We are following the discussion concerning Getty's new $49 license very closely. We are aware of the Joint Association's press release and the various posts on the $49 license on photographer forums such as lightstalkers.org. We agree that this new license threatens the livelihoods of professional photographers.

We believe that photographers who travel, at their own risk and expense, often in conflict zones, in search of meaningful images, deserve fair remuneration. In fact, we developed our pricing system together with photographers of the lightstalkers community.

The main outcome of this discussion is a system based on price brackets, in which the photographers set the prices of their images themselves. Taking into account the feedback of our clients, we've agreed with our photographers on a 'up to $300' price bracket for a single-use license for original versions.

Realising that smaller pixel versions are sufficient for a variety of our clients' projects, we also offer 800 pixel and 400 pixel versions. This said, we leave it up to our photographers to decide whether they want to offer these additional, smaller versions or not. In other words, at mondolibrary, each photographer decides which versions of his or her images will be made available to our clients.

Since we launched mondolibrary only a few months ago, it's still a bit early to say whether this is the right paradigm. However, we hope it will help to bridge the gap between our clients' and our photographers' needs.

We want to be able to provide our public interest and nonprofit clients with quality images at affordable prices. At the same time, we want to support the needs of photographers to make a living and cover their expenses.

We've already started promoting this 'fair trade' approach among our clients. They have reacted favourably.

In addition, we've created a 'support fair trade photography' logo which both photographers and our clients can put on their websites. The logo can be downloaded at www.mondolibrary.net.

Mondolibrary is a quality image library, tailored to the needs of UN agencies, civil society organisations and public interest communicators. Images at mondolibrary are not available for commercial use. Images can only be purchased by legitimate nonprofit entities or by students and other public interest users.

We are proud to work with award-winning photographers such as Zoriah, Hans Westerling and Thomas Lee.

Mondolibrary is owned and operated by mondofragilis network, a media and communications company serving the United Nations family, civil society organisations, the public sector and better Earth projects. It offers a full range of public awareness, advocacy, behaviour change and fundraising analyses, strategies and services. It also offers sustainable development shifting strategies to corporations wishing to adopt a more socially responsible stance. Their slogan is: messages must cause change.