I’ve written about so-called “gig services” in the past. You know, those websites that promise to send you leads and photography jobs that will help elevate your portfolio … and make you more money.
There are several legit options out there — Thumbtack, Canon’s new Image Connect platform, Upwork, Fiverr and Fash, just to name a few. But there are a growing amount of services that promise a great opportunity, only to end up taking advantage of photographers.
The latest case is with a company called OCUS. They targeted me pretty heavily on Facebook, pushing me toward becoming one of their food photographers.
The problem with OCUS
OCUS promises a great game, saying on their website, “OCUS is a complete photography solution, offering brands a global network of creators, automated workflows and advanced BI tools.”
But what immediately raises a red flag for me is there’s no real landing page for photographers. If you click “Join us” at the bottom, it immediately takes you to an application page. They provide no information about how the platform works, including what potential fees they charge or take out of your earnings. You simply don’t know what to expect.
The other thing? In my research I found that OCUS was a French company, formerly known as OuiFlash. While I have no problem with the French, their laws are different. Meaning, you might not be protected the same way you would be in your home country.
Shady copyright terms
One of the big red flags for me with these types of platforms is whether or not the photographer retains copyright. This is often buried in the terms and conditions … just like it is with OCUS. With OCUS, they require that the photographer transfer ownership to OCUS, stating:
“The Producer transfers all ownership rights to all of the images produced in the context of each assignment exclusively to OUIFLASH, as and when they are produced.
“The transferred ownership rights include rights to reproduction, representation, adaptation, translation, and transfer to a third party of all or part of the transferred rights, by any method and process known or unknown at this time, for the period of protection of copyright according to French and foreign law as well as current and future international agreements, worldwide.”
If that doesn’t scare you away … it should. You should never have to sign your photos away. In most legit services, you just provide the customer full rights to use the photos, or usage rights to use the photos in the way they described upfront.
Note how OCUS hasn’t even bothered to change its terms and conditions to even reflect its name change.
Look at the reviews
The last straw for me, with OCUS anyway, was looking at reviews from photographers. Check out this “glowing” review posted on Glassdoor:
“Out of 10 shoots, I got paid only for 2 shoots over the span of 4 months. I am still not paid for 8 shoots and the accounts team is coming up with innovative excuses for the delay in payment. I am sick of following up and disappointed that I am still not paid for so long.”
Alright, one bad review might not be a big deal. But the company as a whole has a 2.1/5 rating on Glassdoor. Check out this review, which really dives into the photographer experience:
“… The management at Ocus would keep lying to me, saying the payment for invoice has been processed, when it was not, they literally had no clue what was going on. After I complained, they unlawfully suspended my account to get rid of me, instead of helping me and paying me on time … Another issue is the low price per photoshoot, they are the lowest in the entire industry, that’s probably how they got the deal with UberEats who are Ocus’s main partner. The last factor I’d like to bring up, the editors ruin the hard work of all the photographers! The editors completely ruin each photograph! I’ve even had meetings with UberEats Territorial Managers who accompany photoshoots sometimes, and they said they personally edit the images themselves after receiving them from Ocus!! Can you believe that?! If you’re thinking of joining Ocus, do not, because you deserve much better!”
Photographer beware
When you deal with middleman companies like OCUS, you risk a lot … and you might not know that going into it. Look into the fine print and make sure you’re signing up for something that you agree with. Otherwise, you might end up working for free or without control of your images.
Lead photo by Muhammad Raufan Yusup on Unsplash
Bryan, thank you so much for this article!
I really appreciate it!
You save my time, money and energy!
Thank you for the well written review of Ocus. I thought the lack of a photographers landing page was a red flag but had no idea about the copyright issues.
Much time and money saved on this one!
Thank you. Someone just approached exactly the same way like you mentioned yesterday. I am glad I found your article. Thank you so much.
I’m glad I saw your article. I applied to OCUS. It seemed legitimate. I filled out their application. At the end that wanted to know the address to my website. I had to fill out the application three times. And every time when I got to the very end and included the web address I got hit with a banner telling me, “Your URL is invalid.” Again, I tried two more times and each time I got the same thing at the end. I contacted their support link and was told to email them what I had already done. While… Read more »
Meero is not affiliated with OCUS; they’re legit. We actually covered their myMeero launch earlier this year – https://photofocus.com/business/mymeero-studio-management-and-inspiration-in-one-package/
What I’ve seen a lot with these gig finders, though, is that they promise a great game. They don’t usually deliver.
Hello Paul
On september 24th we totally revamped our platform, it was a huge web development step and of course we have experienced many bugs with it. We have fixed a lot of them and continue fixing bugs on the day to day. That’s very common when a site experience a refactoring.
We ask photographers to provide a link to their portfolio so we can evaluate your level and your skills. We don’t accept amateurs or photographers shooting with their phone. All portfolios are reviewed by other photographers from the community.
I am sorry you had experienced these bugs.
Pues no tengo queja con Ocus. Llevo con ellos un año y medio. Son puntuales en el pago, responden rápido a cualquier duda. De verdad, sin problema. Con el cambio de plataforma si que es cierto que hay errores, que iran subsanando. Por lo demás , perfecto.
