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Articles from April 2017
Here’s a way to raise prices without too much pain on anyone. Forget about raising prices on the top end sales. Instead, raise them a little bit at the bottom end. I recently examined licenses of some major suppliers to Getty Images and iStock. They received a royalty of less than $10 on 95% for the licenses. The average gross license fee of these lower end transactions was $5.12. Suppose instead of raising prices overall agencies add just a little bit to the gross license fee for their lowest priced licenses.
When most companies enter into negotiations with customers on the price of a product they usually know exactly what it costs them to product. In most cases they tend to not want to give away the product for less than it costs to produce. In the stock photo business usually have no idea what it costs to produce the product they are selling. They only know that they will have to give the creator a small percentage of what they are able to charge the customer. They have no idea if that is enough to cover the creators cost of production.
VideoBlocks is now accepting images for its new artist-friendly stock Photo Marketplace that will reward photo contributors with 100 percent commission from their sales. That 100% is $3.99 per still image download less third-party fees (like credit card charges) incurred when processing the transactions. Seeing this price many photographers may reject the offer out of hand. But, this is a very different business model from traditional stock agency businesses. Instead of paying a percentage royalty, contributors receive the full amount that the customer pays to use their work.
The Natural History Museum is showcasing its award-winning imagery including its
Wildlife of the Year content at fotofringe 2017 in London. NHM has chosen Capture Ltd as its partner in bringing the extraordinary collection to market.
If you think nothing ever happens in Congress, you’re wrong! On April 26th the U.S. House of Representatives passed
H.R. 1695, a bill that proposes making the Register of Copyrights a Presidential appointee, confirmed by the Senate. This is a first step toward modernizing the U.S. Copyright Office.
Panther Media has introduced a new approach to Rights Managed licensing and is opening the door to some really special photography. “We always had a clear position on the subject of rights managed licensing”, says Tomas Speight, CEO of Panther Media GmbH, “we would only ever do it if we could make it so easy it doesn’t need explaining”.
Adobe Stock has added new tools to make the image creation process easier and provide more efficient ways to upload and submit photo, video or other assets to Adobe Stock.
As of April 26, 2017 Alamy has made
contract changes that will be of interest to contributors. Most notably they will now pay contributors monthly whenever the Cleared Funds in the contributor’s account exceeds US $50. Previously, contributors were not paid until their Cleared Funds exceeded $US $75.
Here’s a simple thing every photographer and stock agent can do to protect their copyright.
Tell Congress to Vote “Yes” on H.R. 1695 – a bill to Modernize the U.S. Copyright office. It will take you less than 5 minutes. Go to
http://copyrightalliance.org/get-involved/add-your-voice/ . Click on “Take Action.” The Copyrightalliance will ask for your zip code and then your name and address. Once you’ve input that information your name will be added to a pre-written letter to your Congressperson.
It’s that simple!
Getty Images has been focusing on
growing its subscription business. The theory is that subscriptions will make customers more dependent on the company for their future needs. Currently, subscriptions represent 37% to 38% of Getty’s Creative Revenue and about 50% of Editorial Revenue.
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.