Panther Media has introduced a new approach to Rights Managed licensing and is opening the door to some really special photography. “We always had a clear position on the subject of rights managed licensing”, says Tomas Speight, CEO of Panther Media GmbH, “we would only ever do it if we could make it so easy it doesn’t need explaining”.
Adobe Stock has added new tools to make the image creation process easier and provide more efficient ways to upload and submit photo, video or other assets to Adobe Stock.
As of April 26, 2017 Alamy has made
contract changes that will be of interest to contributors. Most notably they will now pay contributors monthly whenever the Cleared Funds in the contributor’s account exceeds US $50. Previously, contributors were not paid until their Cleared Funds exceeded $US $75.
Here’s a simple thing every photographer and stock agent can do to protect their copyright.
Tell Congress to Vote “Yes” on H.R. 1695 – a bill to Modernize the U.S. Copyright office. It will take you less than 5 minutes. Go to
http://copyrightalliance.org/get-involved/add-your-voice/ . Click on “Take Action.” The Copyrightalliance will ask for your zip code and then your name and address. Once you’ve input that information your name will be added to a pre-written letter to your Congressperson.
It’s that simple!
Getty Images has been focusing on
growing its subscription business. The theory is that subscriptions will make customers more dependent on the company for their future needs. Currently, subscriptions represent 37% to 38% of Getty’s Creative Revenue and about 50% of Editorial Revenue.
Adobe Stock has announced a partnership with
Pond5, further expanding the video offerings in Adobe Stock. Sourced from an international community of artists across a mix of modern,
highly sought after content themes, such as lifestyle, recreation, sports, cinematic and aerial footage, the addition of the Pond5 video library will give video producers and designers access to one of the industry’s largest and fastest-growing collections – all natively integrated into Creative Cloud applications.
What can photographers and stock agencies do about pricing and the shift of revenues from photographers to a few huge platforms? Mike Watson says, “It’s unlikely that the major platforms will change their practices and the all-you-can-eat deals will continue. It’s time for photographers and independent agencies to unite and talk directly to their customers.” Read his whole
blog post on the robertharding blog.
From and investors point of view, Getty may have turned the corner. However, this may not benefit image creators, particularly those from North America and the Western Europe. It is my understanding that gross revenue in 2016 was about $840 million, up about 4% from around $808 million in 2015. Until 2016, Getty’s revenue declined steadily for about three years as they struggled to get their prices in line with their major competitor, Shutterstock.
Who is producing the majority of stock images that get used? Based on
Shutterstock’s 2014 and 2015 financial reports about 37% of the company’s gross revenue came from North America, 35% from Europe and 28% from the rest of the world. Given these numbers it seems reasonable to assume that since North America and Western Europe seem to be where most stock images are used that is probably where most are produced. Back in the 90s and early 00s that may have been the case, but no longer.
Each year there are three important events where representatives of stock photo agencies get together to share information –
CEPIC,
DMLA and
Visual Connections. These events are also good places for photographers to meet stock agents and get a better understanding of industry trends.