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RANDOM THOUGHTS 26
December 4, 2000
Sarah Stone Goes To Workbook
Sarah Stone, daughter of Tony Stone and creative director at Tony Stone Images
before it was acquired by Getty Images, has been hired as Director of Content for
the new Workbook site.
Getty Promotes Corbis
The name of the game on the internet is how many different ways you can tell
customers about your site. Get your banners on every conceivable site related to
your business. If you can get your competitor to promote your site, all the better.
Back in January Getty Images purchased a small Ontario Corporation called I/US
Corporation. They issued 49,565 shares of Getty's common stock which had an
aggregate value at the time of $2.3 million in exchange for all of the issued and
outstanding capital stock of I/US Corporation.
I/US, All Things Graphic, is a portal which is aimed primarily at desktop
publishers. However, advanced business users and graphic designers also use the
site. There are also aspects of the site that seem to be aimed at advanced amateurs
and students. It is unclear how the site itself is being marketed. It can be
reached by going to www.i-us.com.
What is interesting to us is that although this site is owned by Getty, it has three
sponsors -- Adobe, CORBIS and EyeWire. Each sponsor pays advertising dollars to get
their "sponsor" position. Sponsors have a permanent button on the left hand side of
the home page. The Corbis button is the same size as the EyeWire notice. There is
no mention of Gettyone.com or PhotoDisc on the home page.
While it mentions Royalty Free under the Corbis button, if you click the button it
takes you to the Corbis site and immediately gives you the option of searching for
either Rights Protected or Royalty Free images. Corbis also has banner ads
appearing on the site.
I find this willingness of Getty Images to promote the Corbis name and venue very
interesting. Maybe next we will see Corbis being promoted on Gettyone.com -- if
they are willing to pay enough for the position.
It is also interesting when we consider that Getty doesn't want the photographers
they represent to offer to Corbis, images Getty is unwilling to accept. Likewise,
Corbis doesn't want their photographers to make any images Corbis won't accept
available to Getty for marketing.
Stone Catalog Prices
One Stone photographer has calculated, based on the per image fee
photographers are being required to pay, that the costs for production and
distribution of the "Work" catalog which contains about 1100 images was $2,395,272
($786,830 for the North American edition and $1,608,442 for the Rest of the World
edition).
We asked Getty Images about two months ago how many copies of "Work" they had
distributed and if these figures were accurate.
They have been unwilling to comment.
In checking with a major producer of quality catalogs in Europe we have determined
that they have recently been able to produce and distribute 100,000 copies of a 428
page catalog with about 2200 images (twice the number of images as in "Work") for
the following costs.
Printing, including shipping and insurance
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$400,000
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Separations
|
$100,000
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About 70 dupes of each images for at total of 160,000 dupes
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$240,000
|
In country mailing to customers varies
but averages $4.00 per book
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$400,000
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Total
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$1,140,000
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It they had distributed 200,000 copies the total cost would have been about
$1,940,000. These figures do not cover any internal labor costs for editing and
design work. Also keep in mind that "Work" has a page size that is about 40% of the
traditional catalog page size so Stone probably had much lower paper costs for
printing.
Another thing to keep in mind is that because Stone is only putting about half as
many images in a catalog as the other agency the proportional cost per image will be
twice as high.
If Stone is paying for 50% of the catalog costs and the total fees charged
photographers was $2,395,272 then Stone probably distributed close to 500,000 "Work"
catalogs worldwide.
PhotoDisc Price Increases
In 2000 PhotoDisc has instituted some dramatic increases in prices for single image
sales on-line.
|
Nov 1999
|
Feb 2000
|
Sept 2000
|
% Increase
|
600K
|
19.95
|
24.95
|
29.95
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50%
|
10MB
|
69.95
|
79.95
|
99.95
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42.8%
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28MB
|
129.95
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149.95
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179.95
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38.5%
|
Disc prices are also up slightly over what they were a few years ago. Prices for
their major line are $329 per disc. They also offer their Signature Series and
Designer Tools at $279 and the Object Series and Backgrounds and $179.
While the Royalty Free business used to be based totally on selling disc in 2000
there has been a dramatic shift to buying images on-line. Published information has
indicated that at least 60% of the dollar volume currently being generated by
PhotoDisc is for single image sales. The majority of those sales are for the 10MB
file size.
It has generally been assumed that most customers who bought discs purchased them in
order to use a single image. Frequently they never use any of the other images on
the discs. Now when it is easy for customers to buy just the images they need, and
to get rapid delivery on-line rather than having to wait for a disc to be shipped by
Federal Express, the average price per unit sold is dropping -- $99.95 vs. $329.
This may also result in an increase in unit sales. (Those people who actually used
two pictures off a disc are now making two purchases instead of one.)
Other RF producers are reporting that in excess of 70% of current sales are for
single images rather than discs. It seems likely that disc sales are on the way
out. In the future all buyers will purchase the image they need, as they need it,
be it RF or RP. It also seems likely prices for single image RF will continue to
rise as a way of making up for the loss of revenue from disc sales.
