Is bulk pricing always bad? After reviewing the sales reports of a number of Getty photographers
we’ve reported that from 25% and up to 40% in some cases of Getty’s total sales are for fees of $25 or less – often a lot less. Hans Halberstadt explains how he uses bulk pricing and custom pricing menus to get much more reasonable fees for the use of his images.
The stock photography business has changed dramatically from what it was five or ten years ago and the future does and the future does not look promising. In this article we’ve provided links to a number of previously published articles that provide a good overview of the industry and where we believe it is headed. If the reader wants to get a basic grounding in what stock photography is all about this is the place to start.
Dreamstime just released the following to the press cautioning image user to be careful about grabbing images off the Internet because they could be “violating someone’s copyright.” To aid users in protecting themselves Dreamstime offers a collection of images at
Stockfreeimages.com.
Corbis® Images has launched
Corbis CRAVE, a premium image discovery experience developed exclusively for iPad® and as an accompanying web experience. CRAVE features expertly curated imagery from industry-leading commercial and editorial photographers. At launch there are 47 portfolios from featured photographers.
With Stocksy (
http://www.stocksy.com/) Bruce Livingstone has set out to produce a collection of “authentic” stock images unlike anything customers will be able to find anywhere else. When he uses the work authentic he means a photograph that doesn’t look staged, pretend, forced or unrealistic. Images can be processed, but the processing must match the content. It’s not Instagram. Bruce took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us.
At the CEPIC Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday June 12th there will be a discussion on a new initiative that could generate significant new revenue for image creators whose images are “crowd sourced” and posted without authorization to various domains on the Internet. This story examines the “Winston Project,” a system for collecting revenue for “Passive Image Use.” when a user uploads an image created by someone else to a “crowd sourced” domain, or when a user clicks on an image or shares it within the domain.
The United Kingdom company
Eposure has posted preliminary results of its
Photographer Day Rates survey that was conducted online through its blog. Eposure is a company that “brings commercial photographers and businesses closer” and provides information and mentoring programs for photographers.
Shutterstock has reported a record 22.3 million downloads and $51.5 million in revenue in Q1 2013. Revenue per download grew 8% year-over-year to $2.29. The Shutterstock collection has grown to more than 25 million images and over 1 million video clips. Revenue is expected to grow in Q2 to between $53 million and $55 million. For all of 2013 revenue is now projected to be between $221 million and $226 million. EBITDA is projected to be between $46 million and $48 million.
United Kingdom photographers are up in arms over the latest action by their government to make it legal for consumers to use their images without their permission. The
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act recently passed in the U.K. provides a way to legally use images found on the Internet when the copyright owner cannot be identified or contacted. Such images are known as “orphaned works.”
In an effort to help its photographers shoot the imagery demanded by image buyers Image Source’s trend monitoring team, ISM, have published a report on its
photographer resource blog IMSO, that examines the concepts portrayed in recent family imagery. In the process of preparing this report Image Source analyzed changes in the buying patterns or its customers, and researched a wide range of media and customer needs.
We reported on price variations to different countries for use of the same photo
here and
here. Kiratsinh Jadeja who originally raised the issue asked, “Do you think majority of the buyers already know about this and outsource already?”
If supplying pictures for educational use is a significant part of your business plan you need to be aware of how the market is trending toward digital delivery and how that is likely to affect the prices that will be paid for images used in digital products. In case you’ve missed them the following are links to a few stories we’ve published that deal with this subject in the last few years.
Since the fall of 2012 iStockphoto had been accepting pictures taken with mobile devices. Currently they have 7433 images on the site. So far, they do not allow contributors to upload their photos directly from their mobile devices. It is not clear whether they are accepting images from contributors who only shoot with a camera phone, or whether they are just encouraging their regular contributors to also submit some images they shoot with their phones.
The Hollywood Reporter says the distribution of motion pictures on film
in the U.S. could be over before the end of 2013. Eighty-five percent of
the screens in North America have already switched to digital as have
67% of those in Europe.
The Associated Press has scored a significant copyright victory in the case Associated Press v. Meltwater. While the issue in this case was about the “scraping” and re-purposing of copyrighted text it could have important applications for photographers whose images are grabbed and re-purposed by Internet sites. Meltwater’s fair use defense was struck down by the court.
Newscom, the world's largest multi-agency library of digital images, has announced the launch of its sister company,
Pixation Images. The focus of this new platform is to provide quality creative images designed for commercial use that clients need to sell their story.
Alamy has introduced a new forum for contributors as part of their continuous improvement strategy. Access the forum
here or
here. Following the website redesign in April, the new forum has a fresh interface, enhanced features and is encouraging positive engagement within its community of photographers.
JMC Inc (formerly JTB Photo Communications) based in Tokyo, Japan and
Universal Images Group Limited (UIG) have entered into an agreement in Tokyo on April 12th 2013 for UIG to manage the global distribution business of JMC in respect of the JTB Photo picture library of 150,000 travel, travel related, cultural, cultural heritage and religious rights managed images. Another 650,000 to be edited and 10,000 new images per month are part of the deal.
The Instagram community of 100 million users will have a new way to market their images with the August 2013 launch of
InstaStockImages.
Scoopshot, the global crowdsourcing photo and video service has announced a global alliance with
Ebyline, a company which helps media publishers, agencies and brands to collaborate with professional freelance journalists worldwide by providing workflow tools.
The American Photographic Artists (APA) association has joined 15 plaintiffs in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google that alleges the “Google Book Search” program violates the copyrights of numerous photographers and other visual artists.
In recent discussions with agents operating in Europe it seems that it has become impossible to hold the line on pricing. They say there is always a competitor willing to undercut any rate.
Last week we asked the question “
Where is the best place to license images?” if the image is available in the Getty Images collection. We thought India might be the cheapest source, but we found some surprising cheaper alternatives.
Anyone interested in a career as a photographer – as well as those photographers in mid-career -- needs to carefully consider how the business is changing. If we look at image use on the Internet it is undeniable that more images are being made available for viewing. However, for professionals this is not good news.
More image use does not mean more demand for professionally produced images. It does not mean that there will be more opportunities for photographers to earn their living taking pictures. In fact, the opportunities to earn a living as a photographer are declining. Here’s why.
If you want to license an image from Getty Images for use in the United Kingdom is it better to license the use in Canada or India? Recently, Kiratsinh Jadeja priced
the same image for the same usage in both countries. He discovered that if he licensed the use in India the cost would be less than half the Canadian price. In either case he could legally use the image in the UK. Learn why.