Which price would you consider a reasonable one? 
Does bigger file size worth more? 
Which agencies fill your price criteria?
Are you selling your files too high or too low?

What keep another cheaper kind of SS from competing at half their price in a few years?  and other ones thereafter..
How low will contributors go to sell their pictures?

As a buyer, free.

As a seller, $1 million per download.

Hard to say what's reasonable. The problem isn't the price. It's the license model that hasn't been adapted to newer media. Right now image buyers have it made and can get a Mercedes for the cost of a Chevy. We need a new license model that is reasonable for everybody, not just buyers. I feel micro could have (and should have) started at a much higher price point when it began.

Which price would you consider a reasonable one?
Does bigger file size worth more? Yes
Which agencies fill your price criteria? Getty
Are you selling your files too high or too low? Either depending on the image
What keep another cheaper kind of SS from competing at half their price in a few years?  and other ones thereafter.. Good question. Nothing, especially if contributors promote them and accelerate the downward spiral
How low will contributors go to sell their pictures?As low as it takes before the majority of people realize they're spending their life savings to work for $1 per hour and haven't been profitable for years
 





 

Which price would you consider a reasonable one?

$10 large photos, $10 vectors. Always liked that $10 price point and it fits well both as a buyer and seller. As a seller I'm also comfortable with less for vectors if the percentage is better, such as at GL.

Does bigger file size worth more?

Yes.

Which agencies fill your price criteria?

SS (on-demand anyway), SF, GL (see above note), BigStock

Are you selling your files too high or too low?

Probably mostly too low. At least on average. Too low at places like Vectorstock. Too high at istock, DT.

What keep another cheaper kind of SS from competing at half their price in a few years?  and other ones thereafter..

They already exist. DepositPhotos offers 1-month subs for $99 (10 a day) and $180 (25 a day). SF subs are $99 per month. Crestock does $199 monthly subs (not half the SS price, but still cheaper). The list goes on. And yet SS still not only stays alive but prospers.

How low will contributors go to sell their pictures?

It doesn't matter. The real question is how soon will these cheaper subscription collections match SS in collection size and quality. And then will price alone persuade buyers to leave SS.

My best guess answers to those questions are "soon" and "no." And to use the most unlikely example to illustrate why, look at istock. Despite the prices, despite the site bugs, despite everything that's wrong with istock, many buyers stick around. They're creatures of habit. istock gives them what they need, and if price isn't a problem, they keep buying there. The same will hold true at SS. Buyers get used to dealing with a particular agency. They're comfortable. They know SS, they like the site, and they get what they need.

Agencies have been undercutting each other for years, and people have predicted this "race to the bottom" for just as long. And yet here we are...

I think one of the big issues with microstock is the disconnect between prices paid and amount of money spent on the productions. This is a problem that needs to be solved.

I don't believe in "use" based pricing, that's a total racket... imagine paying $20 for a shirt, then suddenly one day you appear on national news wearing that shirt and suddenly you get a bill for $4,000. Anything involving "rights" that don't actually exist anyways won't be viable and already isn't. When we sell our images, we need to assume right off the bat that they will be used in every way imaginable, big or small because that's already what's going on! That means the prices need to be higher. It's that simple.

I like what shutterstock is doing with individual image purchasing. This should have been implemented from day one YEARS ago. Imagine how much money could have been made if they had done that in the first place.

It's not just about the price that the customer pays, it's also about the cut that the agency takes.

What I don't understand about our industry is why the agencies get to keep so much. App stores typically pay 70% to their content suppliers. Amazon and the like probably earn about the same (or less) despite them having to store inventory, package it, deliver it, etc.

There is more than enough money being generated from our content for both contributors and the agencies to make a very good living. I don't understand why a few agencies get to keep almost all of it.

Because contributors, me included, allow it. 

I don't believe in "use" based pricing, that's a total racket...

And unlimited usage and time is even more ridiculous.

I'm not sure who came up with RF but they didn't get much right including the name. Free? Plus we can't even track which image is legit or pirated. Way to go RF inventor.

A new license should be single-use, time-limited, and be tracked. This way we could actually get some recurring revenue from renewals and easily nail image thiefs.

The way things are going now with questionable demand, massive supply increases, and all you can eat licensing ain't a real good mix for our future.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on December 22, 2011, 21:15

Quote from: cardmaverick on December 22, 2011, 19:00

I don't believe in "use" based pricing, that's a total racket...

And unlimited usage and time is even more ridiculous.

I'm not sure who came up with RF but they didn't get much right including the name. Free? Plus we can't even track which image is legit or pirated. Way to go RF inventor.

