Agencies/Distributors

Eleven Year Shutterstock Growth Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 729 Words | Posted 2/11/2021 | Comments
The chart below allows you to easily track the growth trends of Shutterstock quarter-by-quarter over the last 11-years and see the number of images in the collection, number of downloads and the gross quarterly revenue at the end of each quarter. You can also see the average revenue-per-download and revenue-per-image-in-the-collection trends.

Shutterstock Q4 2020 Financial Results

By Jim Pickerell | 1851 Words | Posted 2/11/2021 | Comments
Shutterstock has reported Q4 2020 revenue of $180.9 million up 9% compared to $166.4 million in Q4 2019 and up from $165.2 million the previous quarter. Revenue per download was $3.91 per-image compared to $3.44 in Q4 2019 and $3.79 the previous quarter. The average revenue per download for all of 2020 was $3.68 compared with $3.43 for all of 2019.

Who Is Behind Wirestock.io? Founders, Funding and Places

By Robert Kneschke | 719 Words | Posted 12/21/2020 | Comments
After my article a few days ago about Wirestock's questionable deal with Freepik, I got some comments and pointers that I want to summarize here.

How Oringer Could Improve Creator Compensation

By Jim Pickerell | 506 Words | Posted 12/16/2020 | Comments
If Jon Oringer of Shutterstock donated his annual salary of $4,598,580 to image creators who produce the products Shutterstock licenses, and divided it among creators based on the number of images licensed, how would that benefit image creators?

Don’t Reveal Your Shutterstock Earnings To Anyone

By Jim Pickerell | 559 Words | Posted 12/7/2020 | Comments
Shutterstock doesn’t want their contributors revealing how much – or how little – they earn. Presumably, this is because they believe that if contributors knew how little they might receive for the imagery they submit they wouldn’t bother to submit anything.

HOsiHO Issues Call To Image Banks

By Jim Pickerell | 231 Words | Posted 12/7/2020 | Comments
According to aerial stock agency HOsiHO it is becoming harder and harder for video images creators to earn enough to support themselves. See its appeal to Stock Image Banks here. There has been a decline in assignments and prices for the use of video clips have declined so much that professional independent videographers are finding it difficult to justify continued production.

Consumer vs Middlemen vs Workers

By Jim Pickerell | 1939 Words | Posted 12/5/2020 | Comments
There are many businesses where one or more “middlemen” are needed between producer of the product and consumers. Digital technology is making it increasingly possible to reduce, or eliminate, the need for middlemen in many industries. When this is possible (assuming the technology developer doesn’t take a disproportionate share of the price the customer pays) the creators of the product can get a fairer share of the amount the consumer is willing to pay and has more control over the price charged for the work performed. This can benefit consumers as well as producers by giving them more direct access to the creators of the product they want to use.

GLAAD and Getty Images Offer Guidelines For Photographing LGBTQ Community

By Jim Pickerell | 380 Words | Posted 12/2/2020 | Comments
Getty Images has announced an exclusive partnership with GLAAD, the LGBTQ media advocacy organization, working together to challenge harmful and cliched visual stereotypes of the LGBTQ community, through the launch of their first collaborative effort, a set of guidelines aimed at improving the visual representation of the transgender community. As part of a broader commitment, this new partnership encourages the creation of authentic, diverse imagery and videography, aiming to empower the media and advertising industries to choose visuals which authentically represent the LGBTQ community.

Ways Agencies Could Improve Sales

By Jim Pickerell | 1068 Words | Posted 11/20/2020 | Comments
A number of stock agencies are complaining that they don’t get enough new submissions of in demand imagery. See here. They are seeing increasing requests for "diversity," "African American," "Black Lives Matter" and say that images showing more minorities and ethnic groups are needed.  For the most part they are very unspecific about what these images should show.

Shutterstock 2021 Color Trends Report

By Jim Pickerell | 264 Words | Posted 11/20/2020 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has announced its 2021 Color Trends  report. By analyzing pixel data from the year’s top downloads and mapping each pixel color to a HEX code, the report reveals the three fastest-growing colors that will tell the story of 2021, as well as local favorites from around the world.

National Geographic Image Collection Closes

By Jim Pickerell | 486 Words | Posted 11/16/2020 | Comments
The National Geographic Image Collection, owned by The Walt Disney Company, is scheduled to close effective December 22, 2020. National Geographic was sold to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox for $725 million in 2015. In March 2019 Fox was sold to Disney and Murdoch and his family became the second largest shareholders.

Shutterstock Acquires Amper Music

By Jim Pickerell | 293 Words | Posted 11/13/2020 | Comments
Shutterstock has announced the buyout of AI-driven music platform Amper Music for an undisclosed sum. The move adds to a growing trend of stock image sites getting involved in rights-free music. Earlier this year, Adobe inked a deal to carry rights-free music catalogs from both Epidemic Sound and Jamendo, while Getty Images also hosts a royalty-free music library by Epidemic Sound.

Creative Insights From Adobe

By Jim Pickerell | 276 Words | Posted 10/29/2020 | Comments
Adobe Stock has released Adobe Stock Creative Insights, a data report revealing information collected from Adobe Analytics on 149+ million U.S. visits and millions of asset uploads to Adobe Stock between January 2019 and September 2020. As recently revealed in Adobe’s State of Creativity survey, 91% of creatives admit that COVID-19 and nationwide protests have inspired them to incorporate real-world issues into their work, with 87% reevaluating the subject matter of stock imagery in campaigns.

