MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: cobalt on March 05, 2014, 18:21
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http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/getty-images-makes-35-million-images-free-in-fight-against-copyright-infringement/ (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/getty-images-makes-35-million-images-free-in-fight-against-copyright-infringement/)
I am trying to imagine Sony music offering a free online stream for half their music library or disney most of their videos.
I know some TV stations offer select content for free or with advertising, but I have a difficult time seeing it work with photos in the same way.
Or do you think this will have no effect on our sales??
And of course...there is no opt out.
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Do they think people don't know how to screendump and crop?
People steal pics on Flickr which have watermarks and are right click protected. How is putting our unwatermarked work out there going to prevent copyright infringement.
It's just one piece of sh*t after another. Knock us down, hold us down, and kick us while we're down.
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Not sure if what they say is the real reason or if they're just trying to cut off a the knees all the licenses sold via other agencies for blog and other editorial use.
And the lack of an opt out shows they know that the people who created the images won't be happy with this.
And if there are any fees paid, I'll bet it will be for use of their embed player meaning Getty gets all the money and photographers zip.
The are such slime.
Our best hope is that the embed player is a pain in the butt to use and people don't want to deal with it and keep licensing blog sizes from other agencies.
I do agree that it's a problem when one user licenses an image and then their blog is picked up by others who also get the image with the story and it's never paid for on the additional uses. I don't think this embed player is the right solution though
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This means a designer can work for a magazine or non profit website, design everything and set it up. he or she gets paid for their work, but the artist doesn´t?
I mean, would´t all newspapers now be able to include images for free? With the exception of fresh reportage on current news?
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And they also say that photos.com will be offering prints in a month or two and there's a new referral program coming...
Today must be idea day
http://links.mkt2173.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NjE5NTk2NwS2&r=NjAwNTIxMjEyMzgS1&j=NDAwNTExNDM5S0&mt=1&rt=0 (http://links.mkt2173.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NjE5NTk2NwS2&r=NjAwNTIxMjEyMzgS1&j=NDAwNTExNDM5S0&mt=1&rt=0)
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I don't get this one either. Even if it is for personal work, shouldn't the artist be compensated something? If I mail a personal letter, the post office will no longer charge me because it's personal? Too bad everyone can't be persuaded to do a wholesale move out of anything Getty. Geez...
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normally i am a GI supporter, but this goes a bit too far.
my only thoughts are "class action" as i don't recall signing anything in a contract that says they can give my images away for free. promotional use yes i agreed to that, but this is not promotional use.
this is complete bu!!sh!t.
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It sounds like they are trying to monetise our content like youtube does. Our images will illustrate the blog article or newspaper,but we no longer get properly paid. Just the "hope" someone uses the link to go to the website to buy the content.
They are renting out the content for free and making THEIR money in other ways while we live on hope??
Is this the new "getty connect"?
they really must think the stock artists are like the people who upload to flickr or youtube.
Who will invest in production for having their images rented out for free?
ETA. the poor istock exclusives. No opt out from the new subscription program. No opt out from the "viewer".
I´ll have to look at my content again. Getting low subs royalties is one thing. Being used by a magazine for free is something else.
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normally i am a GI supporter, but this goes a bit too far.
my only thoughts are "class action" as i don't recall signing anything in a contract that says they can give my images away for free. promotional use yes i agreed to that, but this is not promotional use.
this is complete bu!!sh!t.
I'm sure iStockLawyer will be able to spin it as 'promotional use'. >:(
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They claim that in future embedded images will serve adds as it is done on YouTube:
YouTube and other services encourage embedded content sharing because it promotes their brand, drives traffic back to their site, and provides a revenue stream from advertising. This is an approach that has been followed successfully by Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Photobucket, and many other leading digital platforms. Once use of our embedded viewer has grown sufficiently and can be monetized successfully, we will explore these options as well and will pay contributors/partners a royalty at contract rates on any revenue-generating activity that takes place within the embedded viewer.
I got only 3 images on Flickr collection but I can mark my calendar to check in couple months if they really going to pay their share from advertising
I can see some interesting comments on Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/gettyimagescontributors/discuss/72157641924624974/ (http://www.flickr.com/groups/gettyimagescontributors/discuss/72157641924624974/)
I cannot find my images from iS on GI site so not all their stuff is included in this deal.