Mero is no different than Ocus, I’ve done work for both companies and they still owe me money past due. Dont expect much except for gaining experience in shooting in difficult conditions. Ever shoot an ice cream shop in 100 degree weather and have to take 7 shots plus a hero shot before everything melts? It can be done but its tough..I know
Hello Brian, Thank you for your article. Full disclosure, I work at OCUS, since 2019 as an employee. Thank you for raising these points, they help us to improve. Yes we don’t have yet a real application page, I totally agree with you. Our website has been created years ago by a web agency, we don’t have control of the content. We are in process in building again our website to include more info and not depend on this old agency. As to fix this problem, when we recruit photographers we include a custom landing page with all the info… Read more »
Wow Melanie, I appreciate you for being kind, humble and patient to write this transparent and informative reply to a literal attack to your company from an editor. I work for OCUS and did plenty of photoshoots and had a lot of communication with several people and never had an issue. I have a lot of positive things to say with my interactions with the employees but this reply is not for that purpose at this point. Some people are spoiled with what they earn and forget where they come from and they even feel entitled to criticize an amount… Read more »
While you’re entitled to your own opinion, this was based on quite a bit of research. If you look at the Terms and Conditions, it still explicitly states “The Producer who produces the images for the assignment transfers all ownership rights relating to said images exclusively to OUIFLASH.” This is a MAJOR red flag to any professional photographer out there. I’m all up for legit gig services — I use some myself. I appreciate the response by Melanie here as well, but there are still some obvious issues. It’s good to see OCUS owning up to some of these issues,… Read more »
Thank you for your comment, Melanie. It’s good to hear the company is working out some of these issues. The Terms and Conditions link I have still doesn’t appear to be updated, and the one major issue on there is the ownership of the images. It’s a red flag for ANY photographer to give up ownership rights. Usage rights are much more common and accepted in the commercial world.
If there’s an updated Terms and Conditions, I’d love to look at it. I could not find that on the website, however.
Hello Bryan I am happy to have opened this conversation with you. Here is a link to our new terms and conditions updated last month. But full disclosure our copyright policy has remained unchanged. We are currently building a model that will both protect the photographers rights and the client’s. We still have a lot of education to do on the client’s side to make them agree to better copyrights for the images. OCUS only provide photos for larget B2B corporations so this process is slow and tedious. Our clients know about our charter, we collect signatures from our clients… Read more »
Thanks Melanie. I’d definitely keep pushing on getting photographers rights to the forefront. It seems like you guys are moving in the right direction, but I know for myself personally, I won’t work with a company that requires ownership of images. I’m fine with photographers giving full usage rights, but photographers need to be able to feature their work in their portfolio and retain some sort of ownership over them.
I look forward to hearing more as this progresses; feel free to reach out via our contact form as you make progress. Thanks. https://photofocus.com/contact-us/
According to French law, you’re not consider as a photographer when you shoot according to precise specifications. You’re a simple “technical person who clic on the shutter”, and thus you have absolutely ZERO right on your photos. Well, they aren’t even yours.
Let’s work with such platforms and accept to be technicians rather than photographers, and in the coming 5 years, the profession will simply disappear.
You are looking at this all wrong Pierre. In a time of COVID when work was sparse or non-existent for most of us content creators, OCUS provided us with a mean to continue to make some income and pay the bills. So if anything, they have helped photographers keep going and our profession survive the crisis. In August I was able to make over 2K thanks to OCUS and YES I DID GET PAID ;).
I work as a contract photographer under Ocus, have done so for quite a while now, and have done many food photoshoots with them. It is one of my reliable sources of income as a photographer. It is legitimate, and I have been paid for my shoots. The only issue I have is they don’t really verify a client is signed up with the food partner before you go do a shoot, so you accept a shoot and have to get in touch with the client to see if they are okay with the shoot, or if the food partner… Read more »
Also, I read in your article that Fash is a good legit service. The thing is, I’m signed up for Fash, and even though I’ve received requisitions for photography services and responded to them and put my bid in, I’ve-never- been chosen to book with, and this has gone on for a long time. I’ve never been chosen, so I have never made any money with Fash. On the other hand, with sites like OCUS and Snappr, I regularly get photoshoot opportunities assigned to me or get to choose them. And it’s not like I’m a bad photographer or anything,… Read more »
Bryan, here is my two cents, for what it’s worth. I am a multi-award winning filmmaker and pro level photographer, (my shots have been on the cover of magazines, so I must be doing something right). I am saying this to stress that if you are clinging to the copyrights of a sandwich placed on a plate, you need to rethink your craft. I am a content creator and I completely understand where OCUS is coming from in terms of wanting to have the copyrights assigned to them for these type of straightforward, non-creative shoots. It would otherwise be very… Read more »
I’ve been shooting food gigs for Ocus since December. Their system is far from perfect, and sometimes I lament not having a direct contact like I did when shooting restaurants for Geobeats a few years back. But I have been paid in full and on time every month, which has definitely meant something in the time of Covid. As another commenter mentioned, these are simple gigs, and you’re creating simple photos. Sometimes, money is money, and the volume of work makes up for the less than ideal flat rate per gig.