Follow up to last post - after stating to Dronebase that I would contact Getty directly with reference to the missions for sale on their site that was never acknowledged, Dronebase promptly paid me $15 each for all nine missions. They also answered a few clarifying questions. If you submit a video to Dronebase and it's accepted by Getty and you get your $15, you no longer own any rights to that video. It is now the property of Getty Images and you are not legally permitted to sell that video in any other way. Think about that before you throw good work up there. $15 and your rights to that material forever are gone. They are not merely marketing images on your behalf, in this relationship with Dronebase, if you submit and they accept you don't own it anymore.
The answer from Dronebase as to why they were approaching the compensation for Getty missions this way was that the $15 was the "average residual earned per video" by pilots on videos submitted...so, rather than pay a commission for each sale, they just thought it was better to pay pilots up front for what they could "expect to earn" from a video submitted. This doesn't add up in my little mind. So now, Dronebase is paying a person $15 UP FRONT for what you could expect to earn from the residuals on said video over a lifetime??? Generous!? I don't think they're that generous...that's stupid. They're either making much more and want to eliminate having to deal with tracking and paying residuals OR they weren't getting enough Getty submissions by DB pilots to satisfy their arrangement so they sweetened the pot. If it's the latter, I don't see this lasting.
I already get the impression that the $15 per video accepted deal is getting out. I submitted some more videos this last week and it took a long time to hear anything back. I queried their status four days after submission only to promptly get a 'Rejection' for all nine submissions. Coincidence? I think not. They're covered up. They're pretending to be something much bigger than they really are and making money on the backs of a group of people who will settle for doing the work for a fraction of what they charge. By the way, the reason for the video being rejected was "Damaged Footage" (7 out of 9 videos). I've never had a quality complaint in any way of any work I've submitted in the past. Again, making stuff up so they don't have to deal with things they really don't want to deal with. If every pilot out there would quit Dronebase for one month, we might get someone to listen. Until then, it's all hype at our expense.