Change View Options:
Articles from January 2013
There is increasing dissatisfaction among iSockphoto contributors as a result of
Googlegate, and other recent moves by iStock. Many of the approximately 5,000 exclusive contributors are exploring the option of giving up their exclusive and placing their images on multiple web sites. Shutterstock is actively pursuing iStock exclusive contributors and has created a direct email address,
wbva@fuhggrefgbpx.pbz, to guide them through the signup and approval process.
Pond5 has announced today its public release of the new version “v2” of its website. The site offers a dramatically improved experience for both customers and contributors, giving filmmakers, photographers, musicians, 3D artists, and all kinds of media makers a place to connect with fellow artists, sell their stock media, and purchase high-quality content for their productions.
The Copyright Alliance has supplied a
list of copyright related issues that are likely to be considered the the 113th Congress during 2013.
Many who license their images at Rights Managed or traditional Royalty Free prices believe it is impossible to earn significant revenue licensing images at microstock prices. This article offers some comparative analysis.
Jon Oringer, CEO of Shutterstock, has written a very
interesting piece about why being exclusive with one distributor doesn’t work for microstock photographers. I agree with his conclusion, but disagree with one of his major arguments.
The ever increasing demand for instant and breaking news images and the huge improvement in the quality of phone and compact camera photographs has prompted
Alamy to begin accepting photographs for its Live News service from mobile (cell) phone cameras and compact cameras.
In the growing clamor and uproar about the free images available through Google Drive Rick Becker-Leckrone, CEO of Blend Images, made some points on the
Stockphoto blog that are worth examining. See the
previous article for more background.
Recently, a writer for Nikon Pro magazine asked me a series of questions in preparation for an upcoming article on the stock photography market. I have no idea how much of what I had to say will be used, but the questions were very appropriate for a readership of photographers with professional equipment who hope to make a little money from the images they produce.
Instagram has taken another shot at updating their Terms of Service. Peter Krogh, author of the DAM (Digital Assets Management) Book and Chair of ASMP’s Digital Standards Committee has reviewed the new terms and concluded that for the professional photographer trying to earn a living they are “still terrible.” Read his very thorough analysis
here.
This is the third in a series of articles on the image collection that is available to Google Drive users. (It looks like there may be many more articles as more details unfold.) To see the first two articles go
here and
here. This is not just a microstock issue. Hundreds of traditionally priced RF images are involved.
Recently, a father asked if I would advise his 26-year-old son on “career options in the photography field.” This boy (we’ll call him John) graduated in 2011 from a four-year course (probably costing in excess of $100,000) at a premier West Coast photography trade school. Then he returned to his home in a major East Coast city where he has been freelancing.
iStock has provided an explanation on Google Drive issues described in my
previous post. The following was posted on the iStock forum late yesterday.
Sean Locke (one of iStock’s highest earning contributors) discovered recently that some of his best selling images are now available on GoogleDrive for
FREE. There is a major thread in the
iStock forum. I’ll try to summarize what seems to be known so far.
Stipple and PEOPLE are joining together to help fans learn more about the stars photographed on the red carpet at The Critics’ Choice Movie Awards held on Thursday, January 10, at 8pm EST. Photographers will receive extra compensation when consumer purchase products the stars wear.
As a specialist in model released military photography (
http://www.photoshelter.com/c/militarystockphoto) for more than 30 years Hans Halberstadt has always actively pursued infringements of his work. Over the years he has recovered in excess of $200,000, often a few thousand dollars at a time, for various unauthorized uses.
In observance of its 5-year anniversary of Reportage by Getty Images the company has put together a collection of some of the most compelling photojournalism shot by Getty photographers. See this anniversary gallery
(http://www.reportagebygettyimages.com/news/).
Recently there has been a lot of talk in the U.S. press that “uncertainty” is the reason why the recovery is jobless, why businesses are sitting on billions in cash and why business leaders are cautious about expansion into new ventures. Uncertainty is also a major problem for stock photographers.
Recently several subscribers have asked questions, the answers to which might be of interest to all subscribers. So I’ve decided to share the questions and my answers here.
Getty photographer are complaining that their images aren’t being seen because over 365,360 iStock Exclusive+ images have been placed on the Getty site and are being given search return order preference. iStock photographers are complaining because images from various Getty brands are being pushed into The Agency Collection on iStock. TAC now contains at least 58,546 images.
At the end of 2012 the 423 had a combined total of 1,601,662 images on the iStock site and had grown their collections by 216,191 images (about 13%) during the year. However, it is interesting how this uploading breaks down. The top 20 uploaded 74,399 images (34% of the total). See their upload totals here.
The number of downloads from iStockphoto may have declined by 46% in 2012 compared to 2011 and almost 56% since 2010. This story explains in detail how we arrived at this figure and provides specific trend information on 194 of iStock's leading contributors.