Stock
In the previous series of articles entitled
"Edication: How The Market Has Changed" we looked as some of the factors that have changed the educational market for images. This series of stories looks ahead. Not only have there been dramatic changes in the past, but the business of delivering educational materials to students is still very much in transition. There will certainly be a decline in the use of printed products, a growth in the delivery of educational material online and more use of video. Check out these stories for more about where things seem to be headed.
Shutterstock has announced a yearlong partnership with
TED, the non-profit dedicated to ideas worth spreading. This partnership is designed to encourage more dynamic, visual presentations from the world's most inspired thinkers. As part of this partnership, Shutterstock is providing complimentary subscriptions to speakers at TED2012 and TEDGlobal2012. Contributors whose images are downloaded as part of these subscriptions will receive their normal royalties.
Getty Images, Inc. has announced the release of
Connect by Getty Images, an innovative new content distribution service. This powerful and flexible API is designed to give Web publishers built-in access within their publishing tools to Getty’s images, as well as the search metadata associated with them.
The Granger Collection, a historical image library, has launched a mobile version of its website,
www.granger.com, that will make it fast and easy for picture professionals to search 25,000 years of world history from the palm of their hand.
ZUMA Press, the California-based news agency is now supplying
Alamy's live news feed with images from its global network of 3,000 photojournalists. Owned and run by renowned photojournalist Scott Mc Kiernan, ZUMA has also made its back catalogue available online through Alamy’s
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.
Microstock Group has published the preliminary results of its 2011 survey of microstock contributors. So far more that 700 people have responded, but there is still time for anyone involved in microstock to
add additional information before the final results are tallied.
Corbis Images has launched
OnDemand: Entertainment, a flexible entertainment subscription service. The entertainment subscriptions provide customers with exclusive access to the industry’s most comprehensive collection of breaking entertainment and iconic celebrity imagery. The service will be available to customers worldwide searching for compelling creative content to showcase their celebrity and entertainment related news.
Since September 2011 photography and illustration students have submitted more than 3,000 images to
Alamy,
the world's largest online stock photography agency. For the next two
years these contributors will receive 100% of all money collected for
the licensing of their images.
One thing that has intrigued me about the microstock business is the
role designers and illustrators play as content creators and how their
participation on the seller side of the market influences imagery supply
and demand. Shutterstock recently reported that in 2011 32% of the
company’s total downloads were vector illustrations and that in the last
5 years customers have trended to move away from using photographs to
illustrate certain concepts and toward the use of very graphic
illustrations.
This article provides a selection of stories that will help the reader
better understand microstock photography and the state of the market for
images at microstock prices at the beginning of 2012. Some of the
stories in this list were written as much as two years ago, but provide
background on the subject.
Crestock has launched a collection of celebrity photos at microstock prices at
http://www.crestock.com/celebrities/. The collection contains real time coverage of popular stars from coast to coast supplied by top entertainment photographers, supplemented with an archive of past celebrity events – all from ImageCollect/Los Angeles.
Shutterstock (
www.shutterstock.com) has delivered more than 200 million licensed image downloads to its customers since its founding in 2004. This number far exceeds that of any other company licensing rights to stock photography. The company’s closest competitor in the microstock arena is iStockphoto. According to the latest figures from
istockcharts.multimedia.de iStock has licensed 116,134,740+ downloads. (The + probably represents a few thousands above this number.)
Arius3D Corp. and Masterfile Corporation have agreed to extend to March
31, 2012 the closing of the previously announced proposed acquisition by
Arius3D of all of the issued and outstanding securities of Masterfile
.
Imagestate Media Ltd and Imagestate Media Partners Ltd has ceased
trading through its website and as of February 1, 2012 has entered
Administration. The assets of the above companies have been acquired by a
new investor. The ongoing business of Imagestate will be managed by
Impact Photos. Heritage Images will operate separately.
Ninety percent of new products fail for a variety of reasons. When photographs are an inherent part of the product it is often difficult to decide what to charge for the use. When a product is first being designed and launched it is impossible to determine how successful it will be. Often product developers are under funded. Here's an explanation of how leasing rather than a one-time licensing fee may be the answer to making the sale.
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.”
In an effort to go after a share of the $15 billion educational textbook
market Apple Inc. has launched iBooks2 software with an aim to quicken
the adoption of the iPad in the educational market. The company has been
working with Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to
produce digital textbooks that can be delivered on the iPad. Currently,
these three companies are responsible for 90% of the textbooks sold in
the US.
Fotolia has added 3128 fine art
images from the deviantArt (dA) collection to its offering. (
Click here to see the images.) The images are available exclusively at Fotolia.com.
The photography business has changed dramatically -- and at a very rapid
pace. Kodak is near bankruptcy and trying to sell off its photographic
patents. Most of the photo labs that used to process film and make
prints have long since gone out of business. Locally, Penn Camera
Exchange the largest photo equipment supplier in the region is closing 5
out of its 8 stores. Professional photographers aren’t the only ones
who are hurting.
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?”
The Association of Commercial Stock Image Licensors (ACSIL) and
Thriving Archives have released the results of the ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies 2 (AGS2). The AGS2 is a comprehensive examination of current business conditions within today's footage industry, providing strategic, action-oriented information and insights to footage industry leaders.
Not too long ago the primary way to keep up with new trends in
photography and what the industry leaders were doing of thinking was to
attend industry events. This often meant traveling to New York, Chicago,
Las Vegas or New Orleans (in the U.S. – I’m not sure where all in
Europe) and fitting into the schedule of the event organizer. Now, it is
becoming possible to participate in such educational programs while
sitting at your desk and often at your own convenience in terms of time. This story offers a few examples.
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.
Most photographers considering marketing their images as microstock want
to know what they can expect in the way of return-per-image (RPI) from
their accepted images. The question is impossible to answer because so
many variables are involved. However, by extrapolating from the data we
have gathered over more than 2 years on 195 of the top selling
iStockphoto photographers we get an interesting picture of the range of
possibilities.