Articles by Jim Pickerell
Back in 2007 I was called on to place a value on a collection of wildlife stock images that were involved in a legal action. At the time I based the per-image value on the “average annual return-per-image” of the
Getty Images collection. By dividing the gross 2006 RM revenue by the total RM images in the collection I determined that the average annual gross license fee for an
RM image was $335.
PantherMedia is now representing the work of the largest provider of 360 °/VR media provider, 360Cities. 360 °/VR media are ideal for use in education, publishing, advertising and film, as well as in the development of mobile apps and games. 360Cities has been curating high-quality, fully 360 ° interactive panoramic photos for over 10 years, working with thousands of passionate VR photographers and videographers from around the world.
Yesterday, I received a call from a travel photographer who recently started contributing his work to Getty Images. He has about 200 images from various locations around the world in the collection. He just received a sales report for 3 Premium Access sales, each for
royalties of under $1.00. He wanted to know who he could contact at Getty about such ridiculously low royalties.
Did you know it takes Creatives twice as long to find an image that will work for their project as it did just 4 years ago? This is one of the facts that was uncovered in
Visualsteam’s Annual Survey of Creative Pros. This 35-page report is packed with other information and insights that should help image licensors and image creators as they plan for the future. The report can be purchased for $69.95 by contacting
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Image creators need better information about the kind of content that is selling. Are customers looking at higher priced content? Can creators earn more money if their images are in a collection like Offset where images are licensed for much higher prices? Should creators produce more stills? Should they buy new equipment and start shooting video that sells for higher prices? Shutterstock’s
quarterly reports to investors aren’t very helpful in this regard.
Shutterstock has reported Q4 2018 revenue of
$162.1 million up $6.7% compared to Q4 2017. (The comparison excludes the 2017 revenue from Webdam which was divested in Q1 2018.) The revenue was also up $9.5 million from Q3 2018. Revenue per download averaged $3.40 per image, compared to $3.33 in Q4 2017. (Much of this growth is probably due to increased sales of video content offered at much higher prices than still image content.)
CEPIC expresses its extreme disappointment at the EU copyright Directive as we see that last minute compromises were reached that will directly hurt CEPIC members specialized in fine art, history and vintage photography. Some of these libraries are attached to cultural institutions and contribute to their financing – this not only by “selling postcards” as the agreed compromise text implies.
An agent who has operated a small, specialist agency specializing in RM licensing for years contacted me recently and asked the following question. “I’m reworking (or trying to figure out) image pricing in bundle form (similar to OFFSET STOCK PHOTOS). I’m wondering if you’ve talked to them about whether their program might/might not be working?" Here’s my response.
Pearson has sold its U.S. schools course materials business to the private equity groups
Nexus Capital Management LP for $250 million. Nexus will pay an initial $25 million and a further $225 million by way of a vendor note due in the next three to five years for the business, which provides textbooks and resources for students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Australian photographer
Lisa Saad has been accused of using other people’s photos to compete in, and win, various photo competitions in in Australia, the United States and other countries.