Red Cover Picture Library located in the United Kingdom has entered into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) to restructure its debt.
For those currently selling images through Getty, the key question is: How many and how fast will Flickr images will be added to gettyimages.com? Getty editors are going to choose the photographers they want to deal with and invite them to sign a contract. The contract will authorize Getty to license the images as RM, RR or RF, but not microstock.
At the recent CEPIC conference in Malta, Bruce Livingstone, CEO of iStockphoto said the company currently represents 60,000 artists and about 4,000 of them are exclusive. He also pointed out that gross sales in 2007 were $72 million and 30% of that, or about $21 million, was paid out to contributors. Last year, the average price per image downloaded was $4.10, but the price varies depending on the size of the file. Non-exclusive photographers get 20% of the sales price and exclusive photographers get 40%, so the exclusive photographer would receive approximate $1.64 per image downloaded.
We are on the cusp of dramatic changes in the way educational information is supplied to students. The major technological issues have been solved. The potential economic benefits for new players in this market - Amazon.com being the most obvious - are overwhelming. Creatives will make more money. School systems will have more choice in teaching materials and save millions.
Alamy's blog has been filled with negative comments relative to Alamy's Novel Use Scheme introduced last month. The concept of selling pictures for low prices is difficult for traditional stock photographers to accept, particularly because an increasing number of their customers are using microstock images for commercial projects.
Advertising spending on the Internet will increase 26% in 2008, overtaking radio, and is expected to be more than 10% of the market. By 2010, Internet ad spend is predicted to reach $61 billion, slightly ahead of the $60.5 billion magazine ad segment of the market, per ZenithOptimedia.
Social-networking teens indicate that they are receptive to advertising on these sites. This could be good news for PicApp, which is making images available for free to bloggers and those creating social-network sites. Each image published is accompanied by an ad and image creators share the ad revenue.
One of the biggest hurdles traditional RF and Microstock sellers face when confronted with the idea of switching from an RF pricing structure to a use-based one is how to explain such a switch to customers who've been told one price fits all and not to worry about usage.
At the recent 2008 CEPIC Congress in Malta, the MILE Project (Metadata Image Library Exploitation) was launched. The focus of the European effort is to build a database of works claimed to be orphaned. It seems more practical than its U.S. counterpart.
Many photographers are concerned about the new Alamy Novel Use program. They fear that making images available for blogs, social-networking sites and certain educational uses at microstock prices will make it easier for their images to be stolen or used without authorization.