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I disagree. I think this is a great idea and will encourage many more customers to the Getty web site. I hope they promote it actively in which case it could be a great success. As they rightly point out in their announcement, infringement of copyright has gone mad and is out of control. There's no way to police it properly. What they are doing is trying to replace that with a properly designed method of using images through their own embedded player. Millions of online images are viewed every day, and I want as many of those views as possible directed to my work at Getty. The embedded player will include attribution and a direct link to the image buying page. I already make very good money from my portfolio at Getty, and I think this initiative will increase my sales further.
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Not sure if what they say is the real reason or if they're just trying to cut off a the knees all the licenses sold via other agencies for blog and other editorial use.
And the lack of an opt out shows they know that the people who created the images won't be happy with this.
And if there are any fees paid, I'll bet it will be for use of their embed player meaning Getty gets all the money and photographers zip.
The are such slime.
Our best hope is that the embed player is a pain in the butt to use and people don't want to deal with it and keep licensing blog sizes from other agencies.
I do agree that it's a problem when one user licenses an image and then their blog is picked up by others who also get the image with the story and it's never paid for on the additional uses. I don't think this embed player is the right solution though
Stronger words than slime come to mind
Snip
Getty Images will also look to draw additional revenues from its player through advertising. “We reserve the right to monetise that footprint,” Peters explains. “YouTube implemented a very similar capability, which allows people to embed videos on a website, with the company generating revenue by serving advertising on that video.” And while Getty Images has yet to determine how these ads will appear, Peters is confident that this capability will be introduced in the near future.
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I see a lot of potential for getty to make money, but i am afraid I really don´t see it for the artists.
But good luck to those who look forward to having their files included.
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Naw, encouraging people to freely use content with no cost is just dumb.
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The content will not be free. It will be paid for by the advertisers. But to Getty, not the artists.
They are just building the platform and hope many people use the player.
It is another step towards trying to "automate" dealing with stock. Mass uploads, mass distribution of images and then monetising it in individual deals with the advertisers in private that the artists never see.
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All the agencies are looking for ways to make money off of an image without calling it a "sale", because if it's a sale they have to pay a commission. Any sort of up-front fee (subscription, "membership", etc) isn't subject to commission - even if, in reality, those fees are where the real money changes hands.
And they want to keep eroding the idea of a "license" for a "usage". So, it's "personal", or it's "temporary" (i.e. a "comp", that someone uses to sell a deal or develop a concept). Or it's just in a "viewer", or via an "API". No one is really using your image. They're just looking at it.
One way or another, the agency makes more money from your image, and you don't. Best case for them is that you never know how much is really being paid for an image, where, when or in what form.
Getty is bad. But IMHO - SS, being the most technically advanced of these agencies, will come up with the slipperiest ways to monetize our images while making only token royalty payments.
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As an artist if you really want to benefit from this you will need to upload images suitable for mass distribution,especially via social media.
Grumpy cats,cute babies,funny or bizarre things people like to share. Nude people images probably as well.
Niche content,highly advanced specialised and expensive shootings...not so much...
ETA: Just wanted to highlight this
"All the agencies are looking for ways to make money off of an image without calling it a "sale", because if it's a sale they have to pay a commission."
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Naw, encouraging people to freely use content with no cost is just dumb.
Think about the chess game from Getty's point of view.
They see their "real" business as the high end images at high prices. Microstock was an irritant that they hoped would go away, then they hoped they could buy into. Having totally mismanaged their acquisition - and the only worse management of microstock by an old-line agency is Corbis with SnapVillage (to me always known as CrapHamlet, a moniker I wish I'd thought up).
Other competitors who they thought they could push out of the way innovated while Getty just tried to hold on to the old line businesses and minimize the impact of microstock on their earnings. So now having failed to put Shutterstock on the ropes with Thinkstock, they're looking for another way to demolish the competition.
If Getty (erroneously) thinks that the bread and butter of their competitors is bloggers and small non commercial uses in high volumes, they could imagine that by giving away what the competitor sells they can deliver a real blow to earnings while leaving their own high-end uses untouched. Think of all the other cases where a deep-pocketed company has tried to undo competition by giving away what the competitor used to charge for
http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/browserwars.html (http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/browserwars.html)
I think Getty misunderstands its competition, particularly Shutterstock, so I'm not sure this tactic would work even if it become popular - Shutterstock's going after Getty's bread and butter and I would imagine is now big enough not to fold under a little pressure.
I also think it's highly unlikely that Getty will make this embedding process easy and appealing for bloggers to use and that's a must if this initiative is to succeed. If past is prologue, their existing software doesn't bode well for simplicity and ease of use for bloggers.
