Macrostock
Recently, a stock agent suggested that the industry needs to establish a
floor price for Rights Managed (RM) images to stop the continued decline in license fees. He is frustrated because his overseas distributors seem to be making an increasing volume of sales at prices that are “close to microstock pricing.”
After reading my story on “
Who Controls The Price” Terri Petrie of Greenhighlander.co.uk asked, “How could a stock agency allow for more creator control of prices?”
After reading "
Licensing Images in Today's Market" a reader asked, “What are the right photos to shoot? What subject matter sells best in today’s market?&rdquo. This story will help you decide what to shoot if your goal is to make money selling your pictures.
Design Pics Inc., has acquired of
First Light Associated Photographers Ltd., a Canadian based photo agency. The agency was originally founded in 1984 by Pierre Guevremont, Ron Watts and Brian Milne. First Light has been based in Toronto. Design Pics is located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Design Pics Inc., headquartered in Edmonton, Canada announces the acquisition of
Pacific Stock, a Hawaii based photo agency. The agency was originally founded in 1987 by Barbara Brundage.
Image creators need to recognize that the fatal flaw in the stock photography business model is that there is no way to control supply relative to demand. This was not a big problem in the 1990s when demand exceed supply, but that state of affairs will never happen again. As a result Stock Photography is and will continue to be a very risky business.
The sale of
Masterfile to Arius 3D Corp for $21.4 million is still hanging in the balance. The two companies have agreed to extend to January 31, 2012 the closing of the previously announced proposed acquisition by Arius3D of all of the issued and outstanding securities of Masterfile.
Recently I wrote about
PhotoShelter’s survey of 500 buyers of stock in their new Free guide to
Selling Stock Photography.
Aurora Photos is excited to announce the launch of the
myPhone Collection of stock photography, a collection of images taken with iPhones and other mobile devices by some of the world’s top photographers and iPhoneographers, and now made available to pictures buyers for both editorial and commercial licensing. To coincide with the launch of the myPhone Collection, Aurora is also introducing a new modified Rights Managed licensing model called
Easy Rights Managed. The model offers simple, quick, broad, and managed rights at reasonable prices.
With its launch of its
myPhone Collection Aurora Photos has also introduced a new simplified Rights Managed pricing model they call
Easy Rights Managed. “The model offers simple, quick, broad, and managed rights at reasonable prices.” The model is similar in some ways to the Rights-Ready model launched by Getty Images in 2006. Getty later abandoned this experiment.
Some Flickr photographers are given the opportunity to place some of
their images on gettyimages.com. One photographer who was recently
approached by Getty asked if he should have any concerns about dealing
with Getty or if there are things he should be aware of before
agreeing. Here are some of my thoughts.
StockFood, the world’s leading food image agency, introduces
living4media: a new picture agency specializing in home and living. The concept behind
www.living4media.com is to unite the most outstanding images produced by internationally renowned photographers and well-known niche agencies under one roof.
SuperStock, a leading stock photography agency specializing in
Contemporary, Travel, Fine Art, and Vintage imagery, has launched
SuperFusion, a new collection of value-priced royalty-free images
gathered from around the world. The collection features images from top
professional photographers including microstock stars Yuri Arcurs, Ron
Chapple, and Andres Rodriguez.
Spaces Images is a niche agency founded by people and lifestyle Jonathan Ross about a year ago. However, there are no people in the pictures this agency represents. In tracking 13 years of sales he and his wife and business partner Amy noticed that
many of their best selling images did not include people. They then set out to build
SpacesImages.com a collection that contains property released images of
locations where man lives, works and plays, but without any people in
the images. Most of the have strong graphic and design elements.
Paul Melcher takes a look at where photojournalism is headed and outlines four key changes that will dramatically alter the future of photojournalism. He also acknowledges, though not with any sense of satisfaction, that the new photojournalism is taking some cues from the successful microstock model.
In an effort to engage with the next generation of picture professionals,
Alamy and
Dreamstime have launched separate initiatives to benefit students.
Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) has released some of the results from its
25th annual survey of graphic designers to determine their use of stock imagery. A total of
1,008 readers responded to the survey with 96 percent saying they use
stock imagery in their work and 60 percent using it at least 20 times a
year. Both represent new highs for the survey.
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.
Editor's Note: James West, CEO of Alamy, provided a detailed explanation of the company's Alamy Permium Account strategy on the Alamy blog. For more information about this read
our story published last week and contributor comments on the
Alamy blog.
It’s time to institute a new pricing model. In the ‘80s the only pricing
model was Rights Managed (RM), but the term itself wasn’t even invented
until the ‘90s. Back then every price was based on usage and there was
no other option. In the early ‘90s Royalty Free (RF) was introduced. In
the early 2000s microstock came into existence. Now, it is time to
introduce a fourth model which I will call Use Pricing (UP). The
following would be some of the characteristics of Use Pricing.
In May Peter Phun published an article on BlackStar Rising entitled “
It’s Time for Pro Photographers and Hobbyists to Call a Truce.” The article has received a lot of comments. I would like to weigh in with my thoughts on the difference between professionals and non-professionals.
In certain segments of the stock photo market Alamy has been experimenting with both price points and the nature of licenses in an effort to grow sales and stem the tide of customers moving to microstock. One particular segment where they have seen a significant decline in sales is travel. Recently, one of Alamy's travel customers outlined for me the details of Alamy's new offer. This story examines the issue.
Shannon Fagan, a very successful former New York stock photographer, has
set up shop in China as a consultant and content aggregater. He has
spent a cumulative equivalent of 2 years in Shanghai and Beijing since
2006 working with, and doing business development for, China's
commercial photo agency sector. He permanently moved to Beijing in
December last year. He has interacted with nearly all the key players,
support components, and service providers, and developed an “insider’s”
knowledge of the opportunities and pitfalls of China’s stock photo
industry. This interview provides
some insights into the Chinese market.
Corbis Images has acquired
Splash News for an undisclosed amount. From its Los Angeles base Splash provides candid celebrity photography and video content to the world’s premiere print, online and broadcast media distributors of entertainment news.
After reading my story on
why usage fees will continue to decline Larry Minden wrote, “Is there no one among the thousands upon thousands represented by Alamy who will stand up to those idiots and tell them a 50-year license is unneeded and an absurd bastardization of an RM license?" This story explains why complaints from suppliers are unlikely to have much effect in the long term outcome.