and sell old photos, 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 of a 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 clients of Citizenside.

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 of photos, with varied angles, wide lens 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 is ALL your series of photos.

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 an you’re a Citizenside member, you can send as many documents as you wish. Your images will be validated after being verified and validated by our editorial committee, depending on their qualities and interest.

Most of the scoops are only a few pictures. It is important for journalists to go straight to the point and to see precisely what it is about.

However if you have more than 20 pictures to sell, just say it in the "description field" and send those afterwards to the buyer. The only effect it would have on you is that it can increase your scoop value!

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

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

If your photos are too compressed, too blurry, too dark or has too many pixels, the editorial committee of Citizenside might not validate it. But if your images have a specific interest, if it is a scoop and that your photos or videos are exclusive, then these documents (even of bad quality) can have a real interest!

We may resize, crop, tweak, sharpen, recolor and otherwise enhance a photo for publication, and indeed any publisher may do the same. However, we always keep an original unaltered copy of every photo you send us.

Citizenside prefers news documents.

If your images are a few months or years old, they are less interesting for the community and the media. Nonetheless, if you think you have in your possession exclusive, interesting pictures that put in a new perspective a past event, then you can send us your document..

Citizenside sells photos and videos to the worldwide media, of all kind : event, accident, sports, people, short news item… Most often, they are photos and videos that are linked to news events. Our members that sell documents captured exclusive images and sent it to us very quickly.

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

When you send us your videos and photos, it has to be validated by our editorial committee (give us as many details as possible!). Once it's validated and if it's considered as a scoop, it will be immediately proposed to our clients, 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, 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' photos at all. Instead, we are just a scoop 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 photo remains your property at all times. In legalese, you retain the copyright.]

By putting your documents in one series, your scoop is worth more by offering the exclusivity to one media. Indeed, if you sell photos 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 they are interested in, it is generally the exclusivity and get the best photos, which allows them to 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 advised of all the proposals made on the auction system and you can choose the one you want.

You will be informed when the picture will be 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.

Congratulations, you made a deal!

Once the auction is over, the buyer pays CitizenSide. We will pay within 60 days after CitizenSide gets paid.

As much as an editor is prepared to pay to publish it. Rest assured that CitizenSide’s exclusive auction system 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 photo, you get up to 75% of the money.

CitizenSide doesn’t keep any fixed fee. We will keep a commission from 25 to 35 % on 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.

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 sell it to a newspaper to publish the photo on the front page of tomorrow's edition.

Naturally enough, 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, your money!

Anyhow, if we consider that your document is not so hot, we will tell you within the next 48 hours 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 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 support for free advertising. We do not wish to be the indirect spokesman of communication agencies.

We welcome everybody, but you must be aged 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.

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

Three reasons. First, if you want to send us photos using email directly from your mobile phone, we must have your mobile number on record. This means we can identify you as the sender when a photo comes in. We can do this easily with your mobile phone's number with your membership details. (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 if we need further details about a photo and if you don’t answer emails fast enough, thanks to automatic SMS or phone call. 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. This contains details of how to send us photos.

Please be 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 Citizensid only accepts authentic, non altered photos.

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

We would be terribly sorry if it were the case. But it were your intention, you just have to write us a mail. We will answer to confirm that your personal information have been deleted of our member list.

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

This allows to protect the clients that bought the documents or are being bought.