Agencies/Distributors
The CEPIC Congress in Barcelona June 10 – 14, 2013 attracts stock agents from around the world. Pricing will be one of the key issues discussed – specifically falling prices and the impact they are having on stock agencies and professional photographers. I posed a series of questions to a few industry leaders. This story is a response from Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of
age fotostock.
Last summer Getty Images launched an API initiative called Connect by Getty Images that made it possible for then to collect a share of the advertising revenue when an ad appears on a page where a Getty Image is shown. One of the first companies to use the API was Yahoo. In the February statements Getty is reporting royalties from some of the early pay-per-view deals. The numbers being reported have alarmed a number of Getty’s contributors.
Bruce Livingstone founder of iStockphoto has launched
Stocksy.com. Stocksy has been designed as a co-op and pays photographers a 50% royalty on each sale. At the end of the year, the company divides 90% of its profits equally among contributors and other shareholders.
Alamy’s new website is the latest step in the company’s efforts to improve the online experience for creative and editorial customers. The company has taken a phased approach to the site re-design and is initially launching with a new homepage, search results, image pop-up and lightbox tool.
Depositphotos has created
Clashot.com, a platform that allows image creators using mobile devices to share their images and potentially earn revenue from some of them.
After 56 years in the stock photography business, Photo Researchers Inc. has re-branded itself as Science Source®, a name which they feel "better reflects our primary focus on science, medicine, natural history, space and technology."
In the digital age there is declining interest among consumers and advertisers in print publications. Investors have little confidence that there will ever be a recovery or revival of print. They want the companies they invest in to shed marginally profitable assets and focus on the much more profitable businesses of film and television. Publishers like Time Warner are looking for ways to reduce their print publication exposure and concentrate their investments on assets that offer better growth potential.
Pond5 Inc. has acquired the assets of Pixmac, a leading stock imagery network based in the Czech Republic. With millions of stock photos and illustrations distributed in 17 languages and in multiple currencies, the acquisition of Pixmac accelerates Pond5’s strategy to offer a global marketplace where media makers can connect with fellow artists.
For the third consecutive year,
Corbis will be the exclusive media broadcast partner of the LOOK3 festival in Charlottesville, Virginia from June 13-15. The festival is designed to bring together the international photography community, creating opportunities for attendees and artists to share images, ideas and inspiration.
Eric Charbonneau, a renowned entertainment photographer with over 25 years of experience, today signed with
Invision, the multimedia entertainment agency jointly owned by
The Associated Press and some of the world's leading entertainment photographers.
Over two million preview clips from over forty top footage collections are now available through Footage.net (
www.footage.net). By partnering with many of the world’s most prestigious footage companies, including Getty Images, FootageBank, Framepool, CNN ImageSource and Shutterstock, Footage.net has grown rapidly to become one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive online stock footage databases, and a powerful production resource.
In its quarterly conference call Shutterstock reported revenue of
$169.2 million for the full year of 2012, a 41% increase over the $120.3 million in 2011. Fourth quarter revenue was $49.2 million, a 42% increase over Q4 2011. Looking ahead, the company expects to see revenue of between $48.5 and $50.5 million in Q1 2013, and for the full year revenue in the range of
$213 to $219 million. Shutterstock stock (SSTK) closed at $32.88, up 17.22% on Friday.
Image Source has announced the dates and locations of its latest series of
photographer workshops, starting in London on March 12, 2013 and ending in Los Angeles on March 21st with additional workshops in Copenhagen, Milan, Munich and New York.
Universal Images Group Limited (UIG), has extended its regional content management facilities by opening offices in Florence, Italy and Sydney, Australia. UIG already has such facilities in Chelmsford, Essex and London in the UK, as well as Chicago and New York, and a video editing studio in Anchorage. The new facilities are managed by experienced editors with college degrees in art history and prior long term services with Alinari, and Photolibrary.
Most photographers are focused on how much they can charge for their images. The higher the price the happier they are. This is true, not just of RM photographers who want to retain the ability to negotiate on every sale depending on the importance and significance of the usage. It is also true of Microstock photographers as their distributors continue to push up prices. (Check out
this story.)
Many photographers that license their images at RM and traditional RF prices still believe microstock images are being licensed for $1.00. For the most part nothing could be further from the truth. Consider these price comparisons for images on 7 different microstock sites with the average price for an RM or RF sale on Getty Images. You'll be surprised!
Several major image producers that license their work through microstock distributors have told me that their revenue from
iStockphoto (IS),
Fotolia (FT) and
Dreamstime (DT) was down 25% to 30% in 2012 compared to 2011. What’s more, based on current trends they are predicting 2013 revenue will be down 35% to 45% compared to 2011.
Getty has given Sean Locke and Rob Sylvan notice that their iStockphoto contracts will be terminated in 30 days. Locke is one of the 5 top iStockphoto contributors with over 12,000 images in his collection and close to a million downloads of his images. Sylvan is author of “Taking Stock,” worked on the iStock staff for many years and has helped thousands of photographers build and improve their microstock businesses.
The Global Stock Image Market Research Group (GSIMRG) in Heidelberg, Germany has just released a
report on the extensive study of the stock photo industry that it conducted in 2012. They concluded that the stock photo industry generated $2.88 billion in revenue in 2012. Based on their figures I think image licensing is much less. Their report, and my commentary in this article, is a must read for anyone engaged in the stock photo business.
Image Source has re-launched its photographer resource blog, IMSO (
http://www.imagesource.com/blog/), as part of its continued commitment to support photographers. Since early 2011 IMSO has provided industry trending information for photographers and image buyers. Following increasing popularity and success, Image Source took the decision to re-launch IMSO as a dedicated professional photographer resource featuring photography trends, tips, reviews and interviews with leading industry figures.
Serban Enache, CEO of Dreamstime has explained in a
blog post how Google’s new image search techniques make it more likely that unauthorized use of your images will increase. Every image producer should read this story.
Mobile photography has made huge strides in a short time. Customers are using images shot with mobile devices. Image distributors are accepting mobile images into their collections. And the quality improves with each new generation of phones. iStockphoto has just published list of
mobile photography tips that will help photographers produce images of commercial quality with their mobile devices.
There is increasing dissatisfaction among iSockphoto contributors as a result of
Googlegate, and other recent moves by iStock. Many of the approximately 5,000 exclusive contributors are exploring the option of giving up their exclusive and placing their images on multiple web sites. Shutterstock is actively pursuing iStock exclusive contributors and has created a direct email address,
wbva@fuhggrefgbpx.pbz, to guide them through the signup and approval process.
Pond5 has announced today its public release of the new version “v2” of its website. The site offers a dramatically improved experience for both customers and contributors, giving filmmakers, photographers, musicians, 3D artists, and all kinds of media makers a place to connect with fellow artists, sell their stock media, and purchase high-quality content for their productions.
Many who license their images at Rights Managed or traditional Royalty Free prices believe it is impossible to earn significant revenue licensing images at microstock prices. This article offers some comparative analysis.