News Analysis
Recently, the results of a year long study of Algebra 1 students at the Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California were announced. The math scores of the students who were taught using Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s
HMH Fuse: Algebra 1 curriculum on the iPad were
20% higher in the Spring 2011 California Standards Test than other students who were taught using traditional paper textbooks.
The Editorial Relations Committee of PACA (Picture Archive Council of
America) has released updated suggestions for dealing with educational
publishers. Digital technology is rapidly changing the way educational
materials are being developed and used. During this transition period
image licensors need to be particularly vigilant if they hope to receive
reasonable compensation for the long range use of their imagery.
The concept of a realistic still photograph that provides an accurate
representation of a news event may be an impossible dream. Many people
blame Photoshop for making it so easy to “clean up” and “adjust”
photographs. Photographers lose their jobs if they “overuse” Photoshop.
But that is only a small part of the problem.
The picturemaxx image search engine is unique in its approach to
providing an image search experience that benefits customers –
particularly editorial - as well as agencies trying to license images.
The company is headquartered in Munich with offices in New York, London,
Berlin and Vienna. Virtually all German speaking media customers (97%)
use picturemaxx as their primary source for finding content. This story explores the advantages and disadvantages of this system for both the customer and the image creator.
PhotoShelter and
Agency Access have just released a free ebook entitled “
What Buyers Want From Photographers.” The information resulted from a 35 question survey sent to Agency Access’ global database of 55,000 photography buyers. 500 responded to the survey.
WhatTheyThink?, a leading research organization serving the printing and publishing industry, has just estimated that the value of printed materials shipped in the U.S. in 2010 was $86.7 billion. Based on my analysis I estimate that the worldwide sale of still stock imagery in 2010, most of which is used in some type of printed publication, was about $1.45 billion. Previously, we have estimated that in the range of 43% of the total worldwide sales of stock photography are licensed for use in the U.S. market. Thus, the comparison would be something in the range of $625 million for photography compared with $86.7 billion for printing.
Global ad spending in 2011 is expected to be up 5.4% to $411.7 billion
according to MagnaGlobal, but the trend for the print segment of the
business in the Western world is not so rosy. Most growth will be in Asian markets and media that does not have a big overlap with stock photography.
With the introduction of The Costco Art & Image Gallery, Corbis and Costco will sell individual prints and posters as retail products. The images offered are a select group of some 20,000 professional pieces of fine art, photography and illustration from the Corbis collection of more than 6 million images.
Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter has published a very interesting analysis entitled “What Google Trends Says About Wedding & Stock Photography, and Photo Websites,” complete with charts that illustrate the trends.
Beginning in 2011, iStockphoto will implement major changes to how it
calculates photographer royalties. In addition, the company will soon
launch a small higher-priced Agency Collection containing images from
some of the major traditional royalty-free brands and invited iStock
contributors. Contributor reactions are predictably negative, but how will it shake out form a macro perspective?
Photographers should be aware of the number of images already in online
databases and recognize that any images they produce will be competing
against those that already exist.
While proliferation of digital stills has not led to growth of
still-licensing revenue as a whole, continued and explosive growth of
online video most certainly will. Video, particularly advertising and
corporate projects, continues to command higher budgets than print.
Online video advertising is also more affordable than spot television,
which has led to growth on both ends of the spectrum: larger companies
are adding it to their mix; smaller businesses that never produced video
before are adopting it.
Veer has relaunched its Web site,
billing the new treatment as uncomplicated. While Veer still carries traditionally priced stills, it is certainly
catering to the no-hassle customer segment with simplified licensing
and prices that span the gamut—starting at $1.
The stock-licensing industry remains in the midst of a profound change
affecting image production, quality, pricing, distribution and use.
Some trends, such as the downward slide of average image prices, have
held for years, but there are also newer, paradigm-shifting
developments. These include a middle market finally taking shape, the
long-predicted microstock shakeout, the fascination with touch
computing and all things Apple, a change in the overall content mix
and, perhaps most importantly, an evolution of the traditional stock
business model from client service-driven boutique to online
content-delivery platform.
A 14-month review of data from the leading microstock supports the theory of the fastest-growing industry segment having reached a plateau, with flat unit sales and revenue growth resulting from price increases.
If you are in the stock imagery business and want to stay current with
worldwide industry trends, the annual CEPIC congress is a must-attend
event. Held every year in early June—this year in Dublin, Ireland, at
the brand new Aviva Stadium—the congress provides an opportunity to
meet industry leaders and exchange ideas.
How does demand for images compare to what many agree is an
oversupply?
What does the competition look like in terms of the number of images available online? Everyone knows there are billions of amateur images floating around the Internet, but what is the quantity of unique images currently available in professional collections?
Can the reader trust the reporting not to be biased when photojournalism projects are funded by non-profit and non-governmental organizations?
As the photo industry struggles with pricing and licensing structures to accommodate digital uses, such uses keep growing. Every month brings new evidence of advertising, marketing and communications budgets steadily moving in the direction of the Internet, with predictions that 2010 will see digital spending surpassing print.
As buyer budgetary pressures and competition continue to drive prices downward, production companies and solo practitioners are increasingly looking to maximize their earnings by cutting out the middleman.
For most of iStockphoto's best-selling photographers, the number of images downloaded per month declined in 2009.
Despite the general state of the economy, falling advertising budgets and continued debate over the marketing usefulness of social media, budgets allocated to social media in 2010 are bucking the downward trend. For the stock industry, the channel holds dual interest: it is becoming an important collective user of imagery and video, and an equally important marketing resource.
Those that have traditionally made their living licensing stills to print educational and textbook publishers should take heed: there is ample evidence that predictions of such uses giving way to digital, often video-based options are true. ITN Source and its Education Clip Library just announced a deal with Archipelago Learning to provide video content for Archipelago's Study Island-an online standards-based assessment, instruction, practice, and test preparation program for the U.S. K-12 educational market.
The figures gathered by CEPIC last year suggest that the stock industry's gross revenue estimates could be inflated by as much as a third as a result of double counting sales.