MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: Adobe shakes things up - Announces plan to acquire Fotolia  (Read 43189 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« Reply #75 on: December 13, 2014, 12:30 »
+4
Wow, this is big news and could change a few things.  I'm holding off any hopes / dreams that changes will be better for the photographer, but a part of me has a hard time not doing so.  At the very least, I would think that this will open up a very large sales channel.

If I can add pictures without joining Fotolia.


Batman

« Reply #76 on: December 13, 2014, 17:53 »
+2
How will it affect photographer royalties? Will a lot more images be licensed, or will more professional creative users of Adobe products use Dollar Photo Club instead of paying a slightly higher price to buy images elsewhere?

I think Adobe will just access the database and implement a unique pricing/download/subscription scheme. I doubt it will be based on current paradigms.

More downloads? No Idea. We`ll see.

More low paying cheap subs.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #77 on: December 13, 2014, 21:04 »
+7
So I wonder if this is going to turn into an App or if Fotolia is going to become the backend for a new version of Behance. Either way, Adobe's subscriptions are all pretty straightforward. $X per month for Lightroom. $X for Photoshop. And it will probably be $X per month for stock photos. I can't imagine Adobe going with all kinds of confusing options of subscription, pay-per-download, tiered pricing. Flat monthly fee subscription added as part of their cloud offering.

Unfortunately with a behemoth like Adobe backing the stock subscription model this will probably be a big nail in the coffin for higher priced RF and RM. If they would have bought Getty I would have had some hope of a macro RF/RM revival and prices going up. Macro will be dead in a few years. 

Every time something major happens I say it's gonna get interesting. Not this time. Nothing in this industry seems to be improving for contributors. I can't see anything good for contributors coming out of Getty, Adobe, and Shutterstock battling for supremacy. 


« Reply #78 on: December 13, 2014, 21:41 »
+3
Photographers using cracked copies of LR/PS, tremble and fear!
They already have your ID, now they'll check the EXIF information and come and catch you.

I guess most of us professionals here have regular software licences, but what about some newbies/wannabe stock photographers?

I would hope that most people creating digital products wouldn't steal other people's digital products. I personally think that CC has allowed many people that used cracked/pirated copies of Adobe products in the past to "get legal" and be more productive. I know that many of you won't agree, but I love CC.

Hobostocker

    This user is banned.
« Reply #79 on: December 13, 2014, 22:15 »
+2
Macro will be dead in a few years. 

why it should die if the RF industry is going cheaper and cheaper ?

it would be logical that hard to find and/or expensive shoots move to RM while anything else moves to RF and RF editorial in my opinion.

there's still demand for RM, of course it's not big but as long as it's there RM is here to stay and always will because no matter the price it's still a lot more convenient than hiring somebody on assignment.

RM is perfectly suited for unconventional editorial needs and so called "obscure subjects", you'll never find that stuff sold as RF because it just doesn't sell there.



Hobostocker

    This user is banned.
« Reply #80 on: December 13, 2014, 22:41 »
-2
I know that many of you won't agree, but I love CC.

Adobe has never been serious against piracy, if they were they would use dongle keys and heavy protections.

they must see piracy as a way to give out "try before buy" copies, they don't care as their core business are design studios and professionals not the random kid downloading from Pirate Bay.

and you know what, i fully agree with their policy, kids will start using cracked copies or free versions of PS Elements but when they grow up and get serious about DTP and photography they will buy legal copies and subscriptions without thinking twice, of course this will work only as long as Adobe is providing a top notch product and there's no competition but i see zero chances for adobe's monopoly to be disturbed by a newcomer anytime soon.

its strenght is now the CC integration, not the single app like PS or LR.
which is the same reason MS Office is market leader since decades even if there are great free or cheaper alternatives for word processing etc

modern software is so complex that small software houses just can't even dream to compete with the big guys who invested billions in R&D.

and this is also the reason why Linux on desktop failed big time despite the availability of second tier clones of the most popular apps.





« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 22:49 by Hobostocker »

« Reply #81 on: December 14, 2014, 08:29 »
+2
I've got a feeling that this is great news for Adobe, and not so great for suppliers of content in general.  If they're going to supply this as part of their "Creative Cloud" offering they're going to look at cutting their costs to a minimum. 
I don't use Adobe products these days.
I've used The Gimp for years, and RawTherapee for the past few years. To be fair I don't have to supply images to printers or to work on files with other people, and I don't make vectors for clients or resale.
I can do what I need to as far as RAW conversion and image manipulation is concerned.
I can do it at no cost.
I look at it as business. I get paid a few $$ for each sale I make (if I'm lucky these days) I don't want to pay a large chunk of that back for something that's not essential to me.
It would be a cold day in hell anyway when I would pay a monthly subscription for software. I see monthly payments for pretty well anything non essential as being insidious. "Only so much a month"

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #82 on: December 14, 2014, 10:03 »
+5
Macro will be dead in a few years. 

why it should die if the RF industry is going cheaper and cheaper ?

it would be logical that hard to find and/or expensive shoots move to RM while anything else moves to RF and RF editorial in my opinion.

there's still demand for RM, of course it's not big but as long as it's there RM is here to stay and always will because no matter the price it's still a lot more convenient than hiring somebody on assignment.

RM is perfectly suited for unconventional editorial needs and so called "obscure subjects", you'll never find that stuff sold as RF because it just doesn't sell there.

Macro will be dead for mainstream contributors. Maybe there will be a specialty military or medical agency here and there but that's it.

The hard-to-find/expensive move has been happening for a while. Unfortunately a lot of these hard to find images are being included in wacky partner and subscription deals. A contributor drops $10,000 on a shoot and they look at their RM statement and are seeing $.25 and $1 sales. Who in their right mind is going to keep dropping big money on some obscure shoot to get $1? Or even $100? They wont. I'm not. How could anyone possibly turn a profit on high cost, low volume, low price deals. I looked at Gettys needs list yesterday and there isn't one thing I'd bother with. These macro agencies are requesting stuff like "need released group of people on cruise ship playing shuffleboard". Once contributors stop doing expensive custom shoots for $1 clients will need to go back to contracting a photographer to do a shoot. Macro is over unless prices go back up.

And that was my point. Prices will not be going back up. With Adobe jumping in the subscription game this will further validate in the minds of buyers that images have little worth and should always be part of a low cost all you can eat buffet. Adobe will make huge money. What about contributors?

« Reply #83 on: December 14, 2014, 11:32 »
0
Worst case scenario in my mind would be images selected "for free" from within the software, without being bothered by having to go to the web site. Further eating away at images having value / needing to buy images.
The whole industry, powered by greed, has been heading there for a long time.
Long term it may be good news for people doing very specific commissioned shoots, as presumably people will still need those sorts of images, but will be made to pay for the proper value for them as they won't be available as stock.

Hobostocker

    This user is banned.
« Reply #84 on: December 14, 2014, 12:23 »
0
Maybe there will be a specialty military or medical agency here and there but that's it.

hahaha it reminds me of a guy in the old alamy forum, i think he was Arrested Images or something like that, he was a cop shooting pics of drug busts, his stuff was definitely a niche but he claimed to have good sales.





Hobostocker

    This user is banned.
« Reply #85 on: December 14, 2014, 12:26 »
0
And that was my point. Prices will not be going back up.

not for RF but the demand for niche RM has no reason to stop suddenly and since the price is linked to supply vs demand i don't think the RM prices are going to drop to micro levels ever.


Hobostocker

    This user is banned.
« Reply #86 on: December 14, 2014, 12:30 »
+1
The whole industry, powered by greed, has been heading there for a long time.

yes and yes, but if the integration with Adobe CC goes well they will make it easier for buyers to buy photos and this is a good thing as at the moment buying anything online is cumbersome to say the least.

OM

« Reply #87 on: December 14, 2014, 13:09 »
+1
Think as contributor, I'll stick with Fotolia (opted out of DPC) to see what the deal is that Adobe is offering. If it seems attractive, I'll give it a year but as FT makes me around 10% of Shutterstock income with the same  files, it's an indulgence I could easily give up. For image factories and contributors with 5K+ files, I imagine that their decision process would be different.  :)

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #88 on: December 14, 2014, 13:10 »
0
And that was my point. Prices will not be going back up.

not for RF but the demand for niche RM has no reason to stop suddenly and since the price is linked to supply vs demand i don't think the RM prices are going to drop to micro levels ever.

