Continuing the tradition it established last year, iStockphoto gave out $40,000 in cash and prizes. The company also let exclusive contributors keep 100% of the royalties--over $200,000--generated by their images on Monday.
Companies that previously specialized in royalty-free licensing are now asking photographers to offer their new production as rights-managed content. Photographers are questioning whether or not this is a wise idea. Photographers worry that customers will not go to RF companies to buy RM--and if they do, they may not be willing to pay RM prices.
In 2007 I proposed a pricing strategy that combines the rights managed
theory of pricing based on usage and the simplicity of microstock and
its ability to license rights for very small uses for fees of a few
dollars. The system is described in a 12 page booklet. I call the
strategy Modified Right Ready.
When discussing content piracy, industry insiders often say that nine out of 10 images are used inappropriately--that is, without payment for a license or in violation of its terms. Though the idea of educating the public on the nature of copyright is raised at industry events, such education is not often part of routine business activities for stock photographers or agencies. Perhaps it should be. An iStockphoto-commissioned survey of 1,000 Americans shows that a third use downloaded content, and practically all such users--27% of 33%--are unaware of needing permission.
A survey of major U.S. marketers, conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, found that 87% have cut back on marketing and advertising spending. Over 50% expect to further reduce spending by the end of the year.
According to PhotoShelter, which now represents 42,000 photographers from over 160 countries, image buyers frequently request the ability to purchase hard-copy photographic prints. Today, the company launched PhotoShelter Prints in response to these requests.
The Metadata Image Library Exploitation Project will conduct an all-day seminar, "Speaking in Tongues," in London on Oct. 3. The seminar will include discussion and workshops on multilingual thesauri that can make image collections widely available internationally.
The rationale for royalty-free licensing used to be to provide the customer with three benefits: a simple, straightforward price that didn't require negotiation, unlimited use of the purchased image and a low cost. As this marketing concept has matured, all of these ideas have been lost.
Rob Haggart, the former director of photography for
Men's Journal and
Outside Magazine, has launched A Photo Folio, a service that promises to build photographer Web sites from a client perspective.