MicrostockGroup

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November 2011 NYT Review

“The real conflict online,” Levine writes, “is between the media companies that fund much of the entertainment we read, see and hear and the technology firms that want to distribute their content — legally or otherwise.” By delivering content they don’t pay for, or selling content far below the price it cost to create, Levine says, information and entertainment distributors like YouTube and The Huffington Post become “parasites”...

And not to be above hijacking my own threads: SOPA has many websites coming out against it. They claim the laws are too strict, and the large media industry lobbys have created over enforcement.

"Protect IP, as well as SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act (two bills currently in the United States Senate and House, respectively), threaten the world of online writing as we know it."


Well maybe somewhere in the middle, we will actually have some protection and get paid for our work, some day? 

Way back in the day as in before the internet? Back then violating someone's copyright took more than a right click "save as". There were IP laws back then too but the difference was if you wanted to steal an image you had to scan it out of a printed catalog the agencies sent out. You ended up with a rescreen of a thumbnail which never really looks good. It was harder to violate copyright then. What business model do you suggest that would allow for photographers to get paid while distributing product over the web?

I'm referring to times prior to all IP laws. Waaaaay back in the day. Last time I looked into it, authors for example, still made a living, but their business models worked differently than they do today - they also had to be more prolific. Same thing for composers.

This can be a very long discussion, but look at this way. IP laws are nothing more than an economic distortion caused by useless governments. Imagine the government trying to force you to buy your air from people selling oxygen tanks. How long do you think that will last? Sure, they could fine you all day long when your walking down the street without your little mask and tank, but how many people do you think would actually be buying new tanks of oxygen every time it ran out? None. It's an outlandish, colorful way of making my point, but it makes it easy to understand. Ideas are not property, and they never will be. The digital age has only made this more apparent to the public, and those who depend on the old ideas and have no good new ideas are simply tying to protect themselves with more useless laws that will actually hurt our business more than it helps it.

Imagine a crack down on trade dress - the shapes and designs of virtually any object. That alone would totally destroy our business.

Think about that. Would you be quick to support more draconian IP laws now? If you are, you're literally holding a gun to your business' head, because IP laws actually work 100% against the stock photo business concept.

What the future of this industry is happens to be very uncertain, but I can tell you this much, the concept of selling "licenses" is NOT the future. It's time for us to get over it and start thinking outside the box about services we can sell that cannot be so easily taken by others without paying.

Some good examples of companies that "get it", Apple and Adobe. Apple is all closed source because it's more reliable for them to control their product, far more reliable than a draconian IP law. Adobe programs are slowly moving online. Right now you can buy a month of access to a program on your local machine. In the future, it will be hosted on a super computer and you have a subscription. Might sound crazy now, but it will be far more profitable when the technology to support that arrives.

So let me ask if I understand, you don't care if I steal your images and sell them, and give you nothing? Just want to make sure I understand you point of no IP laws. You enjoy working for free?

Personally when I work to create something, I'd like to get paid for it, otherwise why am I doing it? I can go pile bricks or slap down hamburgers at a fast food joint and make better money. (or worse, do what I actually do for a living, but I'm not going there!) LOL

ps It's not illegal to shoot and sell many statues, it's just another of the CYA policy of agencies.

Ah, yes, the "starving artist" era. Those were the days. Look what we got out of it: the early demise of Van Gogh, the political career of thwarted artist Adolf Hitler.... (that's sort of a joke, btw, don't get hung up on it).

If "providing services" rather than "selling licenses" is the only way forward then we all need to become wedding photographers as there is no room for stock any longer. But where will designers get their content from when all the stock agencies close? I thought the sale of licenses was actually a service provided by photographers to designers to save them having to employ photographers on a per-job basis. If what I am doing is not providing a service to anyone, I don't know why I get paid for it.

I just want to be clear: I wasn't arguing in favour of new laws simply looking for your suggestions for the so called new business model you want to use. It's easy to decry the current situation without offering a way to improve it. Sort of like saying "all we need is a cleaner environment".

As for the OP regarding information wanting to be free, I'm not sure there is a better business model. In your examples, and related specifically to things like photography,  how do you operate like Apple in a closed system? Just not let anyone see your photos? Or like Adobe, people can see your pics but only if they come to your website and subscribe to gain access to view? No downloading, just view. I doesn't work. In the waaaay back, it was much harder to steal IP. Maybe that's why they didn't have strict laws about it. If you go back far enough, there weren't even any recording devices so copying an image (i.e. a painting) or a song wasn't even possible. If you wanted to hear music you had to go to the hall and listen to the artist.

Devices for creating art and music are so accessible now that everyone is or thinks they are an artist or a musician. They post on Youtube hoping to be Justin Beiber. But, you get what you pay for. If information wants to be free then the people that are really good at it, aren't likely to put the effort into doing it because they'll get nothing for it but likes on youTube. Then all we'll have is the crap that floods the net everyday.