RM won't stop. But what will happen is common images will get moved out of macro into subscription micro because buyers will no longer pay $500 or even $50 for an image. And contributors will no longer be able to justify spending big dollars on macro shoots because it won't be profitable. Like I said, what will be left are micro subscriptions, commissioned shoots, and the odd specialty agency.

What? RM prices arent going to drop to micro levels? Well, RM contributor royalties are dropping. Getty is increasingly paying micro royalties on macro priced images and is now giving embed images away. Alamy has been heading toward micro for a while. Corbis has never been profitable. Stocksy sells macro-ish images for $10-$50. 500px doesn't seem to be catching fire. Is Veer still breathing?  Macro priced agencies are either moving to micro prices or are dying while micro subscription sites like Shutterstock are Wall Street darlings.

« Reply #89 on: December 14, 2014, 13:34 »
0

« Reply #90 on: December 15, 2014, 11:51 »
+13
Opinion piece:

Audio-Interview with Paul Melcher about Adobes Acquisition of Fotolia


Just to save some time for some people, I listened to the whole thing, and they don't discuss possible impact on contributors until 16 minutes in to the recording.   And Mr. Struck seems very excited about having a large market place to sell his images but no discussion of possible cuts to contributor rates.  To me, the main thing is what will I be paid per DL thru the Adobe platform.  I don't really care about speculation of the impact on the financial markets or convenience to buyer experience unless it puts more money in my pockets.

« Reply #91 on: December 15, 2014, 12:51 »
+2
Opinion piece:

Audio-Interview with Paul Melcher about Adobes Acquisition of Fotolia


Just to save some time for some people, I listened to the whole thing, and they don't discuss possible impact on contributors until 16 minutes in to the recording.   And Mr. Struck seems very excited about having a large market place to sell his images but no discussion of possible cuts to contributor rates.  To me, the main thing is what will I be paid per DL thru the Adobe platform.  I don't really care about speculation of the impact on the financial markets or convenience to buyer experience unless it puts more money in my pockets.


So true!!

« Reply #92 on: December 15, 2014, 14:10 »
-2
I don't really care about speculation of the impact on the financial markets or convenience to buyer experience unless it puts more money in my pockets.

I do not believe that one can consider the potential implication for contributors, particularly those predominately shooting for microstock, without seeing this primarily in terms of the financial markets and the buyer experience. Because those are the two most significant factors.

In that context I thought it was an excellent interview since, whilst obviously not providing unavailable answers, it does a good job of framing the arguments.

« Reply #93 on: December 15, 2014, 17:34 »
+8
I listed to most of it, but found it to be so light on content - even informed speculation or historical context of how similar things have played out in the past - that I stopped it before the end.

Even if you put the contributor perspective to one side (easy for me to do as I'm not with Fotolia :) ) I think you need to put away the breathless excitement about someone paying $800 million for a rather shoddy agency with a great presence in Germany. Also put away the rather wooly discussions about the cloud - Adobe CC is about a subscription to one or more products that run on your Mac or PC (at least for the serious users) - nothing much runs in the cloud.

Unless Adobe makes Dollar Photo Club-esque pricing deals available to Adobe CC subscribers - in other words some drastic price cuts - I can't see how I'd have any easier time buying and managing my RF licensing by doing it from Photoshop or Illustrator (or somewhere else?). Adobe can't even get the interface lined up between Illustrator and Photoshop for similar entities in both, so the idea that somehow there'll be some interface magic that makes licensing easy from a UI point of view seems truly silly (not impossible, just not something I can imagine Adobe being able to pull off).

So we come down to the basics. Will they compete on price by undercutting existing agencies? I can't imagine they'll be somehow finding new buyers for licensing stock, so however they compete, I'm assuming they'll be stealing from other agencies (or trying to).

If they cut contributor payments too much, content will leave and then they'll have less than a a top tier offering. If they keep contributor payments the same, how long can they compete on price and make financial sense of the whole thing?