CEPIC
The sixth CEPIC Congress will be held in Amsterdam from Thursday May 24th to Sunday
May 27th, 2001. CEPIC, the Coordination of European Picture Agencies Press & Stock,
is headquartered in Paris and has offices in Berlin.
The main topic of the conference will be the crossover between
journalistic, documentary photography and commercial stock photography, and an
examination of the use of photo-journalistic style images in advertising. There
will also be an examination of the increasing use of royalty free photography.
Results of a European Stock Industry Survey will be available and there will be
up-dates on the new EU Copyright Directive. The complete program will be available
in December 2000. More information is available by e-mailing CEPIC at:
cepic@akg.de.
or going to their web site at
www.cepic.org.
All discussions at the conference are in English with simultaneous translation in
French and possibly German this year.
The World Press Photo exhibition will be on display during the conference and on
Saturday there will be an opportunity to visit the Naarden Photo Festival 2001 about
20 kilometers from Amsterdam.
Corporate Advertising Magazines - House Organs
Corporations sometimes produce magazines and newsletters directed toward their
customers, that are designed solely as marketing pieces. The term "House Organ" has
been used for years to describe this type of publication.
Often such publications are easy to distinguish from a regular consumer magazine
because they have little in the way of advertising pages and all advertising found
within them is for the company itself.
Recently companies are taking this "House Organ" strategy one step further and
selling ads to a
variety of other companies who provide non-competing services that might be of
interest to readers. In this way they offset some of their cost of advertising.
Often the producer of such magazines will be one of the large publishers who also
produces general interest consumer magazines and does this type of work on contract
for the corporation.
An example of such a magazine is "IQ Magazine" produced for Cisco Systems by
Hachette Custom Publishing. To quote the magazine itself, it is "the senior
executive's atlas to the Internet economy. Using the successful models of Cisco
Systems and its customers, the bimonthly details how business can harness the power
of the Internet to gain a competitive advantage and increase profitability."
The editorial content is primarily profiles of Cisco Systems clients who have
integrated the internet with their businesses in a highly successful way. Each of
these articles briefly mentions Cisco Systems' role in this process - basically a
very smooth customer endorsement.
The magazine is not subscription based. It is distributed free to customers and
prospective clients of Cisco Systems. Until the last issue the distribution had
been confined to the U.S., but now they are branching out to the foreign market.
It is a beautifully produced product - thick paper, beautiful binding, 5-color
covers, etc. It also runs big expensive
ads from companies like Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Cadillac, AT&T, AC
Anderson, etc.
To price such usages
Negotiating Stock Photo Prices has rates on page 206 for External House Organs.
These prices are very close to advertising rates and way above the recommended consumer
editorial rates. The new edition of NSPP which will be out in 2001 will
probably push these rates up by another 10%.
In the case of assignments for pictures that go with editorial content within such
publications, we believe you should charge very close to what you would normally
charge to do an advertising assignment, not your normal editorial rate. Publisher
will try to get you to do the work for the same fees charged for consumer
magazine assignments. This should be resisted.
One argument for charging more is that the images produced on such shoots will
usually have much lower resale value as stock. It should also be recognized that
charging more for this type of publication has been an industry standard since
before Negotiating Stock Photo Prices started publishing in 1989 and for as long as
ASMP has published pricing guidelines.
PPA Settles Copyright Suit With KMart
Kmart and the photographic trade association Professional
Photographers of America (PPA) have negotiated a settlement that will end the
association's federal copyright suit against the discount retailing giant.
"In negotiating a settlement, we've been able to work with Kmart to create practices
and standards that will offer reasonable copyright protection at their retail
stores," says PPA President Dominic Iodice. After four years of repeatedly
contacting Kmart's corporate headquarters and several of its stores concerning
reports of copyright violations, PPA filed its copyright lawsuit in late 1999,
alleging that Kmart violated federal law by copying images without the permission of
the copyright owner.
The legally binding agreement will result in Kmart instituting some of the strongest
copyright protection methods in the retail industry. These steps include improved
employee training and procedures, the creation of a "mystery shopper" program, and
the revision of Kmart's disciplinary standards for employees who unlawfully copy
professional images. Kmart will also add highly visible signage with copyright
warnings on or near each of
its copiers. They will assign a senior executive from its national office to act as
a liaison to PPA and be responsible for ongoing implementation of the program.
These changes should be fully implemented in approximately six months. "These steps
set a wonderful example for other retailers with image copying equipment to follow,"
says President Iodice.
In addition to ensuring reasonable protection against unauthorized
copying, Kmart has agreed to pay PPA the sum of $100,000. "The majority of the money
from the settlement, along with the funds we raised prior to filing the suit, will
be consumed by legal and investigative fees," says Iodice. "But that's irrelevant.
The important thing, is reaching a mutual agreement that will reduce the possibility
of professional photographs being illegally copied at Kmart stores."
In settling the case, no admission of any violation of law or liability by any party
is implied.