Selling Stock Images

First a disclaimer: I am not really intending to criticise any company just to pass on personal experience that others may not be aware of.  I signed up with a photography social media site a while ago and licensed some of my images royalty free. This means if anyone buys the image they only have to pay me once and can go on to make unlimited money on my image forever. I knew this before I licensed the images so all’s fair so far. As I became more familiar with such business models and the likely sums of money involved, I decided to remove all images and did so. 2 days one later of the images sold. Hmmm. For $1.48. I looked into it and found that once a license is withdrawn, it may take up to 6 months before the image is removed from all possible web sources. Ok. Quite the coincidence that an image sells two days after being withdrawn. Looking at the site where the image was posted, the $1.48 cannot be withdrawn. You first have to accumulate $30 which is the minimum amount to withdraw. Of course, the likelihood of accumulating $30 once all images have been removed from licensing seems to be slight. Unless of course they still sell during the up to 6 months it takes to remove them from all possible web sources – this assumes it is a genuine coincidence. Pffft.