Hi guys, I appreciate all the feedback. Allow me to provide some input.
1- We are based in Hong Kong so the FAA has no jurisdiction here. Having said this, every person that uploads content to the site needs to agree to the terms and conditions. Of those terms is the mention that all images uploaded to the site have been obtained legally and in the respect of all local/international regulations. Our intent is certainly not to encourage people to fly in manners who contravene any regulations.
2- We focus on exotic content from the world's most gorgeous locations. In that respect, we are far from US focused in terms of content. Don't get me wrong, the US has some gorgeous sites and we are happy to display them if the images were obtained legally, but we actually focus on images outside the US. 99% of images currently on the site are from other countries.
3- We don't share any personal information to third parties, but we do display the names of the companies who post footage on our site. This is done out of respect to the content creators who have worked hard. This of course is not mandatory, and each artist has the ability to modify their profile at will.
4- We have no intent on using footage coming from other people. We have a reputation to maintain and we would not do anything to put that at risk.
5- this whole site was built with the intent of rewarding content creators. I am a content creator myself and never understood why I would need to give 70%-75% of revenues to platforms like Shutterstock. I simply didn't understand the rationale for that, when I was doing all the work and taking all the risks. So I decided to invest heavily in the development of a platform that could be opened up to the world, and reward those who deserve it.
What we have put together is simply unheard of in the stock imagery industry. From the payout (up to 70%) to the total flexibility for content creators to add/remove content, set their own price and modify it at will ... all those things are unique.
Having said all this, content is king and to that respect, we are being really selective on the kind of content we approve. We've opened up the marketplace only 2 days ago and roughly 80% of submissions have been turned down for multiple reasons. Again, our focus is on exotic material that displays the beauty of the planet. This is not only reserved to professional cinematographers. Very talented amateurs can also produce some great content. Our site serves as a window for all to display their work.
I'm a passionate enthusiast that has put together a platform out of love for this industry. I have an extremely transparent public profile and I would never jeopardise that by operating in an unethical way.
Visit the site, if you have some exotic content, feel free to sign-up as content creators and submit footage for approval. You will see it's not that easy to make it on the site.
www.aerial-entertainment-studios.com
Cheers everyone
Patrice
