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Articles from August 2018
I have created a SurveyMonkey survey in an effort to gather data on the general income ranges of Editorial Still Photographers around the world. Go to this link to respond to the survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PhotogIncomeSurvey Please encourage all editorial still photographers to respond to this survey. The resulting data could be very helpful to photography students, working photographers, the organizations that license rights to use editorial photography and those who purchase editorial photographs.
Imaginechina, has recently won 38 copyright infringement lawsuits against Nasdaq-listed Baidu Inc., the largest search engine and one of the biggest Internet companies in China. The Haidian People’s Court in Beijing adjudicates in the first-instance verdicts that Baidu and its affiliates have pirated a total of 150 images from 20 contracted photographers and that Baidu ought to compensate the plaintiffs RMB 415,000 yuan ($60,940) for the violations and the related costs.
ImageRights International Inc. has intensified its image search and copyright enforcement operations in Germany to drive value for its global photographer and photo agency client base. ImageRights-developed artificial intelligence (AI), combined with its proprietary web search and image analysis algorithms, has enabled the company to analyze millions of German web domains to determine if an image use could be pursued for copyright enforcement purposes.
Blend Images photographers have been notified that
Tetra Images has acquired the Contributor Contracts, Distribution agreements and the Blend trademark. Tetra has securely obtained all banking data from Blend and will be mailing the first pdf royalty statements for August sales by email at the end of September. Payment for August sales will be made October 1, 2018. Blend has invoiced all licenses through July 2018 and will be paying out royalties until October, or presumably until all the licenses have been collected.
A multi-year review of Shutterstock download trends going back to Q3 2010 provides some interesting insights into how adding more images to the collection relates to sales growth. (See chart) Back in 2010 Shutterstock had 12.3 million images in its collection and 11.1 total downloads for that quarter. In theory the more choice you offer your customers the more sales you are likely to make. That pretty much held true through 2012 as Shutterstock almost doubled the size of its collection.
SmartFrame has developed a revolutionary, patent-pending new image format for the internet that seeks to redefine and become the ubiquitous digital image standard. Having spent 5 years developing the technology and building the infrastructure to support exponential growth, SmartFrame is now seeing the technology being adopted by photographers, picture agencies, publishers and brands globally and is on target to having over 1 billion SmartFrames on the Internet in the next 4 years.
At the end of 2017 Shutterstock had about 300,000 “active contributors.” In the press release put out on August 1, 2018 they said, “Since the launch of Shutterstock, more than 450,000 photographers, artists and designers have become contributors to our platform.” Since it is hard to believe that they added 150,000 new contributors in just six months, I suspect they make a distinction between “active contributors” and “all people who have ever contributed” in their 15-year history. We asked their PR department, but got no clarification.
Photographers who think they can protect the images they post online by only uploading small files need to think again. Now with Topaz Labs $99
A.I. Gigapixel program anyone can re-size any images they find online, make it up to 600% larger than its original size and also improve sharpness. For more about how it works check out this
YouTube video.
It is amazing to me that no agency has created a two-tier stock photo marketing system similar to iStock’s, but for Licensed and Unlicensed images rather than Exclusive and Non-Exclusive. iStock has priced their Signature image collection 3 times higher than its Essemtial, Non-Exclusive collection. And they pay contributors a higher royalty rate for images licensed from the Signature collection.
Alamy has announced that current CEO Andy Harding will leave the business by mutual consent. Alamy Chairman, James West will resume accountability as CEO with immediate effect. James West commented “We would like to thank Andy for his significant contribution to the business since his arrival last year and we wish him every success in his future endeavors.”
Aller Media a leading publisher of celebrity, human touch and women’s magazines in Denmark, has announced it has partnered with
The Mega Agency, who will become a preferred content partner. The deal, signed earlier this month, gives Aller Media access to The Mega Agency's breaking news content and rich archive of news, sport and entertainment photographs and videos, and further enhances the close relationship between the two media companies.
ACSIL, Association of Commercial Stock Footage Licensors, has organized a Footage Meet-Up in Los Angeles on October 20, 2018, just before the start of the
DMLA Conference that will be held October 21st to 23rd. The Footage Meet-Up will be held at the Getty Images office in LA at 6300 Wilshire Blvd on the 16th Floor from 2pm to 7pm. Attendance for footage buyers is Free, but due to limited space registration will be required. If you are interested in attending go
here before September 17, 2018 to register.
WebPurify, a full-service digital content moderation and review company with over 12 years experience is a new sponsor of the
Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA). The Irvine, CA based company’s mission is to maintain the quality and integrity of media libraries. WebPurify’s offers a combination of live content moderators and AI technology that can be a huge asset to stock photography websites in helping to curate, manage and moderate the copy associated with images and videos.
If you’re hoping to earn significant money from Fine Art Photography you should read
Conor Risch’s Photo District News article regarding a recent survey by the
Creative Independent. More than 1,000 visual artists of all types (not just photographers) responded to the Creative Independent survey. Nearly 60 percent of respondents make less than $30,000 per year, and 35 percent make $20,000 or less per year from their fine art work.
Will part-time photographers be able to supply all the future needs of professional photo users? This is one of the most interesting questions facing the stock photo industry today. There is no question that part-time photographers occasionally produce beautiful, creative, exciting images. Sometimes these images are better than anything produced by full-time professionals.
Laura Annick asked some questions concerning my article about the
concept of an ICL. Here are her comments and my response. You're assuming that 100% of all creators will have uploaded their images and thus if a searcher cannot find an image, then it must be free to use. As you know there are TONS of independent filmmakers out there. It could take quite a long time to get EVERYONE to upload their images. I would rather see a notice saying "Image Not Found, Further Research Needed" or Use at Own Risk.
A key to success of any business is supplying customer what they need and want. Sometimes you can sell them things they don’t need, but there is a limit as to how long you can survive with that strategy. Image user don’t want more images. They want to find exactly the right image quickly. They don’t want to be editors. They want someone to do the editing for them. Most don’t have a lot of time to waste.
The annual Digital Media Licensing Association
(DMLA) conference will be held in Los Angeles this year on October 21-23, 2018 at the Marriott Marina del Rey Hotel. The hotel is within walking distance of the vibrant and eclectic Venice Beach and just a short drive from the gorgeous Santa Monica Beach.
Recently, I received a call from the developer of a real estate website who is looking for a picture researcher to help him find images to illustrate the stories he will publish on his website. He is looking for “free” pictures, but has determined that it takes too much time, and is too much hassle, to do the research on the free sites himself. He is willing to pay someone to do that research, but not pay for the photographs.
The New York Daily News a daily tabloid newspaper founded in 1919, and as of May 2016 the United States’ ninth-most widely circulated daily newspaper, eliminated the jobs of all 10 staff photographers as of July 23, 2018. In addition to the photographers two photo editing staff positions were also eliminated.
Photographers know they must have signed model releases for any non-news pictures they want to offer for licensing as stock photos. Commercial stock agencies like Getty Images or Shutterstock won’t accept photos unless they are accompanied by a signed release. But, do the photographers, or the models have any idea how the pictures might be used?
Caution! Don’t let any of your models read
The Indian Express story about Shubnum Kahn’s modeling experience.
Shutterstock has reported Q2 2018 revenue of
$156.6 million up $22.6 million or 16.9% compared to Q2 2017. (The comparison excludes the 2017
revenue from Webdam which was divested in Q1 2018.) Revenue per download averaged
$3.41 per image, an increase of 12% over Q2 2017. (Much of this growth is probably due to increased sales of video content offered at much higher prices than still image content.)