The
CEPIC Congress in Barcelona June 10 – 14, 2013 will attract stock agents from around the world. Falling prices and the impact they are having on stock agencies and professional photographers will be one of the key issues discussed.??I posed a series of questions to a few industry leaders that will be in attendance. Earlier Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of age fotostock shared his
observations and opinions. In this story I will examine responses from a few others.
There is a battle brewing in courts that everyone in the photo industry should pay very close attention to. A company called ReDigi (
https://www.redigi.com/) is in the business of allowing anyone to resell “used” digital files. In other words, allowing anyone to sell, for example, an MP3 file they legally purchased. They claim rightful business practice under the first sale doctrine, the same rule that allows you to resell your used books.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-to-3 decision in the case of
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons found that Supap Kirtsaeng had the right to resell, in the United States, textbooks that his friends and relatives purchased in Thailand. The Thai math student at Cornell University generated roughly $900,000 in revenue by reselling books that can be purchased at a much lower price in Thailand than in the U.S.
Shutterstock has announced plans to launch
Offset, a new RF offering of premium, high-end stock photos and illustrations. Currently the curated collection is in private beta. A public launch will follow later this year.
Last week we wrote about the
miniscule royalties that appeared on Getty’s February royalty statements. Many Getty Connect sales showed a royalty of $0.00.
Getty has acknowledged that they made a rounding error on the recent statements and will report micro-royalties in fractions of a cent up to 5 decimal points in the future. Conceivably, a photographer could earn $0.00001 (one thousandth of a cent) for one license.
Getty Images makes it hard for some customers to purchase RM images. See what I learned when I tried to license usage of 4 images from Getty. We complain about the unauthorized use of images online and then we make it almost impossible for many potential image users to find out how to license images legitimately.
There was a time when one of the keys to being a successful stock photographer was to develop a strong working relationship with a top photo editor at one of the major stock agencies. That period has passed. Rolf Sjogren who managed a high-level team of art directors, photo editors, producers and retouchers for Getty Images from 2001 through 2008 explains what happened and gives us a picture editor's perspective on how the stock photo industry has changed in the last 20 or so years.
The CEPIC Congress in Barcelona June 10 – 14, 2013 attracts stock agents from around the world. Pricing will be one of the key issues discussed – specifically falling prices and the impact they are having on stock agencies and professional photographers. I posed a series of questions to a few industry leaders. This story is a response from Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of
age fotostock.
PhotoShelter and ASMP have partnered to produce and distribute a
new guide that discusses photographer’s rights under the U.S. copyright law and explains what they must do to protect their work.
Shutterstock has released an
infographic that forecasts several design trends for the year ahead. In 2012 Shutterstock delivered 76 million image downloads giving them a wealth of data from which to draw conclusions.