Adobe Stock has announced a partnership with
Pond5, further expanding the video offerings in Adobe Stock. Sourced from an international community of artists across a mix of modern,
highly sought after content themes, such as lifestyle, recreation, sports, cinematic and aerial footage, the addition of the Pond5 video library will give video producers and designers access to one of the industry’s largest and fastest-growing collections – all natively integrated into Creative Cloud applications.
What can photographers and stock agencies do about pricing and the shift of revenues from photographers to a few huge platforms? Mike Watson says, “It’s unlikely that the major platforms will change their practices and the all-you-can-eat deals will continue. It’s time for photographers and independent agencies to unite and talk directly to their customers.” Read his whole
blog post on the robertharding blog.
From and investors point of view, Getty may have turned the corner. However, this may not benefit image creators, particularly those from North America and the Western Europe. It is my understanding that gross revenue in 2016 was about $840 million, up about 4% from around $808 million in 2015. Until 2016, Getty’s revenue declined steadily for about three years as they struggled to get their prices in line with their major competitor, Shutterstock.
Who is producing the majority of stock images that get used? Based on
Shutterstock’s 2014 and 2015 financial reports about 37% of the company’s gross revenue came from North America, 35% from Europe and 28% from the rest of the world. Given these numbers it seems reasonable to assume that since North America and Western Europe seem to be where most stock images are used that is probably where most are produced. Back in the 90s and early 00s that may have been the case, but no longer.
Each year there are three important events where representatives of stock photo agencies get together to share information –
CEPIC,
DMLA and
Visual Connections. These events are also good places for photographers to meet stock agents and get a better understanding of industry trends.
Get ready for 15% royalties. Getty has contacted some European agencies that supply the company with Royalty Free images for its Creative collection and told them that when their current contracts expire they will be terminated unless they agree to accept a 15% royalty.
Masterfile has filed a formal Proposal to Creditors under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act of Canada ("BIA"). This is not a bankruptcy. The Proposal process will provide Masterfile the opportunity to restructure its business with the objective of returning to profitability. This process is similar to a Chapter 11 filing in the USA.
According to
Around The Lens sources close to the New York Times have confirmed that the paper will begin paying freelance photographers a day rate of $450, more the double the $200 they’re currently paying. For shorter shoots, or those that don’t meet the full day-rate requirement, the rate will be $300, still more than the previous full day rate.
Shutterstock, Inc. announced today that it will again offer comprehensive coverage at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit, more commonly known as The Met Gala. This premier annual event of the fashion industry will be held on Monday, May 1st at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Among the attendees will be prominent and prestigious names in entertainment, fashion, sports, and business.
Here is a list of 13 questions agencies should consider asking themselves. They might even want to consider asking their top producing photographers and illustrators questions 3, 4 and 7.
Technavio, a leading global market research company headquartered in London, has released its annual report on the
Global Still Image Market, looking ahead five years to 2021. They say: “Technavio analysts forecast the global still images market to grow to
USD 4.46 billion by 2021, at a CAGR of close to 8% over the forecast period."
Andy Sitt, the Malaysian founder of
123RF, is seeking to raise the profile of his Chicago-headquartered stock image and design business among funds and investors in hopes of launching an initial public offering (IPO) within the next 12 to 18 months. "We're at that stage where we have to think of the next stage of the company and I believe that the next stage would be some form of exit. So (profiling the company) is more towards building it for a potential IPO," Sitt told DEALSTREETASIA.
PIXTA Inc. in Japan has acquired 80% of the outstanding stock of Topic Images Inc. of Korea from its parent companies, NEWSIS Co., Ltd. and NEWS1 Co., Ltd. for 130 million JPY ($1,164,780). The transaction took place on Feb 24, 2017. Topic has been selling high-priced stock images mainly in Korea, producing many of them by itself. Topic is now a subsidiary of PIXTA and will receive PIXTA’s strong support for its business operation. However, Topic is continuously conducting its own business as an existing company.
The House Judiciary Committee has passed the amended “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” (H.R. 1695) by an overwhelming majority of 27-1. Key provisions of the act makes the Copyright Office an independent agency under the Legislative Branch with no connection to the Library of Congress and creates a Small Claims Court System for pursuing infringements.
A writer for the Boston Globe asked me to discuss the role, if any, that stock photos plays in fake news. “Can or should the stock photo industry do anything to curb the use of its photos on fake news sites.” Stock photography is not “Fake.” This is not to say that there aren’t some photos that are designed to be outright distortions of the truth, but the vast majority of stock photos are taken with the hope of showing an actual event or something that illustrates real life.
Shutterstock may have decided the loading up of their collection with “Similar Content” may have gotten out of hand and may not be benefiting customers. They have recently changed their editing strategy and issued a
notice to contributors saying, “Submitting subtle variations of the same image can be considered content spamming and is not permitted. We continuously evaluate our collection and remove images that do not meet our policies.”
Given the declines in stock photo prices, it may be time for the industry to look for a new image pricing strategy. Yesterday I made
an argument for why the industry needs to price based on performance, or demand for certain images. There also needs to be a price floor for certain images that are in greater demand. Price should have little, if anything, to do with whether the image is exclusive or non-exclusive.
A professional stock photographer has pointed out to me that a long held tactic to price a premium brand of anything is that a higher price indicates higher quality. He argued this is why some photographers insist on selling their images as Rights Managed. They believe they are producing a higher quality product. They often go to a great deal of effort and expense to produce their images. As a result, they feel they are not only justified in charging more, but that it is the only way they can recover their production costs.
RightSmith Group, specialists in the licensing and management of high-value media archives, has partnered with
Profiles Television, creator of The Amazing Race, to commercialize its enormous archive of stunning stock footage from the world-renowned TV series. Hundreds of hours of pristine footage covering more than 85 countries is now exclusively available for licensing by creative professionals via the
RightSmith content licensing portal.
I’ve been doing a little more thinking about some of the implication of the
story I wrote on Monday. As an American I had assumed that image creators who only earn a few thousand a year from their creative work couldn’t possibly be supporting themselves from the images or illustration they produce. Therefore, I had concluded that they must be amateurs. That may not be the case.
Stock photo sellers and producers should read the New York Times story “How the Internet Is Saving Culture, Not Killing It” (
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/learning/questions-for-how-the-internet-is-saving-culture-not-killing-it.html?_r=0 ) The story makes the argument that increasingly Internet users are willing to pay for certain content and no longer expecting that everything they find on the Internet should be free.
Dreamstime, has announced the implementation of a proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) system that uses sophisticated algorithms to screen submitted images. The machine learning tool is designed to examine how human editors at Dreamstime review images, and then adjust its parameters to best match the editors' various criteria
Shutterstock, Inc. has announced that it has signed an exclusive global distribution deal with World Surf League (WSL) to market and license imagery from WSL’s Championship Tour and Big Wave Tour Events. The deal also includes WSL’s extensive archive, showcasing thousands of pivotal moments from competitive surfing history.
There is a lot of noise about the demand for photos that are “natural,” “candid” and more “realistic shots of real people” rather than the carefully arranged, high production value photos that have been best sellers in the stock photo industry for many years.
Thanks to information supplied by
microstock.top concerning Shutterstock contributors and information from
Nationmaster.com regarding the average 2014 monthly salary from 162 countries, it is possible to get a better understanding of why more than 60% of the images in the Shutterstock collection are provided by Eastern European and Asian creators.