The International Press Telecommunications Council and the Picture
Licensing Universal System have released a second version of the Photo
Metadata Toolkit for Adobe Creative Suite. The package of eight files
is available for free download.
Specialist image provider StockFood has announced a new offering:
features, which include images, editorial text and recipes as an
all-in-one solution for publishing clients.
More and more people are producing pictures of a quality sufficient to
satisfy the needs of many who want to use pictures. Thanks to the
Internet—and to a great extent microstock—it is now much easier than in
the past for people to earn a little money from the images they have
produced and to make contact with customers who might want to use them.
The “Going Pro” series of articles targets not the successful
professional but the person just starting out, or the microstock
photographer who has had some success producing images that sell and
believes it is time to quit his or her day job and go into photography
full time. What are the things they need to be aware of before taking
the big plunge of trying to turn something that is a fun hobby into a
career?
As little as five years ago, approximately 98% of all stock photo
revenue came from print uses. There was little or no Internet and small
business uses. Today about 20% of industry revenue comes from Internet and small business uses. The needs of these new customers were hardly addressed five years ago, as all traditional sellers focused on the high end of the market. Consequently, when someone
wanted an image for these purposes they either took the picture
themselves, or copied something off another Internet site and paid
nothing for its use. In the last five years the demand for images that
will be used electronically has grown dramatically.
On Sunday,
The New York Times ran a lengthy piece on the protracted legal battle
between technology startup Infoflows and Corbis. On Monday, Infoflows
followed up with a press release under the headline, “Jury Finds Bill
Gates-owned Company Committed Fraud; Corbis Faces $20 Million Judgment
and Permanent Injunction.” Corbis, however, says that the battle is far
from over and points to the somewhat odd timing of the press coverage.
Ed: Shannon Fagan was one of
the speakers at the New Media Conference held in conjunction with the
June 2010 CEPIC Congress in Dublin, Ireland. Fagan has been in the
stock business for a decade, is represented by most major agencies and
is the president of the Stock Artists Alliance. He shares his
observations about the state of the industry with Selling Stock readers.
For several years
I have estimated that the size of worldwide market for still stock images and
illustrations at about $1.8 billion. I’ve also claimed that overall
stock photography has been a no-growth business despite the fact that
some companies and individuals could point to growth. Now, at the end of
2009 I believe gross revenue for the industry is no more than $1.45
billion and it will probably continue to decline. The stories here break out various segments of the market and explain the overall trends.l
Popular video-sharing site Vimeo is in the process of adding Creative Commons functionality.
This story provides links to a five part series of articles designed to help photographers understand the major trends impacting the industry in 2010 and help them plan for the future. We outline some of the issues to consider, new business models to explore and things to focus on in order to have a profitable business. Following the first five stories are links to some additional articles on the business of stock photography that may be of interest.
The Picture Archive Council of America has announced its 2010-2012
executive board, which is managing the preparations for the 15th annual
PACA conference.
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.
Looking for some vacation reading material? Here are some suggestions.
If you want to know how successful stock photographers do it, here are
links to a series of interviews done over the last couple years. There
are lots of different strategies. Some of these photographers are among
the world’s most successful. Other’s like Todd Klassy and Holger Mette
are relatively new to the business, and have adopted unconventional
strategies that may be the wave of the future.
Half of the survey respondents reported a greater than 5% drop in revenues between 2008 and 2009, and more than a fifth continue seeing a decline in 2010 compared to 2009.
After the U.K. Office of Fair Trading referred the planned merger of
Rex Features and Getty Images to the Competition Commission for further
investigation, the Seattle announced it would not pursue the
acquisition further. Separately, Getty has announced a new five-year
agreement to handle the photography of The European Tour and The Ryder
Cup, as well as a new product launching under the Thinkstock brand.
Shannon Fagan is a former President of the
Stock Artists Alliance and an Advisory Board member of the
Young Photographers Alliance.
In
the past 18 months, he has attended every major industry conference to
gather information on stock photography and licensing’s current
direction.
He has contributed both Rights Managed and
Royalty Free images directly to Getty Images, Corbis, Veer, Blend,
Image Source, Cultura, Spaces, Tetra and many other brands. He has a
deep knowledge of the stock photography industry, both from personal
experience, and from his role helping other photographers develop their
businesses. The following summarizes a few of his thoughts that were
first published on
Greg Ceo’s blog.
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.