As part of the ongoing discussion in the stock-image industry about the ethics and implications of selling the same content at different prices, James Alexander, formerly of Adobe Stock Photos, has posted some thoughts on his personal blog. This issue was first raised by
Microstock Diaries, and
Selling Stock has also addressed it in the past.
Content-licensing platform GumGum has launched a product that allows users to shop for products contained in images---specifically the outfits worn by favorite celebrities. ShopThisLook is already in use by blogs, such as INF Daily and Splash News' online gossip pub.
Getty Images' Orchard Represents and Annie Leibovitz have entered into a multi-assignment collaboration.
Traditional photographers argue that it is impossible to make money by licensing their images at microstock prices. They say volumes will never make up the difference. Despite that argument, Getty Images is licensing more and more images at Premium Access prices, which are not all that far away from what microstock sellers charge. Getty's volumes are not making up the difference for traditional photographers, but that is because Getty is selling these images to volume customers who used to pay traditional prices---not reaching the new customer base that microstock addresses.
A look at Alamy revenues gives a clear indication as to why the company felt it had to attempt to do something to recover some of their lost sales in the U.K.
Alamy has informed its contributors that this quarter it is seeing sales declines in sales to newspaper customers, ranging from 30% to 70% since last year. Major U.K. papers are going through a painful transition period exacerbated by the recession.
Previous articles in this series have addressed the long tail as it relates to stock photography, and why it is an increasingly important concept to understand for those who want to maximize earning. Constantly adding to your customer base, rather than earning more from existing customers, is at the core of the long-tail theory.
Since Getty Images announced that the first 4,280 Flickr images have been added to its collection, there has been quite a bit of speculation about how this will benefit the company.