As Selling Stock posited in January, iStockphoto's first quarter seems to confirm that microstock has reached a plateau. Our analysis reveals that a group of the company's top shooters are experiencing a slight drop in average downloads compared to the end of 2009.
In January we published an analysis
of the units licensed in 2009 by a group of iStockphoto’s most
successful contributors and asked the question “Has Microstock Reached
a Plateau?” The first quarter 2010 results seem to confirm this is the case. As a
baseline, on June 1, 2009 we did a count of the total number of images
licensed in May 2009 by a group of 196 out of the 250 top selling iStock
contributors. (Information on some of the top 250 was not available.)
There were 442,533 images licensed by this group in that month. Average monthly sales were up only 5% by the end of 2009, but they were down 1% to only 3.9% by the end of March 2010. See the full analysis and the implications for the future.
The Obama administration, through the offices of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel, has recently requested input from interested parties as to how piracy and copyright infringement is affecting the economy. The deadline for filing was March 24. Virtually all photographer trade associations and many other interested parties submitted reports and made recommendations for change.
There seems to be a misunderstanding as to why a two-tier pricing system is in the best interest of all photographers regardless of whether they currently license their work as rights-managed, traditional royalty-free or microstock. The two-tier pricing system is not just another pricing model. Its whole purpose is for all images to be made available to all customers at appropriate prices, depending on how the customer intends to use the image.
I am tired of seeing rights-managed sellers refer to microstock as $1 images. That is not what most people are paying, particularly those personal users who buy very few pictures. Actual prices are substantially higher, even for the smallest, Web-use only file sizes.
There is a persistent idea among many image creators that a photographer somehow devalues his work if he ever licenses it for low prices. Yet recent years have shown that volume can be as significant a factor as price, and there are numerous other considerations.
If stock photography as a profession is going to survive, we are going to have to find a way to develop a two-tier pricing system. One tier would be for commercial use of images, and the other for personal and small use.
After publishing my article on a Two-Tier Pricing System I’ve had a
series of discussions with several photographers. There seems to be some
general misunderstanding as to why I think such a system is in the best
interest of all photographers regardless of whether they currently
license their work as rights-managed (RM), traditional royalty-free (RF)
or Microstock. Two-Tiers is not just another pricing model. The
whole purpose is so all images can be made available to all customers
at appropriate prices depending on how the customer intends to use the
image.
Anyone who has heard the term microstock has probably heard of Yuri Arcurs. He is recognized as the worlds most successful microstock photographer but is much more than just a photographer: he is a brilliant businessman adept at marketing, self-promotion and managing a large staff.
Anyone who is licensing rights to pictures for educational purposes should take a look at this iPad promotional video to get an idea of what the delivery of educational information will be like in the near future.