Agencies/Distributors
Adobe has identified six
visual design trends for 2018. They are: Silence and Solitude; The fluid self; Multilocalism; Creative Reality; History and Memory and Touch and Tactility. In each of these areas they have created a gallery of Adobe Stock Photos that illustrate the concepts.
The market for editorial stock photos is quite different from the commercial market. Shutterstock may be having a difficult time adapting. In January 2015 Shutterstock
purchased Rex Features for $33 million. At the time it was believed that Rex’s gross 2014 revenue was about $7 million.
SilverHub Media is an editorial agency launched in 2016 by long time Getty senior executive Nick Evans-Lomb and Adrian Murrell. On 11/14/2017 Companies House in the UK announced that SilverHub Media will be dissolved within 2 months “unless cause is shown to the contrary.” Rumors have it that SilverHub is saying this was an administrative error.
Last week I wrote about the
Top Suppliers to Getty Image and pointed out that EyeEm has significantly more images in the collection than any other agency supplier.
Contributors to 123RF recently received a request from Eric, who heads the team that secures content for 123RF. He asked them to make their footage available to users via a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. The theory behind this strategy seems to be that some users may be so thankful for your footage and images that they will send you a “donation” to show their appreciation. Of course, they are not “required or obligated” to donate.
It was recently called to my attention that EyeEm has 3,494,298 images in the Getty Images collection. Add to that the 2,755,731 in the Moment collection (from Flickr photographers) and these two collections represent 29% of the combined RM and RF collections currently on Gettyimages.com, and 41% of the RF collection alone. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the current number of images each brand has at Getty.
One of the interesting questions raised by the chart in the
previous story and the chart below is the annual revenue each collection might possibly generate. Certain specialized collections may have provided very few images and thus generate much less than the larger collections. However, by using the attached chart brand owners may be able to get a senses of whether their images are selling as well as those of their competitors.
Moody’s Investor Service reports that total Getty Images revenue for the twelve months ended 30 September 2017 was
$836.8 million.
iStock has done a deal with
Joomag that allowed Joomag users to purchase as few, or as many, images a month as they would like to use for $2.99 each. Joomag provides a graphic design service to over “500,000 businesses across all sectors” that allows customers to create digital newsletters, magazines, catalogs, brochures, ebooks and more and deliver these products either online or in printed form.
Alamy had a very good year in 2016 with total turnover
up 31% to 19,185,668 £ compared to 14,627,376 £ in 2015. However, much of that percentage growth was due to strong sales in the U.S. and a declining exchange rate in the pound compared to other currencies. Based on the U.S. dollar rate at the end of each year the total turnover 2016 was $23,675,114 compared to $21,569,529 for 2015.
Shutterstock has reported Q3 2017 revenue of
$141.1 million up $18.0 million, or 14% on a constant currency basis, compared to Q3 2016. The revenue was also up $7.1 million from Q2 2017. Revenue per download averaged $3.23 per image, an 11% increase over Q3 2016. About
27% of revenue, or roughly $38.09 million, was paid out in royalties to contributors.
Photographers at
PhotoPlus Expo report that they are receiving invitations to join
AdobeStock, but Adobe wants them to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before they get information about what the invitation is all about.
Blend Images LLC, a leading stock photography agency, has announced that CEO Rick Leckrone has resigned, effective immediately. Sarah Fix, Creative Vice President has been named CEO by Blend's LLC Managers.
The question for today is: “Does adding to an image collection automatically grow revenue?” and the companion question “Must an image be NEW to be useful to a customer?” Shutterstock supplies some detail that is instructive and worth reviewing.
Benji Lanyado, CEO & Founder of
Picfair, the London-based fair trade photography platform, has used a
blog post and a
tweet to call on the photographer community to turn away from free images websites that offer "exposure" in return for free images.
Storyblocks, formerly Videoblocks will generate about $30 million from licensing stock imagery in 2017. Currently, they have a little over 200,000 subscription customers who pay $149 a year for unlimited access to about 115,000 video clips. They also offer about 200,000 photos, 200,000 vectors and other illustrations and 100,000 pieces of music for a separate subscription price.
Stocktrek Images has revamped its website with the emphasis on a new appearance to enhance its customer interaction. With the client's approach to licensing images changing significantly in the past years, Stocktrek has developed a new website to incorporate the requirements and demands of today's clients.
Hemis.fr, an independent photography agency founded in France in 2004 has launched a new website with a trendy design. The site has a high speed search engine that is fully responsive to Smartphone and Touch pad search. The site is searchable in both French and English.
Alamy has launched a
Spanish language version of its customer website with additional language sites for Italian, French and Portuguese-speaking countries scheduled to launch at a later date.
Photographers placing images with agents that seek to license uses at higher prices ($100 or more), and generate a lot of their sales via distributors, need to think hard about whether such an approach is in their best economic interest.
In a speech at PhotoPlus Expo in 1998 Jonathan Klein told the stock photography community, “We also know that the stock photography industry has not historically focused on the needs of customers and, frankly, needs to in order to SURVIVE!, That is where we are now.” Getty Images developed a strategy that was totally focuses on "the customer," but it hasn't necessarily worked out.
Both Shutterstock and Adobe Stock have announced that users of
Google Slides can now access their collections directly. This could result in more image uses for photographers with images in both collections.
Adobe has announced that Santiago Lyon has joined
Adobe Stock as the first director of editorial content. In this newly created role, Santiago will lead Adobe Stock’s editorial content strategy and collection, working with world-class photojournalists, documentary photographers, editorial providers and media.
Effective October 1, 2017 a new French law obliges clients who use commercial images in France to disclose whether the body shape of a model has been retouched to make the individual look thinner or larger.
Contributors report that Getty Images believes there is still a demand for RM imagery. However, they are seeing fewer high quality submissions on a consistent basis, despite the fact that they have many more RM contributors than was once the case. The company is trying to encourage more production by posting increasingly frequent shoot briefs on the Getty contributor website.