Traditionally, the primary uses of still pictures were in printed
products such as magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, direct mail
promotions, catalogs and—to a much smaller degree—posters and product
packages. An estimated two thirds to three quarters of all revenue
generated from stock pictures (in the range $1 billion worldwide) comes
from print image uses, but this demand has steadily declined for a number of years.
Stock image producers often have two misconceptions about
subscription licensing services: They believe subscription licensing is
simple and that for a very low monthly fee customers are allowed to use
any image for any purpose. Neither is true.
Universal Images Group,
the distribution business unit of the Virtual Picture Desk, has been
awarded a contract by the Encyclopaedia Britannica to provide an
extensive online library of low-resolution (150 dpi) images suitable
for educational use. The images will be supplied by numerous producers around the world and, together with Britannica's wholly owned content, will become part of a new subscription service, Britannica Image
Explorer.
U.S. educational publishers are admitting to more and more unauthorized
uses during the past decade and quietly entering into out-of-court
settlements with an increasing number of image suppliers for large
numbers of uses. In cases where the original license fee was well under
$1,000, publishers are now paying multiple thousands of dollars to
settle claims.
One of the leading producers of short form business profiles (videos of 45 to 75 seconds) is
TurnHere.com. The company has a network of over 8,000 freelance videographers
working in over 70 countries. It has produced more than 27,000 short
videos (7,000 within the last 6 months) for local business around the
world.
Is it time to institute a system of floor prices for the use of
rights-managed images for editorial purposes? Is there any price so
low—$50, $30 or $20—that the image creator would prefer not to make the
sale?
Twenty questions to test your knowledge of the photo licensing industry and its future potential.
Textbook publishers now have total control when it comes to setting prices and have no reason to want a dialogue with sellers on the subject of pricing. However, past uses is one area where publishers might want to open a discussion, seeing the outcomes of several recent court cases.
In light of pricing declines for textbook use and publisher attempts to avoid paying for future electronic uses, some image producers ask: "Why don't all the sellers just say 'no'? Shouldn't the producer be setting product prices?"
In addition to raising print quantities and extending license durations, textbook publishers are increasingly asking for the rights to publish the same information for the same time period on password-protected Web sites. While publishers intends to charge for those passwords, they expect content producers not to count such uses as part of the circulation.
From a stock photography point of view, the future is bleak for those trying to sell images for textbook use. This segment of the stock photography business is on what appears to be an irreversible downward spiral.
The following is a list of general categories of imagery that are often used by educational publishers. This list is used by the Universal Images Groups and by Encyclopaedia Britannica in categorizing images for their purposes. In one sense the list might be viewed as covering all types of imagery, but if you think of each category in terms of images that might have an educational application you see that many images that might broadly fit into the category will have little or no education value.