You are definitely talking pre Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 27
"everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author".

Are you talking pre-constitutional?:

"Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;.......To promote the Progress of .......Arts, by securing .........Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Are you talking pre- enlightenment? which took place under printing monopolies and then specific copyright laws like the Statute of Anne?

Are you talking about when the Medici were sponsoring Michelangelo? because trust me benefactors aren't going to fork out to artists when anyone can benefit from the work by stealing it.

Please give an example of when independent authors or artists were spewing out work for the sheer hell of it with no protection.

Yes got the rest of it now, thanks.

Yes to the last part, when I was in a band I had a four track recorder. Fairly expensive, mics and mixing boards, 15IPS tape, DBX, you get the idea, thousands of dollars to record at home. People often forget that musicians take years of practicing and preforming to make something worthwhile. (hey photographers too) So when we played for four hours and made $50 each, someone would say, "hey good money". Lets see, played for about 20 years before that, practiced, drove to the job, had to pay for equipment, breakage, drive home, expenses... Manager took 20% for getting us jobs and screwing us sometimes, whole longer story. So $12 an hour wasn't really that good. If you had a record and no record company, you have No Distribution, no sales, no stores would handle your record.

Now we can make a CD with digital equipment on a computer, burn on demand and sell on the Internet. Freedom from the clutches of the big record companies and distribution network. There's a creative artist friendly business model?

Photography, we buy cameras, lighting, props, all kinds of other equipment. Some pay models, travel, have computers, take time to edit, skills develop and training. Then time to keyword, and upload and wait for that quarter to drop out of the MicroStock slot machine.

I don't believe that "Information wants to be free" I think that it needs to be done as a business in order to maintain quality and keep the best producers working. Otherwise if everything is free, kind of like a socialist state, what incentive is there to work or create?

My argument was about the fact that electronic distributors are making money on the backs of free work. YouTube makes money from free uploads. MicroStock works on the crowd-source plan, at least we get paid something, but if it's looked at the right way, "THEY" get 80% and we get 20%. It's backwards. That's because people are so hungry for money that they are willing to sell out their effort. Before someone points ot the top people, be realistic, none of us are The Beatles or the Rolling Stones or the Grateful Dead... that's the kind of people who make the top of the Micro business.

Most of the sites, starting with the big ones, most people never get one photo accepted! Then an estimated 65% of those people, never make it to payout on most agencies, it's pretty slim. Pointing to the 1/10th of 1% who are making it as Black Diamonds for example, is a little blind.

Yes people do earn money and do well in MicroStock and as you pointed out, yes Justine Beeber was discovered on YouTube, Lana Turner was discovered at a soda fountain. (I'm sure she had some special assets.) Everyone else doesn't and didn't. LOL  

We can run our own websites and some people appear to be making sales. I love it!

If we got a fair share and had protection from thieves, maybe more people could earn some real income for their hard work and effort.

Actually if I had copyright protection, I'd be pretty happy. But DMCA does nothing. Like catching a thief and they say, "oops sorry, here's your stuff back." And then they walk away free. They can go steal from someone else and someone new can steal from me again. It's a hampster wheel, chasing them and getting nowhere.

When I worked for some providers and when I ran a public system, we didn't collect and report, it was only when the FBI came and asked. The point was, I could give them the information or they could get a subpoena and take all the computers and get the information themselves. Obviously if they wanted logs of users activity, they got it. And no they didn't even ask about pirated software that people traded back then. (think days of dial-up) 

Here's the part that jumped out at me and I'll sit on my fingers...

selling content far below the price it cost to create That's where it applies to MicroStock.

We produce and invest and do all the work. They get it virtually free, and don't pay until it's sold. Then the agencies take 80% of the price and we get some spare change or peanuts. People buy or steal the images, resell them. The laws don't protect or prosecute.

One of the big problems with stock photography is that our agencies LET people easily take our images. Now, once I sell you something however, yes, you can do what you want with it.

Imagine the producer of your favorite sofa you purchased knocking on your door demanding money every time you sit on it and on top of that, telling you that you have no right to sell it at a flee market when you no longer want it.

It's crazy. IP is no different.

BTW - Artists don't have to starve, but to be honest, even WITH IP LAW - artists still starve... so let's not even venture down that road.

This whole premise is idiotic. Information WANTS to be free? No PEOPLE want everything for free.

What does a university like Yale or Harvard sell? Its information!!!
OK, they call it an education but an education is just information presented in a formal manner.

Taken to its logical conclusion university should be free.
Oh and all those folks that sell how to books? Those should be free right?
Oh and lets post detailed information on how to source, assemble and detonate a nuclear device for free as well...after all information WANTS to be free!

Balderdash!

Thousands of Fashion designers, past and present. Many don't know that the fashion world has no IP laws protecting it beyond trademark.

Johanna Blakely: Lessons from fashion's free culture

See, not impossible.

Yeah that's what I said. i didn't use as many words though.