A new license should be single-use, time-limited, and be tracked. This way we could actually get some recurring revenue from renewals and easily nail image thiefs.

The way things are going now with questionable demand, massive supply increases, and all you can eat licensing ain't a real good mix for our future.

As nice as the usage model appears, you'll never be able to enforce what you want. That's why I think it's silly for us to go down that road. Like it or not, you have to build a business model that address's market place reality, and our reality is that:

1.) IP laws are clearly useless (and cause photographers problems to boot!) - Hell, SOPA, the latest draconian IP law proposal will cripple the whole freaking internet. Can only imagine how great that'll be for selling pictures to bloggers....

2.) Tracking usage for several hundred million image purchases is ridiculous, not to mention unprofitable at our current micro prices.

"RF" exists because people don't like rights managed. Imagine Wal-Mart charging you more money for the oven your buying because you plan to use it at your business to turn a profit, and even have it on display too. Now imagine that they demand $X for every product you sell made in the oven. That's how image buyers feel. Why should I pay more than the next guy? Why should I put up with such a PITA? It's the same product others purchased for less money and harassment. Whine and cry all you like, but hey, that's reality, it pissed people off and they didn't like it.

A studio owner out here told me a about a photographer here in Salt Lake City who used to shoot the symphony. He charged them license fees to use the images. Guess what. They don't use him anymore. Why? The recurring license fee model pissed them off.

Your oven example is off. Try a DVD rental. You get one use and the more time you have it the more you pay. You can't copy it and if you want to use it again in the future you need to pay for it. That's how to make money. If every rental was $1 at Redbox and had unlimited time and copies they would have went out of business ages ago.

We as contributors are leaving a ridiculous amount of money on the table.

Want to know why we have RF and people like your studio owner? Because we as contributors take whatever $hIt deal is offered to us (RF, unlimited licensing, subscriptions, etc), don't negotiate, and never say "no".

Your oven example is off. Try a DVD rental. You get one use and the more time you have it the more you pay. You can't copy it....

Sure you can copy it. Load a linux OS on your PC and get a free DVD ripper, and yes people already do this.

and if you want to use it again in the future you need to pay for it.

No they don't. They already copied it.

That's how to make money. If every rental was $1 at Redbox and had unlimited time and copies they would have went out of business ages ago.

They haven't gone out of business because its so freaking cheap and convenient. If you keep the DVD, they just keep on billing your credit/debit card until you've paid for the cost of the DVD.

We as contributors are leaving a ridiculous amount of money on the table.

We sure are, but it's not because of license models, we just aren't charging enough to begin with. Plenty of people will line up to buy our images at $10 a pop. I sold plenty of $10 images at cluster shot before it became a giant cluster f%^$ and that was all on my own without much effort.

Want to know why we have RF and people like your studio owner? Because we as contributors take whatever $hIt deal is offered to us (RF, unlimited licensing, subscriptions, etc), don't negotiate, and never say "no".

I'm not trying to "assail" you, I'm just illustrating something I learned a long time ago about business in general:

If you can't reliably control it, you can't reliably sell it.

We can't reliably control intellectual properties, despite all the laws in the universe, and therefore should be prepared to deal with the realities that comes with.

This why I advocate some major changes to how the stock photo business works.

licencing is all rubbish. We do not know who buys them for what and when. I did a google image search and found one of my images used as an high selling album cover. Great but did they buy an EL? Probably not.

EXACTLY !

and that's precisely why RF sucks and will finally kill the industry !

there's no good pricing and no good agencies, RM is still the only fair trade.

and talking about pricing, well 50$ should be the bare minimum for a photo, no matter if web-sized for the simple reason my production costs are still the same, if web sites need only 300px images that's their * problem, not mine.

...and that's precisely why RF sucks and will finally kill the industry...

These end-of-the-industry predictions have been around for years, and yet I don't feel like we're ever any closer to it actually happening. Can you at least give us some sort of timeline for when to expect to be out of business?

...50$ should be the bare minimum for a photo, no matter if web-sized for the simple reason my production costs are still the same, if web sites need only 300px images that's their  problem, not mine.

Sounds like the istock business model, the "we'll tell you what you want, and not respond to what you're asking for" mentality. And obviously it's working so well for istock, it should work well for the rest of the business...

Despite my "ultra realist" opinion of IP laws and the whole concept of owning ideas as all rubbish - I do NOT think this business will vanish.

There are way to many other variables like convenience, and yes, even resolution. There are markets where resolution alone is the reason our images can't be so easily taken for free. One reason why I love video so much has to do with the fact that it's so hard to "steal" a clip and use it! Thank you advent of 4K video....

It's funny how people put the blame easily on agencies.

If you were in their places, what would you do?

