Stock
Shutterstock has reported revenue of $42.3 million for the third quarter, a 36% increase over Q3 2011. The company expects to generate revenue of $44 to $45 million in the fourth quarter. Based on that projection revenue for 2012 will be between $164 and $168 million, up $44.7 million compared to the 2011 revenue of $120.3 million. This will be a 37% increase in revenue for the year.
Alamy has announced that beginning in January 2013 they will be reducing contributor royalty for direct and distributor sales by 10%. The new terms will be: Alamy Blue: Alamy commission 50%, Contributor commission 50% for Alamy Blue sales and 40% to the Distributor, 30% to Alamy, 30% to the Contributor for distributor sales.
A sure sign that camera phone images have become mainstream in the commercial image world is the announcement by Blend Images that it has added Memento, a new camera phone stock image collection, to its offering. Memento will feature strongly conceptual and illustrative commercial content and will be available for licensing at
www.blendimages.com and stock resellers worldwide in early 2013.
A photographer recently asked if I could point her to a chart that shows what royalty percentage each stock distributors pays its photographers so she could better determine which offered the best deal. She added, “I recognize that there were a number of factors involved -- home territories, partner agents, image collections, number of photographer’s images licensed, rights managed, traditional royalty free, microstock – so hopefully the chart would take all these factors into consideration.”
Alamy has launched Alamy iQ, a service designed to help customers better manage all the visual assets they own or have licensed rights to use. Alamy iQ will be particularly beneficial to global organizations that have people sourcing visual assets from many locations for a variety of uses. It will complement or replace existing asset management systems, help speed decision making and eliminate risk.
Bigstock, a subsidiary of Shutterstock, has announced a new API program along with two world-class partners:
CafePress Inc., The World's Customization Engine™, and
Emma an email marketing provider. These partners will utilize Bigstock's recently released API to provide their customers with access to Bigstock's expansive library of professional, commercially licensable
photographs and illustrations.
Today more than a quarter of all photos taken are taken on smartphones. No longer is the mobile phone just a communication device. Now users can take pictures with their phones anywhere, anytime without worrying about heavy equipment or camera settings. As of this month
Dreamstime has started accepting both editorial and commercial pictures that are shot using a mobile phone.
Axiom Photographic Agency Limited ceased trading on September 20, 2012, and was subsequently placed into Voluntary Liquidation at a meeting of the shareholders on October 23, 2012 due to its inability to meet its obligations to creditors. The Liquidator subsequently accepted an offer presented by
Design Pics Inc., to purchase the assets of Axiom Photographic, which became effective October 25, 2012.
Bigstock, a division of Shutterstock, has introduced a new
partner program that will allow companies like email service providers, website design services and online ad builders to offer Bigstock photos to their customers through their portals.
At the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) international conference in Chicago over the weekend PACA and CCC (Copyright Clearance Center) offered a proposal for collecting revenue for the unlicensed use of images on social media sites and distributing a share of that revenue to the creators whose images were used
If we want to reduce copyright infringements we must make it easier for people to be honest. Reasoned education is not working. Aggressive pursuit of infringements is not slowing the number of infringements. This story suggests three steps that are technologically possible today and which the industry ought to be exploring.
Since 2008 Getty Images has noticed some change in the kind of images financial service providers are using. Check out this
story for insights into the trends.
Dreamstime has become the latest professional photography service to resolve its legal issues regarding the pinning of copyright-protected, watermarked images shared on
Pinterest. The solution incorporates an attribution line, which now appears beneath the photo in question and links back to the photo’s page on Dreamstime.com. This is the same solution that Pinterest offers to other members of its “attribution program,” including Flickr, YouTube, 500px, Etsy, and others.
Shutterstock has raised $76.5 million by selling 4.5 million shares at $17 each. This was above the expected price range of between $13 and $15 per share. Today, the stock is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SSTK” at $22 per share.
Image Source and
Cultura Creative today announced the merger of their businesses, two of the most respected brands in premium quality stock photography in the world. The new business which will operate under the Image Source Group umbrella come together in an exciting deal that on day one will have over a quarter of a million premium images under their collective management and a production power house capable of generating both quality and volume of content going forward.
It has been pointed out to me that Getty Images has made some dramatic changes in its
Rights Managed price calculator. This may have been around for a while, but it is the first time I’ve had a chance to examine it in some detail.
Need a stock picture of a guy doing almost anything strange, actor Patrick Wilson is your man. Professional photographers have paid him to pose as “A guy in a tiger costume playing an inflatable guitar in a foggy room full of military personnel” and “A detective examining a jar of peanut butter in a room filled with mousetraps.”
Design Pics Inc., headquartered in Edmonton, Canada, has acquired
Alaska Stock, an Anchorage based photo agency, effective October 1, 2012. The agency was originally founded in 1990 by Jeff Schultz and has became known as “the place” to find quality images of Alaska, and more specifically, Alaska-themed images such as adventure, wildlife, winter lifestyles, and recreation.
Dreamstime has introduced a new corporate account system that streamlines administration of file downloads and enhances purchase and invoice tracking for large firms with multiple users. The new system enables multi-user firms to designate a Corporate Administrator, create multiple sub-accounts, and administer systems for purchasing images and track invoices.
Back in the first quarter of 2007 Getty Images introduced “
Premium Access” (PA) pricing for their “best customers.” See what's happening with Premium Access and how it compares with microstock.
Shutterstock Inc has announced that it plans to sell 4.5 million shares in its initial public offering at between $13 and $15 each. This block of shares would represent about 14% of its total shares outstanding.
iStockphoto has introduced a new
Shopping Cart Checkout option that allows customers to pay for just the images they need without having to purchase credits.
Dreamstime now offers almost 15 million downloadable images to a user base of 5.1 million. With over 100,000 new users joining each month, Dreamstime now has the fastest-growing user base in the industry and is one of the web's most popular sites. The company's rapid growth is fueled by a unique, community-focused business model that crowdsources creativity.
Yuri Arcurs, probably the world’s most prolific stock photographer, has written a
blog post outlining how the demand for stock imagery has changed and identified a few subjects to shoot and ones to avoid given the oversupply and declining demand.
Last weeks
announcement that PACA, ASMP and CCC are considering some type of arrangement that would compensate image creators for the unauthorized web usage of their images on sites like Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, etc. needs careful examination by all photographers and distributors before anything is formalized.