Pan has became aware of a growing issue concerning contributing stock photographers to photo agency EyeEm not being paid royalties.
We reached out to find out what the problem was, EyeEm responded quickly with a phone call acknowledging there was problem and promised a statement. That arrived this morning from EyeEm owners Talenthouse – here it is in full:
Talenthouse Group Statement: Creative Payments
First we would like to acknowledge that the Talenthouse AG group of companies has, in particular recently, been experiencing delays in issuing payments to some of our Creatives and we are aware of social media reports indicating that Talenthouse is late in paying its Creatives.
Even just missing one Creative’s payment is unacceptable.
We would like to use this avenue to sincerely apologise to the Creatives impacted by these late payments. We know that this is not the service they expect or deserve. Our community is of the utmost importance to us and we have been cultivating and helping Creatives globally since 2008. We are in the process of catching-up and addressing late payments as we speak.
By no means is this the standard we hold ourselves to across the Talenthouse Group. Over the last few months we have navigated listing the business on the SIX Swiss Exchange and acquired several businesses into the group. Throughout the quieter summer months we started the process of centralising our accounting and cash management systems and restructuring our newly merged finance teams. This is an arduous process and challenge, yet it will better facilitate timely payments to our global Creatives. In harmonising localised nuances around receiving and sending money, we have had to implement KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures consistently across the group.
Capital markets are also severely impacted by global events, further impacting operations here at Talenthouse. In the meantime we are making manual payments to all our Creatives with outstanding balances. With the burgeoning economic climate that is impacting people across the globe, we wholeheartedly recognise that Creatives need to be paid in a timely manner.
When we floated the business, one of the initiatives we embarked upon was a custody account (known as a safeguarding account, in financial terms) for all Creative payments, allowing immediate access to funds earned. Getting that in place is a complicated endeavour given the diversity of local regulatory requirements we have to navigate. We will be raising capital specifically to fund Creative payments in advance for those who need immediate access to their hard-earned money.
We would like to bring to your attention the vast number of enquiries we receive from spoof/catfishing requests for information and complaints about non-payment where there in fact does not exist a genuine claim. This is common in many businesses and ours is no different.
We are initiating substantial amounts to Creatives weekly until the situation has been resolved and will continue to help each individual Creative. Our efforts to support Creatives displaced by the situation in Ukraine is a case in point. To punctuate the point, we have recently established a new Community Support Team who are diligently and consistently communicating with our Creatives, and ask those impacted to please email us at [email protected] to have any questions answered.
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