Video/Motion
In an effort to drive more Marketplace sales
Storyblocks has lowered its commission to 50%. When the company (then known as Videoblocks) launched its Marketplace offering in 2015 the company offered still images and video clips at dramatically, discounted prices compared to its competitors. However, they paid creators 100% of the money received from the licensing of their work. As a result creators ended up earning more for each image licensed than they would if the image was licensed by one of the other stock agencies that paid royalties that were a small percentage of the total license fee.
Vimeo has announced the launch of
Vimeo Stock, a new global, royalty-free stock marketplace featuring an exclusive collection of high-quality video footage sourced directly from Vimeo’s community of iconic creators. Vimeo Stock unlocks content from Vimeo’s world-renowned community of storytellers, redefining what stock footage can and should look like. Vimeo Stock contributors keep 60-70 percent of revenue generated from their licensed clips (versus the average industry cut of ~35 percent), while subscribers to Vimeo’s paid membership plans always save 20 percent on all stock purchases.
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.
The ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies 4 is open now for participation. All footage companies worldwide are invited to participate in this fourth study of the stock footage industry. ACSIL and Thriving Archives today announced the launch of the ACSIL Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies 4 (AGS4), their fourth survey of the global footage business. The 47-question survey is being conducted online, and all footage companies worldwide are invited to participate. The online survey is open now through August 13, 2018, and can be accessed at
www.thrivingarchives.com/ags4.
Shutterstock is expanding its aerial footage collection in a new distribution deal that will deliver hundreds of high-quality 4K videos produced by the largest global drone operations company,
DroneBase. From a soaring bird’s-eye view of the biggest cities in the world to incredible coastline vistas, all of this immersive content is now available to license for commercial use on Shutterstock.
In 2016 a massive flash flood raced down the main street of Ellicott City, Maryland. It was called a “thousand-year flood” given the unique characteristics that set it in motion. On May 27, 2018 the flow that supposed to only occur once every 1,000 years struck again. Photographer Max Robinson gets classic footage and Fox News uses it without permission.
One of the issues these videographers face is accurately tagging their video clips so they can be easily discovered by customers.
Microstocksolutions LLC has released its
VRmeta® app for iOS and Android that is designed to make it easier for videographers to accurately tag their digital video and 360°/ VR clips with time and location-based metadata.
Six prominent footage companies have signed on so far to take part in
Footage.net's 2018 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) exhibition, set to take place April 9-12 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Current participants include Bridgeman Images, FootageBank, Global ImageWorks, INA, Reelin' in the Years Productions and the WPA Film Library. More footage companies are expected to sign on soon.
If you’re interested in news about the stock footage industry you ought to be reading the
Stock Footage Newsroom blog.
In a recent edition David Seevers of
Footage.net has provided a very detailed report on the highlights of what happened in the stock footage business in 2017. Footage.net If provides serious footage researchers with the opportunity to search across 30 of the world’s top stock footage archives with a single search, enabling researchers to find better content and save time. Footage.net also offers powerful tools for locating hard-to-find stock footage and simplifying the footage search process.
Storyblocks has published a
2018 Trends Guide that features predictions for the year ahead based on 64M searches and 38M downloads across their sites in the last year (365 days). The results suggest that creators are increasingly globally aware and creating a strong increase in demand for diverse and global content.
A three-year-old specialist stock agency in France call
HOsiHO (meaning High So High, in French) is finding strong demand for aerial stock photography. The agency has a collection of 3000 aerial videos and stills shot by a pool of more than 40 talented contributors based at the four corners of France.
Many stock photographers are earning less and less from the new stock images they produce. They are finding that they can no longer expect to earn a significant portion of their annual income from licensing right to the use of their stock images. Consequently, they are looking for other ways to supplement their income.
Stock photographers operating drones may want to take a look at
Skytango, a startup agency that specializes in supplying drone footage. Not only will Skytango license stock clip, but it will help those who need custom footage, that can only be shot from above. The company will help customers locate drone operators who have the equipment and skills needed for their jobs.
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.
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.
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.
20/20 Software, a leading provider of multi-media websites and image/business management software to media libraries, museums, corporations, institutions, and newspapers, has outlined some of the newest tools it offers for working with footage.
Videoblock has rebranded itself as
Storyblocks. The existing video and audio libraries are being maintained as separate subsites:
Videoblocks by Storyblocks and
Audioblocks by Storybloacks. (Each offering requires a separate subscription.) The former GraphicStock library is now part of Storyblocks.
Shutterstock, Inc. has updated its custom-built plugins to more fully integrate with Adobe’s Creative Cloud®, adding compatibility directly within the Adobe Premiere Pro®, Adobe Illustrator®, and Adobe InDesign® applications. This is the first time Shutterstock has made its high quality video collection of 8 million clips available through a plugin, giving amateur filmmakers and veteran film editors another powerful tool at their disposal within Premiere Pro®.
Footage.net has announced that preview clips from Bridgeman Footage are now available for viewing through Footage.net. Bridgeman Footage is a division of Bridgeman Images, the world's leading specialist in the distribution of fine art, cultural and historical media for licensing. Bridgeman Images represents over 2,000 image suppliers - including museums, galleries, artists, stately homes, photographers, private collections, libraries, universities, auction houses and picture archives.
Shutterstock has reported Q2 2017 revenue of $134.0 million. This revenue was up 8% from Q2 2016, and up $3.8 million from Q1 2017. Revenue per download increased 9% from $2.81 in Q2 2016 to $3.05. Revenue per download in Q1 2017 was $2.96. At the end of the quarter there were 144.7 million images in Shuttrstock’s collection and 7.6 million video clips. This was up from 132 million images at the end of Q1 2017 and from 92.1 million a year earlier at the end of Q2 2016.
The ads make it sound easy to get great pictures using a smartphone. Certainly a lot can be done with an iPhone 7, but when watching a spectacular ad look for the little notice at the bottom that says, “Additional equipment and software used.”
There is a new website called
TopImageSites that, in theory, will help customers find “The Best Stock Images On The Web.” Ten agencies are listed and the number of “products” available in each agency’s collection are listed in the chart below. Products include: photos, vectors, illustration, videos and audio files. Some of the agencies don’t have audio files and Panthermedia doesn’t have either video or audio.
Getty Images has announced an exclusive content distribution deal with drone pilot platform DroneBase. Beginning with over
200 creative video assets, the partnership will expand to include 360 stills and video and virtual-reality content.
One of the big questions in today’s stock photo industry is the future potential for stock video use. Recently, the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) conducted a webinar on this subject. A video is available
here.