Shutterstock has won the most images race with
Alamy. Shutterstock now has more than 60 million royalty-free images in its collection in addition to 3 million video and music clips for a total of over 63 million pieces of content.
Alamy has 61,548,753 stock photos, vectors and videos and is adding over 50,000 new pieces of content a day. Shutterstock is adding 55,000 new pieces of content daily.
To mark the 60 million milestone, Shutterstock has created a tongue-twisting tribute to its contributors and customers. Entitled ‘
A is for the Artist’, the music video is a celebration of creativity made in collaboration with rapper Paul Yutaka, himself a designer and filmmaker.
“Shutterstock is the home of storytellers - photographers, illustrators, videographers and musicians. Together, our contributors spark the imaginations and provide inspiration to creative professionals around the world,” said Paul Brennan, VP Content Operations and Contributor Success at Shutterstock.
How Do More Images Affect Contributors
Microstockgroup regularly
polls contributors and Shutterstock’s earning rating of 86.5 is down significantly from November 2014. Many contributors trying to produce new and better quality work think it is impossible to keep up with the current flood of images.
One Microstockgroup contributor points out that, “lots of contributors shoot the same object in countless different positions and angles. Then they have 5 different subjects, each having 50 different photo variations and then you have 250 images that look almost identical. Add thousands of contributors that are doing the same (on all the most popular subjects) and here you go, hundreds of thousands of photos each week.”
The oversupply gives customers more choice, but the odds of any given image being licensed declines.