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True, this involves the use of reliable technology...hm...no, they have no track record in that. So the amazing masterplan will probably fold onto itself anyway.
Back to shoot, upload, repeat and all the other agencies that are in the business of selling my files, not renting them out for free and then charging advertisers for the "service".
The talk about the copyright infringers is probably the buzzline to get people to help them build the platform. Especially to get the artists to help them build a platform that will in the end probably not pay them.
I mean, what other argument could they use to make people look forward to this??
But it might be enough to get wall street investors excited and spend millions of other peoples money...I mean..it does sound all internety and cool...
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Naw, encouraging people to freely use content with no cost is just dumb.
it's beyond dumb.
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...But IMHO - SS, being the most technically advanced of these agencies, will come up with the slipperiest ways to monetize our images while making only token royalty payments.
I've been fussing about the lack of transparency in the SOD licenses since they started it - they will not tell us what the buyer is getting or paying for the amount we receive. It could be a great deal or a crappy one, but we have no way to judge. It is definitely a concern.
When Shutterstock first introduced extended licenses we received $20 of $40 and they have since decreased our share of totals even though the royalty is now $28. They clearly have an interest in increasing their share of the gross wherever possible
http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-pricing/msg47584/#msg47584 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-pricing/msg47584/#msg47584)
(I was jsnover in an earlier life here). A number of people have raised questions about the Facebook deal and whether there were fees paid to SS that contributors saw no part of.
The big difference thus far is that Getty has shafted its contributors over and over again whereas there's just a worry about Shutterstock doing the same if it gets big and powerful enough
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@ David
Don´t you think your excellent results on Getty are related to their careful advertising and marketing of what is in essence their flagship store?
You didn´t see a Valentines day image being carelessly left on the front page of Gettyimages, did you?
A business will only grow if it is given a lot of focus and attention. istock really didn´t get much love. They drove customers actively away - to Thinkstock or Getty, they stopped investing in staff, technology and offices.
istock didn´t grow because they didn´t want it to grow.
Getty itself is improving because of their attention to it.
At least, this is the way I see it.
But if you believe that having your files rented out in a viewer will drive your sales, best of luck.
I remember one file that was available in the Microsoft deal - it had 660 000 free downloads and not a single sale on istock. It definitely brought benefit to Microsoft office, because people enjoyed using it for their projects.
So I doubt that many random eyes will increase my sales. The Microsoft deal gives me 1.3 million free downloads of proof that it wasn´t working for me.
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normally i am a GI supporter, but this goes a bit too far.
Well done for being "a GI supporter". Look where it got you. When Klein said "We are not the photographers' friend" ... he certainly meant it.
And you dare criticise SS and Oringer!
" ... but this goes a bit too far". Did you actually say that in the 'silly girly voice' that I can only imagine it being opined? Pathetic. A bit too far???
Su*king up to Getty got you exactly what you deserve. In this case ... absolutely nothing.
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Notice not ALL of the collections are included here they are aware it's not good for the artist but great to throw some adverts on the viewer and make some cash. Humm lets stop people from stealing our images....OK give them away that will fix it. How will you ever police this? so I embed a image on my blog am I going to now turn around and buy it?? Ahhh sure oh please let me pay NOT! oh I need and image for a corporate presentation bam that is easy it's free!! NOTICE oh its Non-commercial use? sure are you ready to send out millions of letters asking for payments the artist will never see? probably
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I take it this includes iStock "from Getty".
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...But IMHO - SS, being the most technically advanced of these agencies, will come up with the slipperiest ways to monetize our images while making only token royalty payments.
I've been fussing about the lack of transparency in the SOD licenses since they started it - they will not tell us what the buyer is getting or paying for the amount we receive. It could be a great deal or a crappy one, but we have no way to judge. It is definitely a concern.
When Shutterstock first introduced extended licenses we received $20 of $40 and they have since decreased our share of totals even though the royalty is now $28. They clearly have an interest in increasing their share of the gross wherever possible
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-pricing/msg47584/#msg47584[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-pricing/msg47584/#msg47584[/url])
(I was jsnover in an earlier life here). A number of people have raised questions about the Facebook deal and whether there were fees paid to SS that contributors saw no part of.
