After publishing several stories on blockchain technology as it relates to image licensing, it has been unclear to me how customers with dollars in their pocket would conduct a transaction to license use of a photo and how the image creator would actually gets dollars they can use to buy groceries.
It used to be when a major corporation like British Petroleum (BP) went looking new images their art department would come up with a rather specific concept for what they needed. Then they would review photographer portfolios and hire a photographer to do the job. They would pay $1,500 per day, plus expenses for the shoot. Leading, experienced photographers often received significantly higher day rates.
Blockchain tracking of stock image licensing may be a way to improve the working environment for image creators without getting involved in cryptocurrencies. One of the things that concerns image creators when they hear discussions about blockchains is that they always seem to be tied to collecting money in some type of “new economy” cryptocurrency like
KodakCoin.
One of the biggest problems in the stock image business is unauthorized use. Many of those making unauthorized uses would be happy to ask permission and compensate the creator,
if they could just find them. When they find an image on a website other than the creators there is usually no information about who the creator is or how to locate him/her.
It is that time of year when stock agencies report on image trends they expect to see in the coming year. The purpose of these reports is to help photographers focus their production on the subject matter the agencies think will be in demand in the coming year.
If you want to earn more for the images you produce, and for there to be less unauthorized use, maybe you should be praying that your images won’t get used by customers online. For many this may sound like heresy, or at the very least, ridiculous. Doesn’t everyone want more people to see and use their images? Consider this analysis.
Shutterstock has released its
2018 Creative Trends Report. Every year, Shutterstock customers across the world make billions of searches for images, footage, and music. Shutterstock creative teams analyze this search and download data to discover the biggest year-over-year increases and identify the trends they believe will continue to grow throughout 2018.
One Shutterstock photographer who has resided in various countries at different times reports that the Shutterstock search engine seems to use the contributor’s IP address as part of the algorithm to rank images higher or lower in the search return order based on location.
You’ve seen all the stories about how stock photography is junk, will chase customers away and destroy a company’s business. Well now Darren Johnson, publisher of Campus News, says that Stock Photography actually
Performs Better for his publication
Than Original Photography
After publishing the
story on IPStock on Friday I had some further questions particularly in regard to how customers actually pay for the use of images and how the photographers would receive payment. Askold Romanov, answered my questions.