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Articles from May 2011
At the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul a panel of Asian stock agents provided insights into the current market for stock photography in Asia. The panel included: Sandeep Mahewsari of Imagebazaar (
www.imagebazaar.com) in India, Daphne Fu of Panorama Images (
www.panoramastock.com) in China, Daniel Kang of Image Republic (
www.irepublic.kr) in Korea, and Ryusel Yoshimoto of amanaimages (
www.amanaimages.com) in Japan.
On May 23, 2011 in an open letter to contributors Andy Saunders, Vice President of Creative Imagery for Getty Images, outlined what Getty sees as the future of creative co ntent. His analysis will be of interest to everyone engaged in the stock photo business and can be found at
http://www.gettyimages.com/contributors, in the bottom right corner of the contributor log-in page. No password is necessary to view this link.
During the New Media Conference at the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul a panel of picture buyers offered their views on what they are looking for from stock photo collections. Lewis Blackwell moderated the discussion. Picture buyers on the panel included Peter Raffelt of Gruner +Jahr; Matt Burgess of Creature; Martin Casson of Dentsu in the UK; Alexander Karts of Die Bildbeschaffer and Paul Millen from an advertising agency in Istanbul. Two issues of particular interest to image creators and sellers revolved around the use of microstock by these large commercial customers and the lack of outstanding unique images in stock collections.
HP and LicenseStream have launched
Snap Stock Images, a service of Snapfish and a new microstock photo licensing service featuring affordable images from photo enthusiasts and professional photographers. Currently, Snapfish has more than 100 million members in 22 countries. Professional image buyers, including small and midsize business owners, graphic designers, advertisers and marketers, will be able to access hundreds of thousands of images that are available on the site at launch. Many of the images were shot by amateurs, but images from Veer and LicenseStream are also available.
At the annual CEPIC Congress, this year in Istanbul, where stock photo
agents and distributors from around the world meet, I asked attendees
the following and agreed to enter the names of those who answer into a
drawing for a chance to
WIN $100.00.
Describe a situation where a fee of $10.00, or less, is justified for the COMMERCIAL use of a single image?
Selling-Stock subscribers also have a chance to win. Send your answer in now!
Image fingerprinting could be a solution for many of the problems photographers face in trying to protect their images. The technology for providing, in camera, a unique fingerprint of every image a photographer creates is already available. All that has to happen is for the camera manufacturers to build this technology into the next models of their professional equipment.
Ingram Image has entered into a binding agreement to acquire the
goodwill and trading assets of Reflex Stock. Reflex offers a unique mix
of visual content, which currently comprises 10 million images.
Reflexstock.com offers traditional Premium quality Royalty Free and
Rights Managed content alongside Budget Royalty Free, MicroPrice Images
and a subscription service. Ingram also acquires Reflex’s successful
industry Design Blog.
After spending six month translating all aspects of its customer experience into German Alamy has launched a German website at
www.alamy.de.
An increasing number of stock photographers are fed up with low prices and low royalty percentages and are looking for a way to get out of the whole agency/distributor rat race. Many are setting up their own sites and are looking for ways deal more directly with their customers. They recognize that they won’t make as many sales, but feel that the higher fees they will receive for each use will generate more total income in the long run. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that by licensing their images directly to end users photographers would receive 10 or more times the revenue for each image licensed compared to what they are receiving from their agencies now.
Have you given Getty Images exclusive rights to represent some of your
images? Are those same images available for licensing on Veer or Corbis
under the brand name Ocean Photography? Many photographers will be
surprised to discover the answer is YES. Photographers who produced images for PhotoDisc and Photographer’s
Choice RF have recently found some of their images on Veer being
marketed through the Ocean Photography brand.
The IPTC (International Telecommunications Council) is challenging
vendors across the media industry to create the conditions for
interoperability for metadata embedded in media files. Following
a 2006 Metadata Manifesto issued by the Stock Artists Alliance, the
IPTC has created a new updated document the Embedded Metadata Manifesto
to cover all media types, including stills and video. The manifesto
outlines a set of 5 principles.
For the third consecutive year Alamy pledges a Scholarship for the 2011
Young Photographer’s Alliance (YPA) scholarship program. The
YPA is a global community where young photographers connect with the
inspiration, resources and contacts they need to build successful and
sustainable careers as the great artists and communicators of the
future. Program sponsorships provide mentoring, financial support and
expertise to students who have been identified as having outstanding
potential.
iStockphoto has announced the launch of its premium-quality Vetta video collection with clip prices that range from 55 to 150 credits (credit prices vary from $0.99 to $1.54 depending on the size of the credit package purchased). Currently there are over 300,000 video clips on iStock, but only a few thousand of the best are in the Vetta collection. However, it is expected that the Vetta collection will grow rapidly. Approximately 5,000 videographers have contributed clips to iStock.
Photographers are trying to assess how much the acquisition of PhotoLibrary will add to Getty’s gross revenue and what impact it might have on Getty’s overall control of the stock photo market. I estimate that gross 2010 revenue for still photo licensing worldwide was about $1.45 billion. Over the years I have defined the “stock photo market” as including the licensing of still photos and illustrations, but not footage or any of the auxiliary activities that Getty, Corbis and some other companies are involved in. I also include in my gross figure revenue generated by the picture divisions of AP, Reuters, AFP, etc. and of course the editorial division of Getty Images.
APA (American Photographic Artists) members have “uniformly agreed that Getty Images’ proposed changes are unacceptable.” Through its counsel,
Nelson & McCulloch LLP, APA contacted Getty Images prior to the April 30th deadline and made clear its position on the new contract. The organization requested, “that Getty Images stay or extend its self-imposed deadline for forcing contributors to sign (its) agreements.” Getty Images refused to respond to APA’S inquiry.
Alamy has searched through its collection of over 23 million images to
determine the top ten buildings around the world that are the most
photographed. As we enter the tourist season this information is worth
considering. These locations are icons that represent a city, region or
country. They are must-see locations for any tourist visiting these
areas and are likely to appear in every travel, airline and hotel
promotion for the general location of these buildings. You’ll also find
them on calendars and postcards. There is great demand for these
subjects.
It’s no surprise to anyone in the stock photo business that average fees
for image use are declining. The questions are how much, what’s causing
the decline, can we make it up in volume and how can we turn it around?
ASMP’s Executive Director Eugene
Mopsik speaks out on the ASMP position relative to the new Getty Images photographer contract. ASMP has been carrying on a dialogue with
Getty for some years as a photographer advocate. While ASMP has had recent discussions
with Getty, substantive results in the best interests of photographers
have not been achieved. Therefore, ASMP believes that it is important
for photographers to stay knowledgeable about the changes in the market and to
be aware of options including changing distributors and self-marketing.
Universal Images Group Limited (UIG), the distribution business unit of
the Virtual Picture Desk (VPD), has entered into a long term agreement
with The British Library Board to represent their picture library
content for the online education market on a global and worldwide basis.
Stipple, a San Francisco-based technology company, has released a suite
of products that will turn editorial images into e-commerce storefronts
for consumers. The principle behind this new development is that
consumers often want to purchase something that is pictured in an
editorial image. It might be a T-shirt, a dress or the jeans a celebrity
is wearing; or a purse; or shoes; an electronic gadget; or golf clubs –
you get the idea. How does the consumer find the brand name of product
pictured and where to buy it
According to Tech Crunch
Getty Images has acquired competitor
The Photolibrary Group. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed and as of this writing no additional information is available on the Getty web site.