Pricing
A few months ago I reported how Getty Images’
Rights Managed prices vary when an image is being used in different countries. Now, I've expanded that research to cover a number of additional countries and additional types of uses. The results are interesting and show how confusing RM pricing can be.
iStockphoto has announced today that
1/2 of its imagery is now 1/2 of its former price. Prices for non-exclusive images used to be: 1, 4, 7, 10, 12, 15, 18 credits based on file size. Now those prices have dropped to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 credits with the price for the largest file size being only 39% of what was formerly charged.
Over the weekend, Seeking Alpha (SA) published an article aimed at the investment community entitled, “
Shutterstock Valuation Makes Me Shudder.” The points made in this article are well worth considering, not only for investors, but for anyone interested in earning a living in the business of stock photography.
Yesterday we talked about the search by image feature on the
CIR. Today, we discovered that Getty has added a search by image feature to
Thinkstock. Go to the Thinkstock web site and look for the “search by image” button under the search box.
Getty has announced that it will be retiring The Agency Collection (TAC)
on iStockphoto in the next few weeks and creating a new collection
called Signature+. The company says the main driver for this move is to
simplify their offer to customers. It is unclear how this will
“simplify” the offer.
Given the prices publishers are charging for their digital products, they are establishing a precedent that images – in fact, all the content – is essentially worthless. See what publishers are charging and what that makes a single photo worth.
PhotoShelter, in conjunction with Bill Cramer, founder and CEO of
Wonderful Machine, has released a new free guide on
Pricing Corporate and Industrial Photography. The guide provides useful price ranges for a variety of shoot types including: Corporate Lifestyle, Environmental Portraiture, Corporate Reportage, Headshots, Event Photography and Library Shoots.
Is bulk pricing always bad? After reviewing the sales reports of a number of Getty photographers
we’ve reported that from 25% and up to 40% in some cases of Getty’s total sales are for fees of $25 or less – often a lot less. Hans Halberstadt explains how he uses bulk pricing and custom pricing menus to get much more reasonable fees for the use of his images.
The stock photography business has changed dramatically from what it was five or ten years ago and the future does and the future does not look promising. In this article we’ve provided links to a number of previously published articles that provide a good overview of the industry and where we believe it is headed. If the reader wants to get a basic grounding in what stock photography is all about this is the place to start.
The United Kingdom company
Eposure has posted preliminary results of its
Photographer Day Rates survey that was conducted online through its blog. Eposure is a company that “brings commercial photographers and businesses closer” and provides information and mentoring programs for photographers.
United Kingdom photographers are up in arms over the latest action by their government to make it legal for consumers to use their images without their permission. The
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act recently passed in the U.K. provides a way to legally use images found on the Internet when the copyright owner cannot be identified or contacted. Such images are known as “orphaned works.”
We reported on price variations to different countries for use of the same photo
here and
here. Kiratsinh Jadeja who originally raised the issue asked, “Do you think majority of the buyers already know about this and outsource already?”
If supplying pictures for educational use is a significant part of your business plan you need to be aware of how the market is trending toward digital delivery and how that is likely to affect the prices that will be paid for images used in digital products. In case you’ve missed them the following are links to a few stories we’ve published that deal with this subject in the last few years.
In recent discussions with agents operating in Europe it seems that it has become impossible to hold the line on pricing. They say there is always a competitor willing to undercut any rate.
Last week we asked the question “
Where is the best place to license images?” if the image is available in the Getty Images collection. We thought India might be the cheapest source, but we found some surprising cheaper alternatives.
Anyone interested in a career as a photographer – as well as those photographers in mid-career -- needs to carefully consider how the business is changing. If we look at image use on the Internet it is undeniable that more images are being made available for viewing. However, for professionals this is not good news.
More image use does not mean more demand for professionally produced images. It does not mean that there will be more opportunities for photographers to earn their living taking pictures. In fact, the opportunities to earn a living as a photographer are declining. Here’s why.
If you want to license an image from Getty Images for use in the United Kingdom is it better to license the use in Canada or India? Recently, Kiratsinh Jadeja priced
the same image for the same usage in both countries. He discovered that if he licensed the use in India the cost would be less than half the Canadian price. In either case he could legally use the image in the UK. Learn why.
The
CEPIC Congress in Barcelona June 10 – 14, 2013 will attract stock agents from around the world. Falling prices and the impact they are having on stock agencies and professional photographers will be one of the key issues discussed.??I posed a series of questions to a few industry leaders that will be in attendance. Earlier Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of age fotostock shared his
observations and opinions. In this story I will examine responses from a few others.
Last week we wrote about the
miniscule royalties that appeared on Getty’s February royalty statements. Many Getty Connect sales showed a royalty of $0.00.
Getty has acknowledged that they made a rounding error on the recent statements and will report micro-royalties in fractions of a cent up to 5 decimal points in the future. Conceivably, a photographer could earn $0.00001 (one thousandth of a cent) for one license.
Getty Images makes it hard for some customers to purchase RM images. See what I learned when I tried to license usage of 4 images from Getty. We complain about the unauthorized use of images online and then we make it almost impossible for many potential image users to find out how to license images legitimately.
The CEPIC Congress in Barcelona June 10 – 14, 2013 attracts stock agents from around the world. Pricing will be one of the key issues discussed – specifically falling prices and the impact they are having on stock agencies and professional photographers. I posed a series of questions to a few industry leaders. This story is a response from Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of
age fotostock.
Bruce Livingstone founder of iStockphoto has launched
Stocksy.com. Stocksy has been designed as a co-op and pays photographers a 50% royalty on each sale. At the end of the year, the company divides 90% of its profits equally among contributors and other shareholders.
The number one issue for photographers is “what can be done to stop the steady down hill slide in the price paid to use an image?” Unfortunately, the answer is NOTHING! Look at the numbers and understand why.
Most photographers are focused on how much they can charge for their images. The higher the price the happier they are. This is true, not just of RM photographers who want to retain the ability to negotiate on every sale depending on the importance and significance of the usage. It is also true of Microstock photographers as their distributors continue to push up prices. (Check out
this story.)
Many photographers that license their images at RM and traditional RF prices still believe microstock images are being licensed for $1.00. For the most part nothing could be further from the truth. Consider these price comparisons for images on 7 different microstock sites with the average price for an RM or RF sale on Getty Images. You'll be surprised!