Many who argue that everything should on the Internet should be free are limiting the medium's potential. Stock photographers are not posting pictures online as a way of demonstrating their skills in order to get assignments. (Some assignment photographers do, but promotion is not assignment.) Stock photographers have produced a product at their own expense that they hope to sell.
If agencies charge $510 for the right to print a picture in 1,000,000 copies of a textbook, how do they tell the customer who's producing a book on a specialized topic with a 20,000 press run that he should pay more than $11? That's getting down to micropayment prices.
Image Source founder and CEO Christina Vaughan told Selling Stock that the U.K. brand is in a transitional phase.
Many people want to talk about how to get better prices for better quality images. When we're talking about stock pictures, this concept is irrelevant. Unfortunately, quality has absolutely nothing to do with what a customer will pay for an image.
Pantone, the New Jersey company known as the design industry's color authority, has selected its 18-3943 Blue Iris as the color of the year for 2008.
New York-based micro-payment Web site Fotolia announced the launch of The Infinite Collection with 15,000 images, expanding the agency's reach into the premium pricing space.
Mea Culpa. Using a search strategy that has worked well in the past, I published grossly incorrect conclusions in my recent article on massive editing at Getty Images. Readers deserve an explanation.
Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) continues to seek "accountability" from Photolibrary in the Index Stock situation and says in a press release, "Recent revelations and accusations leave the SAA Board greatly concerned about whether Photolibrary has met its contractual obligation to pay Index Stock contributors all past obligations."
Corbis' decision to remove huge numbers of images from its collection makes its database easier to navigate. But the company's unwillingness to return digital files to photographers, shows little concern for image creators.
Bridgeman Education will take part in a £1.9 million e-learning initiative, Project SILVER, supported by the U.K. government's Technology Strategy Board.
After Getty Images released its much-publicized Web-use license, many traditional stock agencies followed suit. Though companies like Image Source continue to see no reason to mark down premium inventories, other popular brands, including Corbis and Masterfile, also lowered their online licenses to around $50.
According to Alamy's Alexandra Bortkiewicz, this holiday season exhibits a higher stylistic diversity in stock imagery sought by buyers. There is also a trend toward depicting more individual celebrations, though the traditional look remains in demand.
Given recent questions concerning Photolibrary/Indexstock bookkeeping issues, it's worth exploring some problems that can arise when a agency like Indexstock keeps sloppy books.
Getty is not the only company engaging in massive editing of its file. Several Corbis photographers have been advised in letters from Ross Sutherland, Corbis Chief Creative Officer, that close to 50% of their images will be removed.
Image Source launched the latest element of its aggressively creative marketing campaign "Open Your Eyes." This time, the royalty-free producer wants to "Open Your Ears" to a new CD and Web tool that use sound, dialogue and audio effects to describe stock imagery.
In an attempt to relieve Indexstock (IS) photographer anxieties, Photolibrary Group (PL) has made public details regarding payments of outstanding pre-acquisition royalties and the ongoing reliability of PL's accounting system.
Photolibrary executives obviously hoped to keep the matter of unpaid Index Stock royalties on the back burner until the ethics committee of the Picture Archive Council of America finished its investigation. However, photographers have made it clear that they are not willing to wait the six or more weeks this can take.
A major dilemma for stock photo portals is finding the right size for their collections. Customers complain about too many irrelevant images. Thus, a small collection would seem to be better. But an irrelevant image to one buyer, may be relevant to another. Cut the collection size, and customers complain they can't find the right image. What's the answer?
For the past three months, Getty Images has been engaged in a massive reduction of the number of images on its site. The good news is that the average-return-per-image for those remaining on the site is likely to go up dramatically. The bad news is that most suppliers are unlikely to see any growth in revenue.
The Hamburg, Germany-based Avenue Images has launched a budget-image platform, Petit Price. Though Avenue is calling this a microstock venture, there are notable differences.