I haven�t seen your answer here

"I feel micro could have (and should have) started at a much higher price point when it began."

CORRECT.

So true, when I first got involved with microstock as a buyer I couldn't believe the prices.
I'd just download the high resolutions images for comps and if they got the green light it was just one less step in
the production process. Even today when I need a special image for a project I end up downloading more than I need.
The return on the picture that I use will easily cover the costs of the others.
 

It's funny how people put the blame easily on agencies.

If you were in their places, what would you do?

i would probably shamefully inflate our sales predictions, make a lot of smoke and mirros, find gullible investors, and sell the whole crap, then escape in a third world country... hahaha ...  i mean look at Groupon, one of the biggest scams of the last years ... they're almost blocking its IPO as their numbers were so obviously faked and absolutely unreal !

last i heard was Facebook being valued 100 billion $ ... let's see ... and i will laugh ... in the meantime their net earnings were barely 1 billion/year or SO THEY SAY as there's no way to know if it's BS or not.

so for what we're allowed to know, iStock could be a cash cow or maybe not really so .. the company is still private, and probably for very good reasons.

there are so many ways to lose money by mismanaging and screwing things up even if you keep 85% of the profits from photographers.

one thing is obvious at least .. if the former CEO was fired they were not happy of his performance !

second thing .. now they're pushing hard to get new web affiliates ..another sign they realized buyers are going elsewhere to shop !

third thing .. less and less IS forum activity .. another bad sign ...

fourth .. Alexa's istock ranking falling down ...

fifth .. now the lowered the bar about redeemed credits ...

sixth .. only two jobs listed in their Careers page, with one being VP for web marketing .. unsurprisingly ! they're obviously acknowledged their web marketing strategy has been a fiasco.



so, nothing happens by mistake, behind every move they do there's been probably many internal meetings and rolling heads...

Despite my "ultra realist" opinion of IP laws and the whole concept of owning ideas as all rubbish - I do NOT think this business will vanish.

yeah, it will just  move to photographers living in third world countries that are more than happy earning less than 1000$/month.

actually, if they're not in the game already is just because of their bad english but give them some time...

"You don't need an EL for an album cover."-sjlocke
So you are saying they can sell 100,000 albums, no El?

499,999 if from iStock.
249,999 if from Shutterstock.

At least quadruple, across the board. The way the prices are, it's a steal, broad daylight robbery. Vetta like and SS subs for a grand

Quote from: cardmaverick on December 23, 2011, 13:44

Despite my "ultra realist" opinion of IP laws and the whole concept of owning ideas as all rubbish - I do NOT think this business will vanish.

yeah, it will just  move to photographers living in third world countries that are more than happy earning less than 1000$/month.

actually, if they're not in the game already is just because of their bad english but give them some time...

Also agree. were not saving babies or doing rocket science Guys.

Don't think buyers aren't using your images just as if they bought an EL license.  Not all of them fear the circumstances... if by some rare occurrence, someone catches them in the act of whoring out the image they paid 39 cents an image for ($59 dollar, 5 per day subscription license from DP).  That license is only there for those buyers that fear getting in trouble, or in fear of losing their job from the company they're employed by.  The ones that know the laws of the digital world.  They are a rarity.  Don't expect anything less when you sell a digital good anywhere, at anytime.  Once it's out there, it's out there - and there's no getting it back.  Control, there's no control with digital goods.  There's only fear of prosecution, and having a good lawyer when needed.

Frankly, I'm surprised so many people here think our photos are being sold for too little (royalties are another can of worms, I'm talking only about retail price).  This conversation always makes me think about music.  We are all happy to buy an mp3 for a dollar, and those songs take more work from the artist than do my photos, in my opinion.  And the royalties are probably even worse.

it depends.
if we talk about dance music i know friends with a studio and a label and they can make easily 1 song per week, sell it online, and make a living.

Frankly, I'm surprised so many people here think our photos are being sold for too little (royalties are another can of worms, I'm talking only about retail price).  This conversation always makes me think about music.  We are all happy to buy an mp3 for a dollar, and those songs take more work from the artist than do my photos, in my opinion.  And the royalties are probably even worse.

The price hasn't changed much for music. Only the method for how it's purchased. A CD used to cost $10 - $15 for 10-15 songs. So around $1 a song. Now you can just buy one song.

Plus you can't legally freely copy and use the song for advertising such as a TV commercial. Artists get paid a separate and higher royalty for this usage where RF images can get used for just about anything for an unlimited period of time.

Image producers are leaving a lot of money on the table with low prices and unlimited licenses. Buyers can get a $1 image and make millions from it in TV commercials, advertisements, etc.

