Canva Has Huge Data Breach

By Jim Pickerell | 234 Words | Posted 5/30/2019 | Comments
Canva, the Australian Graphic Design site that claims to have 50 million premium photos available via subscription, detected a data breach on May 24th of the records of 139 million customers.

Rights Managed Future At Getty

By Jim Pickerell | 565 Words | Posted 5/30/2019 | Comments
A stock agent asked if I had heard a rumor that Getty isn’t selling RM images anymore. The rumors are almost true. I did a story back in March entitled the "End of RM" where I reported that Getty Images personnel were telling some stock agency suppliers that in 3 to 5 years there will be no more RM licensing.

‘Topic Collection’ To Be Launched On PIXTA Website

By Jim Pickerell | 290 Words | Posted 5/30/2019 | Comments
Topic Images in Korea has announced to its suppliers that will be launching its ‘Topic Collection’ on the PIXTA website in an effort to deliver better sales and service to their partner agencies and offer a broad range of quality contents to its customers. Topic was acquired by the Japanese agency PIXTA in 2017.

Ad Agencies Turn Away From Stock To Assignments

By Jim Pickerell | 368 Words | Posted 5/27/2019 | Comments
As more and more consumer are turning to social media for information about the products and services they want to buy Ad agencies and brands are finding that they must up the quality of their offerings in order to get attention. According to Erik Radle, CEO of Dallas-based Miller Ad Agency, “People are finding out that the content has to just sing. It has to just dazzle. We’re spending a lot of time doing photo shoots because the days of stock photography being meaningful on social media are over. That just doesn’t cut it any more and will get you ignored.”

EyeEm No Longer Subsidizing Getty Sales

By Robert Kneschke | 1153 Words | Posted 5/27/2019 | Comments (1)
A few years ago EyeEm decided to guarantee its photographers a minimum compensation for each image licensed through the Getty website regardless of what they received from Getty. Over the years they have steadily lowered that minimum and with the last sales report they have finally dropped the idea of a guaranteed minimum royalty. This article explores what happened.

Is Shutterstock Headed Toward Eliminating Creators?

By Jim Pickerell | 1265 Words | Posted 5/17/2019 | Comments
A reader wrote recently that he believes Shutterstock’s efforts to add huge quantities of image to its collection, as I discussed in recent article, is a “calculated plan” to eventually eliminate the need for photographers. He believes that by “feeding these images into their AI machines they will be able to learn exactly what their customers want.” Then, it is his contention, that Shutterstock will be able to “deliver custom made images (which Shutterstock would create) to clients.” He argues that ”this would just be machine work and there would no longer be a need for image makers or even computer graphic designers.”

imageMarketplace New York 2019

By Jim Pickerell | 230 Words | Posted 5/17/2019 | Comments
For ten years between 2007 and .2017 Visual Connections operated a fall expo in New York where visual media users could meet and network with stock agencies, artist reps, production companies, clearance and other service providers. There were also seminars about the business of sourcing and using visual media. They closed down their operation in 2017. On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 imageMarketplace New York 2019 (a London based company) will launch a new event with similar goals for influencers in the world of visual content.

Can Shutterstock Grow It’s Enterprise Business?

By Jim Pickerell | 534 Words | Posted 5/15/2019 | Comments
One of the big questions for Shutterstock is whether they can continue to grow the Enterprise segment of their business and how important that is to the eventual success of the company. In 2016 and 2017 they touted the success of Enterprise, but over the last 12 months Enterprise growth has been slowing and sales overall seem to be flattening.

Shutterstock Launches Self-Serve API Subscriptions

By Jim Pickerell | 421 Words | Posted 5/9/2019 | Comments
Shutterstock has announced the launch of its new self-serve API subscription plans. For the first time, developers, startups, and small and mid-sized businesses can build products and features that seamlessly integrate Shutterstock’s image collection and enable in-app image reselling, providing an additional revenue stream for customers when their end-users license and download images.

Small Claims Bill Moves Forward In Congress

By Jim Pickerell | 845 Words | Posted 5/8/2019 | Comments
The CASE Act (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement) was first introduced in 2017, but the bill expired without being passed at the end of the last Congress, as is the normal process for all bills not passed. On May 1, 2019 the bill was re-introduced in both the House and the Senate.
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About Michael Masterson

Michael Masterson has a broad range of experience in marketing, business development, strategic planning, contact negotiations and recruiting in the photography, graphic design and publishing industries. In addition to his long experience at the Workbook and Workbookstock, Masterson owned and was creative director of his own graphic design firm for several years.

Masterson has been a speaker or panelist at industry events such as Seybold, PhotoPlus Expo, Visual Connections and the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) national conference. He is currently the national president of the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP). He also serves on the board of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in his Los Angeles community. He chaired the marketing committee for the Los Angeles Conservancy, a historic preservation advocacy group, for many years.

He currently heads Masterson Consulting, working on projects ranging from business development for creative companies and sourcing talent for them to promoting and marketing industry events as well as providing resume and professional profile services for job-seekers. He can be reached at zvpunryqznfgrefba@tznvy.pbz.