Agencies/Distributors
Jon Oringer, CEO of Shutterstock, has written a very
interesting piece about why being exclusive with one distributor doesn’t work for microstock photographers. I agree with his conclusion, but disagree with one of his major arguments.
The ever increasing demand for instant and breaking news images and the huge improvement in the quality of phone and compact camera photographs has prompted
Alamy to begin accepting photographs for its Live News service from mobile (cell) phone cameras and compact cameras.
In the growing clamor and uproar about the free images available through Google Drive Rick Becker-Leckrone, CEO of Blend Images, made some points on the
Stockphoto blog that are worth examining. See the
previous article for more background.
This is the third in a series of articles on the image collection that is available to Google Drive users. (It looks like there may be many more articles as more details unfold.) To see the first two articles go
here and
here. This is not just a microstock issue. Hundreds of traditionally priced RF images are involved.
iStock has provided an explanation on Google Drive issues described in my
previous post. The following was posted on the iStock forum late yesterday.
Sean Locke (one of iStock’s highest earning contributors) discovered recently that some of his best selling images are now available on GoogleDrive for
FREE. There is a major thread in the
iStock forum. I’ll try to summarize what seems to be known so far.
In observance of its 5-year anniversary of Reportage by Getty Images the company has put together a collection of some of the most compelling photojournalism shot by Getty photographers. See this anniversary gallery
(http://www.reportagebygettyimages.com/news/).
Recently there has been a lot of talk in the U.S. press that “uncertainty” is the reason why the recovery is jobless, why businesses are sitting on billions in cash and why business leaders are cautious about expansion into new ventures. Uncertainty is also a major problem for stock photographers.
Recently several subscribers have asked questions, the answers to which might be of interest to all subscribers. So I’ve decided to share the questions and my answers here.
Getty photographer are complaining that their images aren’t being seen because over 365,360 iStock Exclusive+ images have been placed on the Getty site and are being given search return order preference. iStock photographers are complaining because images from various Getty brands are being pushed into The Agency Collection on iStock. TAC now contains at least 58,546 images.
At the end of 2012 the 423 had a combined total of 1,601,662 images on the iStock site and had grown their collections by 216,191 images (about 13%) during the year. However, it is interesting how this uploading breaks down. The top 20 uploaded 74,399 images (34% of the total). See their upload totals here.
The number of downloads from iStockphoto may have declined by 46% in 2012 compared to 2011 and almost 56% since 2010. This story explains in detail how we arrived at this figure and provides specific trend information on 194 of iStock's leading contributors.
If contributor attitudes as expressed on web forums are any indication iStockphoto is headed downhill fast. Most of the discussion seems to be taking place on the
iStock official forum and at
Microstock Group. In this article I’ll try to examine the issues and summarize some of the points being made by various contributors.
There is a continual drive in the stock photography world to produce more images. But more images don’t necessarily result in more revenue – particularly if prices are continually lowered in an effort to try to license those images.
I’ve been asked, “What’s the average price that stock images are being licensed for today?” Most RM and traditional RF image contributors would agree that on average fees have been steadily declining over the last few years. The question is how much. In the last few weeks I have gathered sales data from a few of Getty’s Image Partners and major individual contributors. While this survey is in no way scientific, I believe I can draw some reasonable conclusions about the degree of the decline.
As we near the end of 2012, I’ve just received a copy of Alamy’s financial statement for 2011 that was filed with
Companies House in the UK in August of this year. In 2011 Alamy’s gross turnover was £14,853,670 (about $22,913,400). This was up $1,042,600 (about 4.8%) from $21,870,800 in 2010. However,
2009 revenue was $22,864,000 so in 2011 they were barely able to climb back from 2010's lost sales.
Due to an urgent need for North American imagery produced with a fresh approach
Image Source has announced that they will be offering a royalty rate of 60% for all imagery produced in North America and accepted between Dec 1st 2012 and through to Dec 31st 2013. The bonus royalty rate will apply for the lifetime of those images”, added Anthony Harris, the Group’s Chief Operating Officer.
What are the photographic and illustration subjects that clients look for most often? Recently, iStockphoto surveyed its customers and asked them to identify the subject categories that they searched for most frequently in 2012. See the
iStockphoto infographic.
Shutterstock has reported revenue of $42.3 million for the third quarter, a 36% increase over Q3 2011. The company expects to generate revenue of $44 to $45 million in the fourth quarter. Based on that projection revenue for 2012 will be between $164 and $168 million, up $44.7 million compared to the 2011 revenue of $120.3 million. This will be a 37% increase in revenue for the year.
Alamy has announced that beginning in January 2013 they will be reducing contributor royalty for direct and distributor sales by 10%. The new terms will be: Alamy Blue: Alamy commission 50%, Contributor commission 50% for Alamy Blue sales and 40% to the Distributor, 30% to Alamy, 30% to the Contributor for distributor sales.
A sure sign that camera phone images have become mainstream in the commercial image world is the announcement by Blend Images that it has added Memento, a new camera phone stock image collection, to its offering. Memento will feature strongly conceptual and illustrative commercial content and will be available for licensing at
www.blendimages.com and stock resellers worldwide in early 2013.
A photographer recently asked if I could point her to a chart that shows what royalty percentage each stock distributors pays its photographers so she could better determine which offered the best deal. She added, “I recognize that there were a number of factors involved -- home territories, partner agents, image collections, number of photographer’s images licensed, rights managed, traditional royalty free, microstock – so hopefully the chart would take all these factors into consideration.”
Alamy has launched Alamy iQ, a service designed to help customers better manage all the visual assets they own or have licensed rights to use. Alamy iQ will be particularly beneficial to global organizations that have people sourcing visual assets from many locations for a variety of uses. It will complement or replace existing asset management systems, help speed decision making and eliminate risk.
Bigstock, a subsidiary of Shutterstock, has announced a new API program along with two world-class partners:
CafePress Inc., The World's Customization Engine™, and
Emma an email marketing provider. These partners will utilize Bigstock's recently released API to provide their customers with access to Bigstock's expansive library of professional, commercially licensable
photographs and illustrations.
Today more than a quarter of all photos taken are taken on smartphones. No longer is the mobile phone just a communication device. Now users can take pictures with their phones anywhere, anytime without worrying about heavy equipment or camera settings. As of this month
Dreamstime has started accepting both editorial and commercial pictures that are shot using a mobile phone.