Buyers seem to be having relatively few troubles licensing images now (they'd like better searches and lower prices, but manage even with things as they are). They may be leaving one agency and moving to another when daft pricing schemes get introduced, but it's not at all the way it was when microstock came to be in the early 2000s.

Adobe seems (to me) to be peddling a solution in search of a problem. If you surround that solution with enough buzz words (and cloud is definitely a good one right now) perhaps no one will notice?

« Reply #94 on: December 15, 2014, 17:49 »
+5
I can not imagine that Adobe can reduce prices on stock pictures much further. At the end they want to make money. And if they act aggressively and disrupt the stock market sensitive, then they will lose as a result not only contributors, but also those that rent PS Lightroom and Illustrator in the cloud. Photographers and graphic artists who produce for stock, are a part of Adobes clientele. Adobe must therefore perform a balancing act. But I think that could work. Maybe we will see an end of the price erosion, who knows? It could be the beginning of such a development.

« Reply #95 on: December 16, 2014, 00:58 »
+4
And if they act aggressively and disrupt the stock market sensitive, then they will lose as a result not only contributors, but also those that rent PS Lightroom and Illustrator in the cloud. Photographers and graphic artists who produce for stock, are a part of Adobes clientele.

+1000 on that part.  Hope they remember it.  Another big site forgot that and look where they are today.

« Reply #96 on: December 16, 2014, 10:35 »
+4
I have stopped uploading to Fotolia for a long time and refused to paticipate in their Dollar Club something. Last time I ckecked it I still was in the TOP30 in overall sales but somewhere like 500th in the weekly sales ranking. So FTL is a DEAD business for me.
If Adobe takes it over and they change things to a good direction I have plenty of new images to support it. I will be more than happy to do so.

Uncle Pete

« Reply #97 on: December 16, 2014, 13:17 »
+2
Adobe says they will keep FT as it is. That's expected, because there's an established return and distribution system. Maybe $200 million a year. (hey, that's quite a nut, how much do we get of that?)

Having the files on CC through Adobe, my guess is part of the subscription, not an additional plan. Millions of new customers, all Adobe products included, will boost sales.

As many have noted, this will bring an enhanced presence into the North American market.

In theory: FT contributors will see no loss at this point. Maybe an increase.

However...

There's no reason why Adobe won't squeeze contributors for the CC DLs, which are likely to be offered "free" with the package. How low will they go?

What does this mean for the little sites, DT and everyone down the list? It's going to be another industry giant putting the "squeeze" on their profits and our income. Which in effect will lead some to be culled out and others to continue to cut prices and commissions, in an effort to make any small profit they can, before they go under.

What I'd like to see is a way to integrate uploads through the CC software, going straight into Adobe and bypassing FT.

But the conclusion I've come to personally, besides the unknown and future change, is that for this deal, Adobe / Fotolia, the word of the year 2015 will be squeeze.

« Reply #98 on: December 16, 2014, 14:59 »
+1
But the conclusion I've come to personally, besides the unknown and future change, is that for this deal, Adobe / Fotolia, the word of the year 2015 will be squeeze.
Be like previous years then? :)
Most places at least.
I'm not with FT, and as I said earlier I don't use Adobe products these days, but I wonder in general how long "they" (in general not any specific "they") can keep squeezing before the content providers lose interest. If in fact they already haven't in some cases. 
 

« Reply #99 on: December 16, 2014, 15:21 »
0
which are likely to be offered "free" with the package. How low will they go?


Interviewed here, Adobe Creative Cloud "Evangelist" Michael Chaize is quite specifically talking about integrating the purchase of content. He goes on to say that the vision is that the Adobe CC will become a place where creatives also sell their content.


 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
5 Replies
5504 Views
Last post February 02, 2007, 07:55
by Photoguy
186 Replies
42196 Views
Last post June 14, 2013, 18:35
by w7lwi
63 Replies
27198 Views
Last post June 17, 2017, 17:04
by ShadySue
4 Replies
4393 Views
Last post April 27, 2019, 12:41
by Chichikov
14 Replies
5404 Views
Last post September 28, 2019, 11:26
by JaenStock

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors