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Articles from January 2017

Programmatic Advertising At Getty Images

By Jim Pickerell | 747 Words | Posted 1/31/2017 | Comments
Getty is adding Programmatic Advertising content to its site. In June 2016 CEO Dawn Avery pointed out, that “Over 97 per cent of visitors come to our websites to look at – not purchase – amazing imagery.”  Getty is trying to find a way to earn some money from this 97% of users.

Do Takedown Notices Work?

By Jim Pickerell | 505 Words | Posted 1/30/2017 | Comments
The U.S. Copyright Office is trying to determine the impact and effectiveness of safe harbor provisions contained in Section 512 of the Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA). The safe harbor offers qualified Internet Service Providers (ISPs) immunity from monetary damages for hosting infringing content if the ISP expeditiously removes the content after receiving a proper notice.

Shutterstock Visual Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 204 Words | Posted 1/30/2017 | Comments
Shutterstock has released its annual Creative Trends report, which is developed from analyzing the information from millions of searches and downloads.

How Can Shutterstock Grow Revenue?

By Jim Pickerell | 1096 Words | Posted 1/27/2017 | Comments
Recently, I was asked my opinion of what Shutterstock could do to grow revenue? The questioner had come to the conclusion that there will be very little growth in coming years in the number of stock photo customer or the quantity of still images or illustration that each will use. He also feels that iStock, AdobeStock and even Getty Images have priced their products very competitively with Shutterstock making it difficult for Shutterstock to simply raise prices.

What Sells?

By Jim Pickerell | 842 Words | Posted 1/26/2017 | Comments
It is that time when everyone talks about “trends” for the coming year. Getty offered an hour-long seminar on January 19, 2017 that can be reviewed in this youtube video.

iStock Data: 5 Days Left

By Jim Pickerell | 170 Words | Posted 1/26/2017 | Comments
iStock contributors who want to retain their detailed historical royalty data up to and including December 31st 2016 have 5 days left before that data disappears from the iStock site. After January 31, 2017 Account Management will only offer 23 months of summary historical royalty data. It’s critical that contributors download all the data they require from the iStock site as soon as possible.

500px Launches Photographer Directory

By Jim Pickerell | 652 Words | Posted 1/25/2017 | Comments
500px has launched a new, easy-to-use global photographer directory with over 50,000 photographers from 11,000 searchable locations across 191 countries. Customers may search for a photographer in a specific city or town who specializes in one of 18 different categories of photography.

Decline In Textbook Use

By Jim Pickerell | 430 Words | Posted 1/23/2017 | Comments
Pearson has reported that in 2016 the North American higher education courseware market was much weaker than expected and that their net revenues fell 30% in the final quarter resulting in an unprecedented 18% decline for the year.

Dreamstime: 250 “Authentic” Images

By Jim Pickerell | 2890 Words | Posted 1/20/2017 | Comments
Dreamstime editors and CEO Serban Enache recently released a promotion of 250 “authentic” images from the Dreamstime collection. While this collection of images certainly shows customers that Dreamstime has some very impressive and beautiful images, it may not be very representative of what Dreamstime is actually selling. Thus, when planning future shoots image creators may not want to use this collection as a guide.

SkyPan Fined $200,000 For Violating FAA Regulations

By Jim Pickerell | 117 Words | Posted 1/20/2017 | Comments
If you are using a drone for aerial photography be careful that you don’t violate FAA regulations. SkyPan International was just fined $200,000 for violating FAA “Rule 107.”

Switching From Stills To Video

By Jim Pickerell | 1475 Words | Posted 1/18/2017 | Comments
Many still photographers have watched their revenue decline and are considering transitioning to video. In a recent article I asked Jesse Hughes, Jim Erickson’s director of sales to outline some of the specific challenges a videographer faces, and ways that a video shoot differs from a still shoot. I’ve also contacted two other photographers – Gail Mooney-Kelly of New York and David Scott Smith of Montana – for their thoughts. Both or these photographers were very successful still shooters at one point in their careers, but for a number of years now have focused almost exclusively on producing video.

Erickson Stock RF Now Available At PantherMedia

By Jim Pickerell | 426 Words | Posted 1/17/2017 | Comments
Erickson Stock has recently launched an RF collection that is now available on PantherMedia. For over 30 years Jim Erickson has been one of the US's preeminent commercial photographers and has created timeless imagery for hundreds of blue chip clients, including AT&T, American Express, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Pinnacle Entertainment, General Motors, HBO, Pfizer, Merrill Lynch, United Airlines and Home Depot.

Mega Agency Does Syndication Deal With AMI

By Jim Pickerell | 505 Words | Posted 1/16/2017 | Comments
The Mega Agency launched its newly-signed syndication deal with American Media Inc. (AMI), one of America’s biggest publishers, with world-wide coverage of the first wedding of Prince Harry’s new girlfriend Meghan Markle.

What Is An “Authentic” Photo?

By Jim Pickerell | 914 Words | Posted 1/13/2017 | Comments
What is an “Authentic” picture? Do they really sell? Photographers are being asked to produce more authentic pictures, but they are being given little or no information about what makes a image authethic, or how well such images are actually selling.

Protect Your Copyright: Respond To Survey

By Jim Pickerell | 288 Words | Posted 1/12/2017 | Comments
If copyright protection is important to you, it is absolutely critical that you respond by January 31, 2017 to the survey that the new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden has posted on Survey Monkey.

Dinodia: Pictures From India

By Jim Pickerell | 101 Words | Posted 1/11/2017 | Comments (1)
If in the last 30 years you’ve seen an image taken in India there is a good chance it was supplied by Dinodia Photo Library. For years Dinodia images have been represented by many other image distributors around the world and those images have found their way into countless books, newspaper and magazine articles.

Footage: The Future

By Jim Pickerell | 3403 Words | Posted 1/10/2017 | Comments
David Seevers, Chief Marketing Officer of Footage.net and owner of Thriving Archives recently asked me for my thoughts on the future of the footage industry. As owner of Thriving Archives Seevers was also the principle author of all three ACSIL Global Surveys and has produced other industry specific research reports.

Getty Granted Temporary Restraining Order Against Roxanne Motamedi

By Jim Pickerell | 357 Words | Posted 1/10/2017 | Comments
Getty Images has been granted a temporary restraining order against it former VP of Global Entertainment, Roxanne Motamedi. Motamedi held the post at Getty from June 2009 to November 2016 and was based in Los Angeles.

Shutterstock Announces UK Distribution Deal With AP

By Jim Pickerell | 259 Words | Posted 1/10/2017 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has announced that it has expanded its milestone multi-year deal with The Associated Press (AP). Beginning this week, Shutterstock will distribute AP’s daily global photo output for license to customers based in the United Kingdom. Shutterstock’s enterprise customers in the United Kingdom will have access to over 30 million photos from AP Images.

What Image Creators Need

By Jim Pickerell | 662 Words | Posted 1/5/2017 | Comments
As I pointed out in my iStock article on Monday more and more of the top image creators are cutting back on production and turning to other ways to earn a living. It’s not only microstock photographers who are pulling back, those selling RM and traditional RF are in even greater retreat. See this article

Diversity: Are Stock Agencies Showing What’s Needed?

By Jim Pickerell | 784 Words | Posted 1/4/2017 | Comments
A couple weeks ago, I was interviewed by an NPR writer for a story about stock photography. The first question out of the box was “Why aren’t the stock agencies doing a better job of showing diversity?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that question because I felt that for a long time photographers have been pushed to show more diversity and there must be a lot of such pictures in the stock agency collections.

Agencies Ignoring Data

By Jim Pickerell | 1386 Words | Posted 1/3/2017 | Comments
The major agencies talk about how important their DATA is and how it has changed the industry. They argue that the company with the most and best data will be the winner. But I don’t think they are really looking at much of the data they have collected – or looking at it in the right way.

iStock Single Image Download Decline Continues

By Jim Pickerell | 1042 Words | Posted 1/2/2017 | Comments
iStock single image downloads appear to have continued to decline in the last half of 2016. Unfortunately, five of the 430 contributors that we tracked in the past have now disappeared. In the last report these contributors represented 544,000 total career downloads. It is unclear whether they have withdrawn their collections, or repurposed them under another brand that I am no longer able to track.

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This stock photography news site focuses on the business side of photography with a special emphasis on stock photography. Our goal is to help photographers maximize their earnings based on the quality of their work and the commitment they are prepared to make to the trade. The information provided will be applicable to part-timers as well as full time professional photographers. We’ll leave it to others to teach photographers how to take better pictures.

Jim Pickerell launched his career as a photographer in 1963. In 1990 he began publishing a regular newsletter on stock photography. In 1995 the information was made available online as well as in print and was gradually expanded to a daily service. Click here for Pickerell's full biography.

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