The big difference thus far is that Getty has shafted its contributors over and over again whereas there's just a worry about Shutterstock doing the same if it gets big and powerful enough
If more submitters asked the questions you do and then held them to task for failing to compensate us fairly, we would not be in this predicament. We all need to be asking relevant questions regarding contributor revenue via WebDAM.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/03/shutterstock-acquires-digital-asset-management-service-webdam/ (http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/03/shutterstock-acquires-digital-asset-management-service-webdam/)
With this news it makes me leery about SS scheduled down time, lets hope we do not receive more bad news.
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It will only affect everyone if it really becomes widely used and thus a "platform".
Until then it is cool buzzwords that will drive lots of "innovative" articles.
Which is why they are revamping the advertising toolkit for the artists, hoping we will help to widely advertise the use of the viewer.
A real platform needs huge volume. iTunes,ebay or youtube size.
Which is why they say they are open to inviting other agencies....
Even if the concept really did catch on - what is to stop SS to come up with their own version? And who has more experience in creating reliable internet technology and growing an internet business...?
I do believe it has potential to kill sales if a file really becomes popular. Why buy something you can rent for free if renting is made easy?
Getty will still benefit from the advertising revenue, while my poor file is "viewed"
If anything the project has a lot of potential to drive people with quality content to stocksy, Offset, RM sites or to work on their direct sales shops.
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I tried to explain that I don´t think Getty will be successful with the project, not that I want SS to succeed with it.
But SS has better technology experience and if they wanted to pull it off they probably could. Again, I don´t mean that I want them to do it.
Why would they? Until now, they are in the business of selling files, not renting views to advertisers.
They make real money, they don´t promise vague returns in a distant future in case they are ever successful at building a huge platform.
The more I think about it, the more I see it as just another hot air project.
It has the ability to do damage, but I don´t have my best files on the Getty platform.
I learnt a lot from the Microsoft deal.
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VMan these agencies were built on other peoples hard work and talent. They are willing to destroy their own industry for short term success. Seems like every day this year carries bad news for the industry. They somehow are convincing themselves they are adapting.
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...I've been fussing about the lack of transparency in the SOD licenses since they started it - they will not tell us what the buyer is getting or paying for the amount we receive. It could be a great deal or a crappy one, but we have no way to judge.
And if we have no way to judge, I think it's safe bet that it's a crappy one. Unless you have some mystical belief in the superior ethics of SS as compared to any other for-profit corporation.
A number of people have raised questions about the Facebook deal and whether there were fees paid to SS that contributors saw no part of.
Yes and my posts on that were heavily minus-ed. I think it's significant that no one from SS showed up here to deny it.
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Twitter has lit up with tweets about this, and there are a lot like this - thinking Getty's stuff is now free for any use...
https://twitter.com/opajdara/status/441388499217158144
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The blogger has the choice between grabbing a file from google, or a free creative commons license or installing a viewer. What do you think is faster to do? There are millions of free images available already that are legal to use. Even for commercial purposes.
You are talking about the huge volume of people going after freebies.
They usually don´t spend money anyway. Getting people who love free to even just pay 1 cent for anything is incredibly difficult. Terrible conversion rate.
I don´t see these people as my market.
The commercial users,even the small business need to pay. And Getty says themselves they don´t believe it will change their core business.
For me this talk about "preventing copyright infringing" is the pitch line to get the artists to comply and help spread the viewer.
Then the real money will come for Getty when they make deals with the advertisers. But they have to build the platform first and need critical mass to make it interesting.
Building a platform can take a lot of time. Let´s see if it works first.
But they might not even need it to really work if they are going after the money of investors. Then they just need a plausible looking story where the "real money" comes in a very distant future.
Whatever is their real motive, I think for me it will be better to keep special files elsewhere. But I have content for the viewer. Sure. No problem.
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"There are millions of free images available already that are legal to use. Even for commercial purposes."
People often find that free isn't really 'free'.
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They exist, but are they a big market? If I had a little money, I would be using legal free content.
If the blog is commercial, i.e. a company blog, they need to license files properly. These are the people that buy a yearly subscription package or pay for the more expensive files.
Until someone shows me the data, I never thought my files were being widely used on non profit blogs. When I do a google search for my name and my files I usually find them on commercial websites.
Where do you find yours?
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I think this might be the easiest way to get an idea how vulnerable you are. Get some stats on how you find your files being used and then see in how many cases you could have been replaced by the viewer.
The announcement will certainly lead many people to believe that "everything on getty is now free".
Maybe this will help push the viewer around. Or maybe it will just be a short lived internet hype.