Image producers are leaving a lot of money on the table with low prices and unlimited licenses. Buyers can get a $1 image and make millions from it in TV commercials, advertisements, etc.

exactly, and i see no solution actually, RM is simply going down slowly but steadly, how long will it stay afloat ? 3yrs ? 5yrs ?
and licence apart, i've had RM sales for as low as 5$ gross, this was unthinkable just 3-4 yrs ago.

and this is nothing, one day photographers living in third world countries will enter the market in droves, now it's still not happening but one day they will.

We now face an uphill battle of near-unlimited licensing, plateaued demand, massive supply increase, and rock bottom pricing. Most industries would have collapsed already under these conditions.

Supply and demand; supply and demand; supply and demand. The three rules that determine market prices.

Our problem is not so much the prices our images are sold at but how little of that money we actually receive. Can you imagine how much money we'd be making if Istock had chosen to pay 70% commission for exclusive sales (i.e. the same rate that app developers receive)? Both Istock and their contributors would be laughing all the way to the bank by now.

Price images at $100 - several thousands of dollars

I think you would limit your market pretty severely at those prices. I have trouble getting people to agree to freelance prices at those rates. 

That's kind of what I like about the micro prices. It allows me to capture the market of all those clients that can't afford custom prices. That said, I don't think somewhere between $10-$30 is unreasonable to ask for most buyers. I really don't think anything should be priced at a buck or two anymore. I'd like to see my average RPD be at around $5 rather than $1.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on January 02, 2012, 14:08

Price images at $100 - several thousands of dollars

I think you would limit your market pretty severely at those prices. I have trouble getting people to agree to freelance prices at those rates. 

That's kind of what I like about the micro prices. It allows me to capture the market of all those clients that can't afford custom prices. That said, I don't think somewhere between $10-$30 is unreasonable to ask for most buyers. I really don't think anything should be priced at a buck or two anymore. I'd like to see my average RPD be at around $5 rather than $1.

This is my dreamworld scenario and higher prices are part of it. Some stuff will still sell at those prices but most won't under the current conditions.

Yep that's nice you can get new buyers at micro prices. But you're getting two new kinds of buyers. New people who couldn't afford images before. And people who used to, and still can, pay custom/macro prices but instead buy micro and load their pockets with exponential profits because they're still charging their clients full price or slightly reduced price because of the economy. The end result is lower perceived value. And once price and perceived value go down they rarely go back up.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on January 02, 2012, 13:20

We now face an uphill battle of near-unlimited licensing, plateaued demand, massive supply increase, and rock bottom pricing. Most industries would have collapsed already under these conditions.

Supply and demand; supply and demand; supply and demand. The three rules that determine market prices.

Our problem is not so much the prices our images are sold at but how little of that money we actually receive. Can you imagine how much money we'd be making if Istock had chosen to pay 70% commission for exclusive sales (i.e. the same rate that app developers receive)? Both Istock and their contributors would be laughing all the way to the bank by now.

I think iStock is laughing a lot harder right now, as it is . Why would it be better to pay at least 3x more to the contributors, they wouldn't sell more anyway, since the price for the buyers would be the same and there are very few ppl that are not uploading to IS due to low commission percentage (besides that I don't think they even need more content, if they got 20% more, they probably wouldn't sell even 2% more)

Yes, RM prices are falling and I wonder why. If you can get a $5 RF license for almost unlimited use and time why would you pay more for an RM license. At least with the RM license it has defined usage, duration, possible renewal, and can be tracked.

Whoever came up with RF went way too far on loosening up rights. They could have very easily just simplified the usage model a bit to make it easier on buyers, left everything else intact, and image producers wouldn't have taken such a hit. Just like with micro pricing. They could have went reduced the $500 macro image to $100 instead of $1 micro and would still have been doing well.

We now face an uphill battle of near-unlimited licensing, plateaued demand, massive supply increase, and rock bottom pricing. Most industries would have collapsed already under these conditions.

RM is falling because of the unfair RF competition ! how can you beat RF after all ? as a buyer i would go 100% RF too ...

secondly, years ago only a certain type of images were available as RF so buyers were forced to go RM for anything else.
nowadays it's all over and i can find just about anything sold as RF, sometimes with even higher quality and creativity than RM.

exclusive usage and the whole mumbo jumbo is becoming a small insignificant market niche, and serious customers don't even use stock images, they pay somebody on assignment !

yeah whoever come up with RF was probably a marketer, not a photographer, think about the old PhotoDisc CDs ...after all we talk about photos, creative imaging and bla bla bla, they talk only about selling a product and making profits quick, they could care less about photography, Getty itself is owned by a bunch of bankers and traders, Corbis by Bill Gates...