This story provides links to several stories that relate to the Visual China Group (VCG) acquisition of Corbis and the role Getty Images has been assigned in the transfer of Corbis assets to the Getty Images collection. Getty’s collection was marketed in China by VCG before the sale. The new enlarged collection with the addition of some Corbis images will continue to be marketed in China by VCG.
The Shutterstock Contributor App that contributors may obtain from the Apple App store has been upgraded to allow contributors to directly attach, upload and manage model and property releases to their images from their phones.
How low can prices go? Is the volume of images used more important than earning money when an image is used? Must we accept whatever the customer is willing to pay, or is it possible, at some point to say NO? If there is such a point where is it? Most photographer will agree there is some point where the people representing our images should say NO, but there is big disagreement on where that point should be.
I was recently asked for my views on where the stock photo industry is headed over the next few years, the value of the industry at present, and how I think the major players will adapt to the growing availability of user-generated content. Here’s my answer.
In recent seminars and webinars Getty provided contributors with information about buyer activity and tried to help them understand what customers need. One of the most important bits of information was that Getty is currently licensing rights to 10 RF images for every 1 RM. For years the average licensing fee for an RM image has been about 2.5 times that of an RF image. While the royalty share of an RM sale tends to be higher than an RF sale (about 35% to 20%) at a 10 to 1 ratio creators are likely to earn significantly more licensing their images as RF than as RM.
Dreamstime, has launched
Megapixl.com, a new website that utilizes machine learning to offer more refined stock image choices based on past user behaviors. This artificial intelligence (AI) utilizes past behavioral data garnered from millions of designers in order to determine which content is the most relevant and suitable for the individual user.
Veer has closed its doors and photographers have been released from any contractual obligations they had with Veer. Images belong to Veer photographers have not been automatically migrated to iStock, but photographers can request a transfer and sign a new iStock contract if they wish. Effective May 2, 2016, the Corbis Images and Corbis Motion businesses and websites will no longer be accessible.
Many think search will be solved with better Metadata. While metadata is important, there are limits to how far it can take the customer toward finding the right piece of content. This story provides links to a number of previous stories that deal with this issue.
Time is becoming an increasing important factor for art directors and image buyers. Bosses and customers are demanding more output and giving the art director less time to produce results. The time it takes to find the right (well maybe, just usable) image is an increasingly important factor to be considered.
A photographer recently called to my attention a keywording anomaly that those who want their images found might want to consider. The photographer said that when he prepares for a trip to another country he searches some of the popular photo sites for the country and the keyword “released.”
Charles Taylor is still trying to put together a company that will consolidate many smaller independent picture agencies into a single publicly traded company that will be traded on the AIM stock exchange in the UK. Back in 2014 Taylor’s organization was called
GDI Media Limited. The new version is called Avalon. More about it can be found
here.
Last fall, BVPA, the German association of picture agencies, asked me a series of questions about the U.S. market for stock photography and where I think it is headed. The following is what I told them along with links to a few relevant stories.
The Mega Agency, a new global media business, focused on delivering editorial images, is pleased to announce that David Ellis has been recruited as UK Sales Director.
Agencies need to think hard about supplying contributors with more detailed information about exactly what is being requested and what is really selling. It used to be enough to provide general information about the broad categories of subject matter in demand. At that point they would leave it up to the individual creator to guess at what buyers -- with whom they have no contact whatsoever -- might want. That is no longer enough. Shooting based on gut feelings no longer works.
After reading my
previous story investors in stock photo companies as well as image buyers may ask, “Why should we care if professional photographers stop producing stock images?”
A Korean subscriber recently asked the following questions. “I notice you say that many photographers are unable to earn enough money and end up leaving the market. Is there any specific number that you can prove? How many photographers/contributors were there in the past and now?
A videographer wrote recently complaining that two of his video clips had been sold by Getty Images to Viacom for a broadcast show on Comedy Central. This show also appears on the web. These two sales were made through a Premium Access deal and netted the videographer a whopping $8.46 for the two sales.
There is a huge amount of focus on Visual Search and its potential for the stock photo industry. In my opinion Visual Search Will Not Solve The Problems Stock Photo Customers Face. Visual search can be very useful in finding an image that the customer has a copy of in hand. It can find all the uses on the Internet of a particular image, but that’s not what most customers want.
Recently, a photographer ask the following questions: Is stock photography a growing industry. I have read some analysis that say it is growing significantly, but others argue that free stock photography and microstock photography are leading photographers to leave the market. What is your opinion on that argument? Should a photographer upload the same pictures to as many other agencies as possible?
Over the past year, one of
Shutterstock’s engineering teams has spearheaded and modified computer vision technology to introduce more innovative search and discovery features and to improve the customer’s overall site experience.
Stock footage and photography company
Dissolve will be introducing its popular Liftoff program to filmmakers at NAB 2016, April 16-21 in Las Vegas.
It is getting harder and harder for photographers to protect their copyright. With PicScout, TinEye, Google Image Search and other reverse image search solutions it is easy enough to locate uses of specific images online. But, it can be very laborious to search one-by-one for particular images in a large collection, and it can be costly to have someone like PicScout do it for you.
Adobe Stock has announced that it now has over 50 million high-res photos, vectors, illustrations, HD videos including some 4K videos to its collection.
The annual
CEPIC Congress, the world’s largest event where licensors of still still and footage get to together to discuss issues facing their industry, will be held from 25 to 27 May 2016 in Zagreb, Croatia at the Sheraton Zagreb Hotel.
I want to call your attention to a couple of comments to my recent story “
Curated Collections: The Future.” It is important to recognize that there are some great images on most of the stock photo sites with tens of millions of images. But as we shove everything that meets certain technical standards onto these sites, it becomes harder and harder to sort through all the mediocre shots and find the few great ones.