Books and education are changing. Consumer looking for information or entertainment will turn to "vooks" -- books they can watch, instead of the old paper kind they can only read or audio books where they can only listen to narration. These vooks blend text and video into a single integrated and uninterrupted reading and viewing experience that can be accessed and read on the Web or an iPhone.
Textbook publishers now have total control when it comes to setting prices and have no reason to want a dialogue with sellers on the subject of pricing. However, past uses is one area where publishers might want to open a discussion, seeing the outcomes of several recent court cases.
As part of an effort to assess the demand for stock photography in China, an American photographer recently talked with the creative director of the Ogilvy & Mather office in Beijing.
Transtock Inc., a stock photography business specializing in transportation images, recently finalized a deal with Hachette Filipacchi Media to exclusively represent the still images and high-definition video footage from the Road & Track and Car and Driver magazine collections.
Is Flickr a place for a professional photographer to display his work and sell images? Todd Klassy thinks so. Though now he is an amateur devoting three hours a week to shooting and another six to post production and studying photography, he intends to quit his job of 17 years and start working as a photographer full-time after the first of the year.
In light of pricing declines for textbook use and publisher attempts to avoid paying for future electronic uses, some image producers ask: "Why don't all the sellers just say 'no'? Shouldn't the producer be setting product prices?"
If Google were to get involved in image licensing, it would quickly take commanding control of the stock industry--at very little additional cost to the company. And it would not necessarily be a bad thing for creators.
In addition to raising print quantities and extending license durations, textbook publishers are increasingly asking for the rights to publish the same information for the same time period on password-protected Web sites. While publishers intends to charge for those passwords, they expect content producers not to count such uses as part of the circulation.
From a stock photography point of view, the future is bleak for those trying to sell images for textbook use. This segment of the stock photography business is on what appears to be an irreversible downward spiral.
Alamy sales for the third quarter of 2009 were flat compared to the second quarter, but were down 30% compared with the third quarter of 2008. U.S. Dollar and Euro sales were up slightly compared to last quarter 2009, but U.K. sales were down about 5%. Sales for the first three quarters of 2009 were down 30% compared to the same period in 2008.