Agencies/Distributors
Rawpixel is an agency in the microstock arena that everyone in the stock photo business should be aware of. The company is headquartered in the UK, but its creative hub in Bangkok, Thailand. The company is the leading contributor to Shutterstock with over 1,000,000 pieces of content in the collection.
The Japanese microstock agency PIXTA which purchased Topic, a South Korean premium stock agency a couple years ago, has decided to make a business alliance with OGQ Co.,Ltd. in their "Naver OGQ Market." Naver is Korea's version of Yahoo or Google. The sales price for each image use will be 200 South Korean Won. This is equivalent to about
$0.18 in U.S. dollars.
Getty Images sent out the following notice to image suppliers yesterday. Be sure to also see
Getty Simplifying RM Exclusivity where I analyze the pros and cons of this plan for image creators. They said, "We will soon begin including a base level of Exclusivity into RM licenses called Market Freeze, which will allow customers exclusive use of an image for the combination of use, industry, geography, and duration of any commercial use license."
Will Getty’s move to simplifying RM Exclusivity be good for Image Creators? The following are several things RM contributors should think about. In particular, contributors who have co-exclusive agreements with Getty should question this new deal. See
Getty To Push Exclusive RM for the full release on this new program
Getty Images personnel are telling some stock agency image suppliers that in 3 to 5 years there will be no more Rights Managed licensing. Everything will be RF. Currently, only 21% of the images in Getty’s Creative collection are RM. That is down from
55% in 2007, the last time Getty supplied detailed figures on gross sales of the various collections. Getty is also putting pressure on individual photographers to switch their RM images to RF.
Back in 2007 I was called on to place a value on a collection of wildlife stock images that were involved in a legal action. At the time I based the per-image value on the “average annual return-per-image” of the
Getty Images collection. By dividing the gross 2006 RM revenue by the total RM images in the collection I determined that the average annual gross license fee for an
RM image was $335.
PantherMedia is now representing the work of the largest provider of 360 °/VR media provider, 360Cities. 360 °/VR media are ideal for use in education, publishing, advertising and film, as well as in the development of mobile apps and games. 360Cities has been curating high-quality, fully 360 ° interactive panoramic photos for over 10 years, working with thousands of passionate VR photographers and videographers from around the world.
Yesterday, I received a call from a travel photographer who recently started contributing his work to Getty Images. He has about 200 images from various locations around the world in the collection. He just received a sales report for 3 Premium Access sales, each for
royalties of under $1.00. He wanted to know who he could contact at Getty about such ridiculously low royalties.
Image creators need better information about the kind of content that is selling. Are customers looking at higher priced content? Can creators earn more money if their images are in a collection like Offset where images are licensed for much higher prices? Should creators produce more stills? Should they buy new equipment and start shooting video that sells for higher prices? Shutterstock’s
quarterly reports to investors aren’t very helpful in this regard.
Shutterstock has reported Q4 2018 revenue of
$162.1 million up $6.7% compared to Q4 2017. (The comparison excludes the 2017 revenue from Webdam which was divested in Q1 2018.) The revenue was also up $9.5 million from Q3 2018. Revenue per download averaged $3.40 per image, compared to $3.33 in Q4 2017. (Much of this growth is probably due to increased sales of video content offered at much higher prices than still image content.)
Shutterstock will report its fourth quarter 2018 numbers on February 26, 2019. If the last three years are any indication, it is unlikely that there will be much evidence of additional sales growth. I’ve put together a chart of quarter-by-quarter sales since the beginning of 2014. The chart offers some interesting insights, particularly in regard to what has been happening in the last three years since the beginning of 2016.
We missed the announcement last December that
Mint Images had signed a worldwide exclusive distribution agreement with Spaces Images to represent the over 15,000 images its collection. These images are now available for direct licensing from Mint Images, and through Mint’s distribution partners around the world.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California recently granted Google's motion to dismiss the antitrust claim filed by
Dreamstime.com LLC but allowed claims of breach of contract and breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing to move forward.
Sources tell me that Getty is demanding that U.S. agencies with RM images in its collection make those RM images fully exclusive through gettyimages.com. Otherwise Getty will terminate the Agreement. One theory for doing this is that Getty wants to be able to grant exclusive licenses through e-commerce sales. If Getty knows they have total control of a given image, then they would be able to grant exclusive licenses without the need to do any checking with the parent agency that represents the image to see if exclusive rights are available. This would be similar to the arrangement that Stocksy has with its photographers.
As of 1 September 2018, Mint Images obtained worldwide distribution rights for The Londolozi Photography Collection. Both companies are very excited to be working together. The collection is available for direct licensing from
Mint Images, and through Mint’s distribution partners around the world.
Shutterstock has published its eighth annual
2019 Creative Trends Report. This year’s eleven design styles, many of which echo the past in a playful and in a decadent way, predict the top influences for design and visual production in 2019.
Paris based photo agency
ABACAPRESS and German
ddp group, each a leading press
photo agency in their country, will join forces to increase photo production for their
core business, and to develop innovative services for new markets and corporate
brands.
Shutterstock has announced it is launching its first brand marketing campaign in six years. The
‘It’s not stock, it’s ShutterstockTM’ message is designed to showcase the unparalleled quality and depth of Shutterstock’s creative asset repository driven by more than 550,000 contributors from around the globe, as well as highlight the proprietary search and discovery technologies that inspire the creative professionals who use Shutterstock to find the perfect asset every time.
Aurora Photos has been sold to
Cavan Images. The official transition date is Feb 1, 2019. Aurora was founded in 1993 as an agency specializing in offering images related to Outdoor Adventure, Healthy and Active Lifestyles, Nature’s Beauty and remote travel to adventure destinations.
In response to the article I
published last week where I suggested that what is needed is a system that enables photographers to deal directly with customers Macintosh Smith commented “Isn’t this what
PhotographersDirect.com has tried to establish?" Photographers Direct is a good first step, but in my opinion it has some major flaws. Consequently, I suspect it is generating very little traffic.
Sometimes companies get so anxious to promote themselves that they announce new programs before they are actually functioning properly or ready for release. Last week
Dreamstime announced its “New Reverse Image Search” and said it “makes finding the perfect stock image a snap.”
Bridgeman Images is very excited to announce that, thanks to the partnership between Mondadori Portfolio and the Ambrosiana, Bridgeman now represent the amazing
Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana collection, which is comprised of over 6,000 images and contains some of the most important works of literature and fine art in the world.
Image Source has completed its second move this year to its now permanent residence at 66 Old Compton Street – the former home of a cardinal London creative icon, Rushes Post-Production House - right in the heart of Soho. The move to a larger and more modern creative space is the first of many new initiatives for the premium agency which was bought back by its Founder, Christina Vaughan together with professional Investor and successful businessman, Michael Jackson at the beginning of 2018.
We’re entering that period when stock agencies publish assessments of future creative trends for the coming year. Adobe has recently published its
2019 Creative Trend Report. Such reports are designed to provide image creators with the agency’s best guess as to the new types of imagery that may be needed.
Alamy has announced that early next year they will be lowering the royalty rate from 50% to 40%. Early in January they will send all contributors an official announcement signaling the beginning of the standard 45-day notice period before a new contract change goes into effect. The new royalty rate is expected to take effect in February 2019.