One of the most interesting things to happen at the recent Picture Archive Council of America International Conference was the presence of Google product manager Matt Zitzmann, who focuses on image-search monetization. As one of the speakers, Zitzmann demonstrated the latest developments in Google’s image-search algorithm.
This was the first time anyone from Google had attended the conference. Zitzmann said: “I’m here to learn more about this business.”
Clearly, Google wants to do everything it can technologically to improve the efficiency of the search of the more than 500 billion (yes, billion) images in its database. The company would also like to include more of the quality images represented by PACA members in its database. However, most of those are currently behind firewalls, as professionals fear that making them available on Google would lead to unauthorized uses.
Beyond its interest in image search, there is also a floating rumor that Google wants to purchase an unspecified large stock agency. I don’t give this much credence: It would not be beneficial for Google to purchase any of the major agencies, given what the company would get for what it would likely have to pay. Google would be better served by simply building on what it already has and setting a separate and independent operation.
What might Google have in mind, and how could it affect the stock-photo industry?
It seems highly unlikely that Google would set up a separate section of their site for images that need to be licensed. The company would want to integrate the professionally produced images with its existing images to simplify the search for their customers and give the appearance of a better-quality offering. To make that work, it would be necessary to give professional suppliers reasonable confidence that their images would not be stolen.
PicScout’s Image Exchange offers an interesting solution to that problem. Every image registered in PicScout’s database would carry a small “i” icon in the upper right-hand corner, indicating that licensing is necessary is someone wants to use the image. If the user clicks on the icon, he or she will be taken to a location where the image can be licensed. If Google were to offer such a service, every professional image creator would immediately be tempted to participate.
The next issue Google would have to deal with is who handles the licensing. Should Google be the one issuing licenses or should the customer be referred directly to the image creator, or that creator’s primary representative, to handle negotiation and collection? By contract, Google would then require the seller to pay a percentage of every sale referred to them by the company and avoid the hassle of building an in-house team that understands the value of stock images. If this were a feature of the Google service, and Google’s share of the gross sale was a little less than what Getty Images and Corbis take—which is not hard to accomplish—everyone would jump ship from the current industry leaders and go with Google.
If Google were to go this far, it could also enhance sales by putting all the images with the “i” at the beginning of its search-return order. In addition, Google could also give customers the choice of searching for just the images without the icon—essentially free—or both with and without, randomly picking from both pools.
If Google were to do all of the above, it would quickly take commanding control of the stock industry—at very little additional cost to the company.
Such a system would also likely be of tremendous benefit to image creators, since the current system of licensing through agencies has two major flaws:
- Dramatic discounts. The biggest companies, who license most of the images, are too focused on volume. As a result, these agencies regularly dramatically discount prices to compete with each other and end up giving away a huge percentage of the images they license for prices that are far below what would be reasonable given the usage. This is not to say that nothing should ever be sold for $1 or $2; there are some very small uses where low prices are reasonable and all that is justified. However, a commercial use that should command $500 to $1,000 should not be offered for $50 or $5. If an individual creator controls the price, volume will seldom be an issue and thus the creator will have no reason not to ask for reasonable prices and occasionally refuse to sell to those with unreasonable expectations.
- Numerous middlemen. The other big issue is that there are too many hands in the pot. In many cases, the gross fee paid for a license is cut two, three and sometimes more times before the creator gets his small piece of it. With the technological advances in communications, every creator—or someone on his or her staff—should be able to handle every negotiation, anywhere in the world. If a dominant player like Google managed the database, there would be little reason for most creators to have other representation. Couple less discounting with direct negotiation, and the seller’s share of sales is likely to become significantly higher than it is today.
Only time will tell what, if anything, Google plans to do. However, if the company chooses to get more involved in the stock photo business, it would not necessarily be a bad thing for creators.