Articles by Jim Pickerell
A reader wrote recently that he believes
Shutterstock’s efforts to add huge quantities of image to its collection, as I discussed in recent
article, is a “calculated plan” to eventually eliminate the need for photographers. He believes that by “feeding these images into their AI machines they will be able to learn exactly what their customers want.” Then, it is his contention, that Shutterstock will be able to “deliver custom made images (which Shutterstock would create) to clients.” He argues that ”this would just be machine work and there would no longer be a need for image makers or even computer graphic designers.”
For ten years between 2007 and .2017
Visual Connections operated a fall expo in New York where visual media users could meet and network with stock agencies, artist reps, production companies, clearance and other service providers. There were also seminars about the business of sourcing and using visual media. They closed down their operation in 2017. On Tuesday, June 25, 2019
imageMarketplace New York 2019 (a London based company) will launch a new event with similar goals for influencers in the world of visual content.
One of the big questions for
Shutterstock is whether they can continue to grow the Enterprise segment of their business and how important that is to the eventual success of the company. In 2016 and 2017 they touted the success of Enterprise, but over the last 12 months Enterprise growth has been slowing and sales overall seem to be flattening.
Shutterstock has announced the launch of its new self-serve API subscription plans. For the first time, developers, startups, and small and mid-sized businesses can build products and features that seamlessly integrate Shutterstock’s image collection and enable in-app image reselling, providing an additional revenue stream for customers when their end-users license and download images.
The CASE Act (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement) was first introduced in 2017, but the bill expired without being passed at the end of the last Congress, as is the normal process for all bills not passed. On May 1, 2019 the bill was re-introduced in both the House and the Senate.
Selling-Stock has managed to gather more information about what has been happening at VCG. According to sources sometime after the Corbis acquisition VCG decided to copy Getty’s Premium Access strategy and launch a PA plan of its own. In addition to all the Getty and Corbis creative and editorial images, the iStock images are also available to the customers who purchase a PA plan.
On April 26, 2019, the Fourth Circuit Court overturned a Northern Virginia District Court decision that allowed Violent Hues Productions, LLC’s to use a cropped version of a photo to promote a Film and Music Festival without compensation to the creator. Violent Hues had made no effort to request permission or compensate photographer Russell Brammer for the use and claimed “Fair Use” in court. (See
July 2018 story.)
It is less than one month until the annual
CEPIC Congress convenes in Paris on June 5 thru 7, 2019. Each year this event is the single most important meeting of people from all over the world who are engaged in the picture licensing industry.
On May 9, 2019 Mark Milstein will be offering a seminar in New York on Time-based Metadata: The Key to Video Discoverability and Content Immortality. The presentation will be at B&H Photo. Click
here to register. You can also watch online.
ACSIL and
Thriving Archives have completed their fourth
Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies (AGS4) since 2007 and estimate worldwide stock footage revenue in 2018 at $570 million, more than double what it was in
2007. Data for the survey launched in July 2018 was collected from 84 of the estimated 415 footage licensing companies worldwide.