Use Pricing Could Benefit Microstock

Posted on 3/11/2010 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (1)

What an image is worth to a customer depends entirely on the customer's intended use. The size of the file delivered has very little to do with how an image might be used, or the value the customer will receive from using it. Granted, there are limits as to how a very small file can be used. But, there are many ways that a medium-size file can be used, with widely varying values. The biggest problem with royalty-free licensing, and particularly with microstock, is not that it prices certain uses very low, but that the system of pricing by file size has tried to ignore use in an effort to achieve simplicity.

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Copyright © 2010 Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.

Comments

Ellen Boughn Posted Mar 11, 2010
Here's the problem(s) with this idea. PicScout claims that 85% of the image usage online comes from unauthorized uses. Even in the traditional RM business, buyers under reported uses and these were primarily print uses that were easily identified if in larger publications.

A photographer client of mine recently sent me a billboard with the image of one of his models on a billboard advertising a medical procedure. It was a sensitive issues useage. But he can't stop it as it is virtually impossible to track down the buyer from a microstock site unless the photographer is exclusive with the microstock.

Given that many people simply don't tell the truth when what they feel is a white lie saves them money and that catching them in the lie is problematic...I don't think this will work very well with million of photographers, zillions of images and uses based in hundreds of countries. And once they are found, who is going to go to court over a $50 shot?

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