Articles by Jim Pickerell
Getty Images has contacted Veer contributors to explain what will happen to their imagery as a result of the
sale of Corbis to VCG. Their imagery will not be integrated into the Getty Images collection. Veer contributors may apply to iStock for possible upload of their content there. The memo says:
Pond5 has improved its systems for searching and finding the right video clip or image. In addition, it has introduced a Membership offering that provides significant saving for customers who pay monthly or annual subscription fees.
A photographer recently asked if I could explain why
Shutterstock is making such an aggressive effort to grow its collection. Currently, the company over 77 million images in its collection and is adding over 800,000 new images a week. As far as I can tell Shutterstock believes their customers want more and more choice not only in subject matter, but in newer, more updated images.
Shutterstock has reported Q4 2015 revenue of $115.9 million and a total of $425.1 million in revenue for all of 2015. The full year revenue was up about 30% from $328 million in 2014. Approximately, $8.6 million of the annual revenue was generated by Rex Features and PremiumBeat that were acquired during Q1 2015, and the impact of foreign currency exchanges. Excluding these contributions to revenue the company’s revenue growth was approximately 27% in 2015 down from 39% in the previous year.
The Good News -- Getty has started offering some Corbis contributors who also have an existing contract with Getty the chance to have their Corbis images migrated to Getty.
The Bad News – One contributor was earning a 40% royalty on his Non-Exclusive RM contract with Corbis. Now Getty has offered him an agreement that gives him a 25% royalty.
Tomas Speight has joined
Panther Media GmbH as Chief Executive Officer. He will initiate a drive to grow the business into a global presence. Panther Media has a range of initiates relating to clients, international partnerships, as well as new content lines that will be launched in the near future. Further innovations beneficial to both photographers and clients are in the pipeline.
Many photographers who used to earn hundreds, and even thousands, of dollars for the use of one of their images think Shutterstock, and Microstock in general, are killing the stock photo business. Some Shutterstock contributors are even beginning to ask the same question. A reader recently asked for my analysis of why Shutterstock’s continued addition to its collection of over 700,000 new images a week won’t “drown it’s customers and risk losing its best contributors.”
Getty Images has sent Corbis contributors the following information about the migration of Corbis material to Getty representation. While some questions have been answered there are still a number of issues that are not clear.
The three public companies in the stock photo industry –
Getty Image, Shutterstock and
AdobeStock -- face major challenges that will probably be impossible for them to overcome. Adobe is the possible exception because it can approach the stock image side of its business as a loss-leader that supports the other 98% of its business.
Another leading global market research company,
Technavio, headquartered in London, has taken a look at the
global still image market and concluded that it will exceed USD 4 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of over 7%.