Last week we wrote about the
miniscule royalties that appeared on Getty’s February royalty statements. For a number of sales the royalty reported was $0.00.
Getty Connect is an initiative that pays contributors a share of the advertising revenue generated when an ad appears on the same page as the photographer’s image. For more on how it works check out our
previous story. Getty has acknowledged that they made a rounding error on the recent statements. In future they will report micro-royalties in fractions of a cent up to 5 decimal points. Conceivably, a photographer could earn
$0.00001 (one thousandth of a cent) when one of his images appears next to an ad. If the total royalties earned (from multiple image licenses) is greater than $0.005 Getty will round up to the nearest penny. If the combined total for any given month is less than $0.005 it appears the photographer will lose those royalties.
Here’s the email contributors received:
$0 transactions on your January 2013 Connect statement
Many of you noticed $0 royalty transactions on your first Connect statement (January 2013) where we should have shown the micro-royalties (fractions of a cent). This was a processing error where some royalties earned under $0.00500 which were inadvertently rounded to $0. Going forward you can expect to see the royalty amount (out to five decimal points) for each image earned, even if it is under one penny. All fractional-cent royalties are then summed on the statement and rounded up or down to the nearest cent for payment.
We have calculated any additional micro-royalties due to you for those zero transactions (which were fractions of a cent). If you are due an adjustment, we will add this adjustment amount to your payment on April 25th, however no royalty statement for this adjustment will be available. If applicable, you may see a description for that additional amount in your payment remittance advice as “Jan2013 Connect zero adj”.