Shutterstock Q3 2020 Financial Results

By Jim Pickerell | 990 Words | Posted 10/27/2020 | Comments
Shutterstock has reported Q3 2020 revenue of $165.2 million up 4% compared to $159.1 million in Q2 2019 and down from $159.2 million the previous quarter. Revenue per download was $3.79 per-image compared to $3.40 in Q3 2019 and $3.61 the previous quarter. Total image and video downloads for Q3 were 43.4 million compared to 46.3 million a year earlier and down from 44 million from the previous quarter. At the end of the quarter Shutterstock had over 350 million images and 20 million video clips in its collection, for a total of 370 million pieces of content.

Adobe Launches Free Stock Image Collection

By Jim Pickerell | 1072 Words | Posted 10/14/2020 | Comments
Adobe Stock has launched a Free Stock Image Collection containing about 70K images (50K pictures, 15K Vectors and 6K video). The first version has been built from the work of a few top contributors who have a significant volume of images in the main collection.

Dreamstime Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary

By Jim Pickerell | 400 Words | Posted 9/25/2020 | Comments
Dreamstime has announced the start of a celebratory month to mark its 20th anniversary this September. Dreamstime.com was registered in 2000 and disrupted the stock photography market by lowering prices manifold and enabling many photographers to join the industry. In 2004, it gained a top 3 position and has continued to experience sustained and rapid growth, evolving from a handful of photos to featuring 145+ million files in its online library and employing its own proprietary AI, PhotoEye, for filtering the now steady 3 million monthly approvals in 2020.

Changing Stock Imagery Market

By Jim Pickerell | 258 Words | Posted 9/24/2020 | Comments
In an effort to better understand how the global pandemic and cultural movements have impacted the stock imagery industry, Adobe surveyed 600 global creatives in July 2020. Creators feel challenged in today’s creative environment, and 82% of respondents believe 2020 has forever changed the way they will create.

Premium Access Pricing

By Jim Pickerell | 916 Words | Posted 9/11/2020 | Comments
A Getty Images photographer asked if I could explain how Getty calculates its Premium Access (PA) deals where prices for image use vary widely? He pointed out that on his most recent statement he had a number of PA sales for $0.11 and one for $286.00. The vast majority of PA sales (roughly 60% of all sales) are near the low end, but there are also occasional extreme outliers.

Analysis Of Adobe Stock Portfolios

By Robert Kneschke | 1249 Words | Posted 8/21/2020 | Comments
In June German photographer Robert Kneschke did an indepth analysis of the portfolios on the Fotolia website. Adobe displays all the images it represents on both the Adobe Stock and Fotolia websites, but less information is displayed on Adobe. The following information should be an accurate picture of what can be found on Adobe Stock as well as Fotolia.

Shutterstock Public Offering

By Jim Pickerell | 351 Words | Posted 8/14/2020 | Comments
On Wednesday Shutterstock announced a public offering of 2,580,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $48.50 per share. Of this total 2,064,000 of the shares are owned by Jon Oringer (Shutterstock's Founder, Executive Chairman of the Board. The other 516,000 shares are owned by the company. Mr. Oringer will net $100,104,000 from the sale of his shares and the company will earn $25,026,000 from its sale of 516,000 shares bringing the total for the public offering to $125,130,000.

What Kind Of Images Are In Demand?

By Jim Pickerell | 1220 Words | Posted 8/11/2020 | Comments
If you would like insight into the kind of images that are in demand and what you should be shooting you might want to take a look at AdobeStock. Adobe offers some features other major agencies don’t. Exploring the site could help you decide what kind of images might earn the most money for you.

Getty “Market Freeze” Update

By Jim Pickerell | 175 Words | Posted 8/11/2020 | Comments
After publishing our article “Getty’s RF ‘Market Freeze’: Expensive Customer Mess?"  I received the following clarifying message from Matthew McKibben, Getty Images, PR Manager in The Americas. He said:

Getty’s RF “Market Freeze": Expensive Customer Mess?

By Robert Kneschke | 853 Words | Posted 8/7/2020 | Comments
Getty Images offers customers anything they want,  but their decisions don't  always seem well thought out. In November 2019, Getty Images ended the "right managed" license model, with which image buyers were able to buy, among other things, exclusive image rights for certain regions, industries, etc., which they called the "Market Freeze" feature.

Stock Photography: Is Volume The Answer?

By Jim Pickerell | 1402 Words | Posted 7/29/2020 | Comments
I can remember when I was primarily an assignment photographer and occasionally sold outtakes from assignments on the side. Most of the income I needed to support my family came from assignments. Stock sales gave us a little extra. Demand for stock started to grow and it became harder for me to get assignments as I was working in an area where the competition was stiff from a lot of top quality experienced photographers. Buyers wanted to pay a little less than it cost to do an assignment. They liked having instant access to the stock image they needed and not having to spend a lot of their time organizing assignment shoots.

Shutterstock Q2 2020 Financial Results

By Jim Pickerell | 1453 Words | Posted 7/28/2020 | Comments
Shutterstock has reported Q2 2020 revenue of $159.2 million down 2% compared to $161.7 million in Q2 2019 and down from $161.3 million the previous quarter. Revenue per download was $3.61 per-image compared to $3.44 in Q2 2019 and $3.42 the previous quarter. Total image and video downloads for Q2 were 44 million compared to 46.6 million a year earlier and down from 46.8 million from the previous quarter. At the end of the quarter Shutterstock had over 340 million images and 19 million video clips in its collection,