News Analysis
Getty Images Photographer's Choice contributors have been asking if they can participate in the recent Flickr Collection Call for Artists. Getty is allowing this, as long as the contributor has a payee name that is different from his or her current account. This can be accomplished as simply as adding "Inc." or "LLC" to the contributor name name.
A recent study by U.K. research firm Futuresource sheds light on the numbers of potential entrants into the online stock image and video licensing market: 85% of survey respondents upload stills and video to the Internet. The 16 to 34-year-old group accounts for the most uploads.
Fotolia has created an add-in ribbon for market-leading word processing and presentation applications Microsoft Word and PowerPoint 2007. The ribbon (Microstoft's new term for what used to be called a toolbar) allows customers to log in, search and purchase images at fotolia.com.
This month, microstock segment leaders iStockphoto and Shutterstock announced legal guarantees for the user-generated content sold through their Web sites. Such moves answer customer demand and make doing business more difficult for traditional agencies and micro newcomers that have focused marketing efforts on the legal hygiene of their collections.
Some photographers want to continue to shoot and produce in the same way as they did in 2007. They have the "think positive" mindset that if they continue to produce new and better images in a higher volume than they produced in 2007, sales will go up, or at least they won't decline a whole lot.
It is time to revise previous estimates of industry revenues based on what has happened in the past year. For several years, we have estimated the size of the worldwide market for still images and illustrations at about $1.8 billion.
While there has been plenty of buzz about the size of the blogger market and its purchasing power, most stock-image sellers have thus far concentrated on the product end of the business: offering the right image sizes at the right price. Naturally, microstock sellers have been winning the war for market share in this particular space, because they were the first to discover this market by offering low-priced imagery. Traditional agencies are just now starting to compete at the product level, but microstocks and other newcomers are still outpacing the core of the image industry in the most important area: delivery.
Multiple trend observers have highlighted the growing lifestyle trend of long-term travel. Brought on by recession, the trend has college graduates and baby boomers that have had difficulty securing employment setting out for open-ended trips.
Citing economic pressures, several U.K. newspapers announced reductions in rates paid to their suppliers, including journalists and picture agencies. The British Association of Picture Libraries and agencies has recommended its members reject the new pricing.
A frequent question from professional stock photographers is: "Will hobbyists take over the market?" Our answer: not even in microstock.
Last week's mergers among German-speaking image agencies mirror a wave of similar U.S. activity. With increased interest from leading global companies, the third-largest stock-image market may be in for a shakeout.
Calling 2008 a challenging year would be an understatement.
Many stock photographers expressed concern that the recent changes in the commission structures of Alamy and Corbis were the first signs of an industry trend. Such predictions may have been justified.
This year, should photographers market new images as rights-managed, traditional royalty-free or microstock? It likely will not make a whole lot of difference.
There are countless stories about what best-selling stock photographers earn. However, the earnings of photographers a little farther down the food chain are more germane. It is useful to consider the likely earnings of the 50 most successful contributors to Getty Images' creative collections (rights-managed and royalty-free) and compare these figures with iStockphoto's 50 most successful photographers, paying particular attention to the probable earnings of the 50th photographer on the list.
Online image uses appear to be following the pattern established in traditional media. A recent Epsilon survey demonstrates that clients responsible for the highest traditional revenues---big corporations with million- and billion-dollar marketing budgets---prefer more proven, though often more costly social-media tools, such as email.
The stock industry is unlikely to benefit from newspapers' record-breaking readership and an increase in the number and prominence of images used online and off.
A number of stock companies are betting that the rising popularity of multimedia content will spur the growth of stock music and sound licensing. Though there has been some activity in this area, integrating audio into the broader stock business is proving to be a challenge.
As stock photographers face unprecedented competition in their own space, many are thinking of diversifying into other photography niches. However, earning a living as a photographer is becoming increasingly difficult in all segments of the industry.
When talking about microstock, most traditional stock photographers like to say, "You can never make money selling pictures for $1.00!" The data from
Selling Stock's recent survey and other available industry information tends to explode that myth.
Stock photography is licensed in several ways. Of 238 respondents to the recent
Selling Stock survey, 179 licensed some work as rights-managed, and 37 licensed under Getty Images' rights-ready model. Stock income reported was usually less than the respondents' total income, because many photographers earned some revenue from sources other than stock.
The first thing to consider when reviewing the results of the
Selling Stock income survey is the degree to which these figures represent the total community of individual stock-image producers.
Stock shooters who also do assignment work earn as much from it as from stock, but their average income from stock is much lower than the overall stock-revenue average. In addition, footage producers emerge as overall revenue winners.
Many believe the marketplace has an oversupply of images. This raises several concerns for image producers.
When discussing content piracy, industry insiders often say that nine out of 10 images are used inappropriately--that is, without payment for a license or in violation of its terms. Though the idea of educating the public on the nature of copyright is raised at industry events, such education is not often part of routine business activities for stock photographers or agencies. Perhaps it should be. An iStockphoto-commissioned survey of 1,000 Americans shows that a third use downloaded content, and practically all such users--27% of 33%--are unaware of needing permission.