One has to wonder if Getty does any analysis of their Creative Collection in terms of what sells and what doesn’t. Clearly, as we
reported yesterday, the largest and fastest growing segment of the Getty collection is EyeEM with 4,558,201 RF images. Back in
August 2016 EyeEm had only recently started contributing to Getty Images and had 256,152 images in the collection. They have 17.79 times as many images now as in 2016. At that time Getty had a total of 16,687,710 images in the Creative Collection. That collection has grown 43% in size in two years, but nothing like EyeEm’s 1779% growth.
In this report I have searched each of the different RM and RF collections on the Creative section of
www.GettyImages.com to determine the number of images in each collection. Collection sizes vary greatly from EyeEm with 4,558,201 RF images to Silkroad Images, PictureIndia, Chic Sketch and Corbis Historical, all with fewer than 200 images each.
Sources tell me that in an all-staff conference call on Wednesday, June 13, 2018, Nick Evans-Lombe and Adrian Murrell informed the
SilverHub.Media staff that the company would be going into administration, the UK version of bankruptcy protection.
Tom Zimberoff has written a very long and detailed story on
Distrupting Stock Photography which makes some strong points about how the industry got to where it is today. Toward the end of his report he outlines a new business model which he calls “Business Made Easy For Photographers.”
The U.S. Copyright Office is proposing changes to fees for copyright registration. The Office has issued a statement outlining the proposed changes in detail, but on average, fees will increase by as much as 41%. According to
the statement, the Office analyzed potential changes to fees and wants to ensure that they are “fair and equitable and give due consideration to the objectives of the copyright system,” as required by the statute.
Shutterstock has announced the launch of its Dublin office with the intent to initially hire 40 professionals including engineering roles, and to potentially grow the team further over the coming years. This project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.
One of the big mysteries in the stock photo agency business is the percentage of “
Unique images” licensed annually. Some agencies, like Shutterstock, report the total number of images licensed, but many of those licensed are used by multiple customers so the actual number of
different, unique images used is much smaller.
Imatag has analyzed over 120,000 images on the websites of 23 major news organizations in Europe and North America and determined that
only 3% of those published have credit or copyright metadata. Photographers will be surprised to learn the names of publications stripping data compared to those that credit photographers and leave metadata.
If you’re a photographer that counts on the licensing of stock images to provide a portion of your annual income the following are a few stories you should read. In the past decade stock photography as a business has declined dramatically. There is little hope that the situation will improve.
Back in 2016 Tony and Chelsea Northrup discovered that their image, originally published on the cover of their
Adobe Lightroom 6/CC for Photographers book, had been used by an Australian company on the packaging of a smartphone case, and the product sold in Australia and New Zealand without their permission.
Shutterstock is expanding its aerial footage collection in a new distribution deal that will deliver hundreds of high-quality 4K videos produced by the largest global drone operations company,
DroneBase. From a soaring bird’s-eye view of the biggest cities in the world to incredible coastline vistas, all of this immersive content is now available to license for commercial use on Shutterstock.
In two recent stories
Know Your Return-Per-Image and
Stock Photo Production Costs I discussed two very important issues for anyone trying to earn a portion of their living from stock image production. The issues boil down to
(1) clearly understanding the cost of producing your images and
(2) the return you’re receiving from sales of those images. No business can survive if it spends more to produce its products than it earns from sales.
One of the hardest things for stock photographers to calculate is their actual costs of stock image production. As in any business it is critical to understand your costs if you hope to eventually earn a profit from their production. This story will provide an outline of some of the things that need to be considered when determining costs. It will also provide some average costs figures that some leading professionals work toward.
Stocksy United, the artist-owned photography + cinematography co-op that has tightly limited its membership since its founding in 2012, has made a decision to open its doors to new contributors. Stocksy has seen continued strong growth since its founding due to careful selection of new contributors, tight editing and licensing fees considered reasonable by customers, but still fair to contributors. In 2015 revenue was
$7,928,745, up 126% from $3.5 million in 2014. By the end of 2017 revenue had grown another 26% in two-years to roughly
$10.7 million.
I would like to encourage every stock photographer to begin to calculate, on an annual basis, their Return-Per-Image (RPI) for each agency they work with. This is particularly important for those photographers who hope to realize a profit for the time and expense they invest in producing stock images.
Contributors to 500px Marketplace are finally learning what Visual China Group (VCG) has planned for them. VCG has just sent them a message outlining some “major enhancements” that are coming. “ “These changes will help maximize your potential earnings by positioning your content at the
right price and with the
right distribution. Starting July 1st, 2018, we’re offering our community an
exclusive opportunity to work with our newest global distribution partner, Getty Images,” the message says. (emphasis mine)
Last week I published information about
Technavio’s new market research report. While I had not read the full report, I pointed out that I disagreed with some of the conclusions provided in the press release.
In 2016 a massive flash flood raced down the main street of Ellicott City, Maryland. It was called a “thousand-year flood” given the unique characteristics that set it in motion. On May 27, 2018 the flow that supposed to only occur once every 1,000 years struck again. Photographer Max Robinson gets classic footage and Fox News uses it without permission.
Getty has just sent out an email to its customers promoting its Creative Royalty-Free Imagery. When you click on
View All Creative Images you find that there are 16,844,390 images in the Creative RF collection. There are also 6,590,271 "Creative RM" images in the total Creative Collection.
agefotostock has appointed Yolanda Sandoval as Business Development Manager for the News & Press area of the company following the launch of their new website that simplifies their business into
three primary business areas, Press, Creative and Economic imagery. Economic imagery was formerly referred to as Creative Stock photography. Sandoval will work out of the Madrid office.
After years of Shutterstock taking market share from Getty, it seems that the two have achieved a state of relative parity with regard to gross revenue generated from the licensing of still images. Customers no longer seem to be leaving Getty because its prices are too high. In fact, Getty seems to be charging selected customers less per-image than what Shutterstock would charge them. Where AdobeStock fits in is unclear, but for the time being each seems to have a customer base that favors them. There does not seem to be a lot of movement of customers from one to the other.
The General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, that goes into effect on Friday, May 25, 2018 will require companies that do business in the EU to provide a form to the companies that they are dealing with. It is not clear if it is necessary to supply such a form to each and every individual that a company deals with. A survey by
CompliancePoint shows that 76% of U.S. businesses are not prepared for the enforcement deadline. (Check out
previous story.)
Arcangel Images has sent the following message to the photographers it represents. “Again, we ask all photographers not to split rights-managed photoshoots between libraries or submit to other outlets near identical RM images to those held by Arcangel. Aside from devaluing your work, this can and will lead to major licensing conflicts. This not only affects our reputation as a supplier of high-end imagery, one which has taken almost twenty years to build but can be costly for the photographer, as they may be liable to pay legal and re-printing costs.”
London based,
Technavio has published its 2018 report on the global still images market. The report estimates that the market will grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of approximately 8% during the period 2018-2022.
The report is available at a
discounted price of $2,500 and is said to “provide an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook. In addition, it offers an up-to-date analysis of the market concerning the current market scenario, latest drivers, and the overall global environment.”
Bridgeman has announced the acquisition of
Lebrecht Photo Library, the world’s largest image bank for music and related arts, with a collection of over 400,000 specialist images. Lebrecht is the world's most comprehensive image bank for every kind of music ever created - classical music, jazz, opera, rock music, musical instruments, notation, Broadway musicals, dance and ballet. It also has an extensive archive for literature and historical personalities.