How fast will the getty lawyers sue people who use the viewer in the wrong place? And after a few people get sued, how many people will continue using the viewer?
And will anyone ever be sued? Because if the real money is supposed to come from advertising, why would they care if it is placed on a commercial website?
Many questions...
But the artists have to decide if they want to take part and spread the viewer.
This is a very big project if they really want to be successful with it. I would look carefully at their track record in technology, sales and growing a business to decide if I should be scared or not.
The more immediate problem is the introduction of subscriptions on everything on istock except Vetta. I would be more scared of that if I was still exclusive.
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Isn't the Chrome browser free? Isn't the Android software free? Isn't WhatsApp free (yet is somehow worth $19B). Do I view all my favorite web sites for free? Do I now read all my morning newspapers for free? And yet all of these things happen to be worth a fortune because they are all a portal to something else or they attract advertising fees. So being free to them wasn't a dumb move at all. Of course I can't add advertising to my images, but I can see why there are more and more apps that are free yet become worth a substantial amount of money.
I'm just a simple person. The way I see it is this: at the moment people have to search at Getty's web site to see my stuff. What if every web site in the world decides to use the Getty embedded viewer and an extra billion people a day get to see my stuff. And every one of those views sees my attributed name and a one click link to my portfolio. Will I lose money or make money? The answer is: I will make a lot more sales and a lot more money. And do I care if Getty also makes money through views or clicks or advertising? No, actually I don't care at all. In fact, I'll encourage them to do so. Why? Because I know that the more views they generate the more money I will make. It's like putting a personal link to my portfolio on every web site in the world.
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"What if every web site in the world decides to use the Getty embedded viewer and an extra billion people a day get to see my stuff. Will I lose money or make money? The answer is: I will make a lot more sales and a lot more money. "
Sorry. I don't see the correlation.
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David - some of my files in the Microsoft deal had a functioning link to my portfolio on istock. I think 4 files from 25.
I had no correlation in sales. No increase. No drop after the files where removed from Microsoft.
You need to target the right kind of customers very carefully to make money.
I really hope it works out for you.
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The blogger has the choice between grabbing a file from google, or a free creative commons license or installing a viewer. What do you think is faster to do? There are millions of free images available already that are legal to use. Even for commercial purposes.
You are talking about the huge volume of people going after freebies.
They usually don´t spend money anyway. Getting people who love free to even just pay 1 cent for anything is incredibly difficult. Terrible conversion rate.
I don´t see these people as my market.
The commercial users,even the small business need to pay. And Getty says themselves they don´t believe it will change their core business.
For me this talk about "preventing copyright infringing" is the pitch line to get the artists to comply and help spread the viewer.
Then the real money will come for Getty when they make deals with the advertisers. But they have to build the platform first and need critical mass to make it interesting.
Building a platform can take a lot of time. Let´s see if it works first.
But they might not even need it to really work if they are going after the money of investors. Then they just need a plausible looking story where the "real money" comes in a very distant future.
Whatever is their real motive, I think for me it will be better to keep special files elsewhere. But I have content for the viewer. Sure. No problem.
The sites do not have to do a thing there are app coders all over the net and they can make using the app as easy as clicking a button.
This is not rocket science.
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I don't pay for the Chrome Browser but it's not free either :) And I read my newspaper online but I pay for it - because I want to keep reading the New York Times which means somehow journalists need to be paid.
The big issue here is that (a) Getty doesn't own what it's giving away and (b) that it's not clear that the people who do own it will actually see other sales to replace the ones they lose - and yes, I've found many of my images used - paid for - on blogs
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No you will not make more money! people don't care about the artist they just want the image when they need it. I don't look at images on blogs and find out who shot it because I don't really care. I only care when I need to buy an image and I am not going to go find the Getty view box to get one!
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If you want to use my image then buy it!
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Getty should be ashamed of the 'free to use' posts that are proliferating across twitter.
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istock had a project with a blogsite called vox. Files could be embedded for free and they all had links to our portfolios and individual files.
I saw no increase in sales, not even views and I think neither did istock. The project was cancelled.
But of course there was no advertising being flashed at the end user through the images.
Maybe if istock had done that, istock would have had advertising revenue. But in those days istock was in the business of selling files,not using their content to rent it out at end users and avoid paying the artist.
As an artist you anyway have to be lucky to get your files "viewed" to even have a chance of making a sale. Are your files interesting enough to stand out in the 35 million files to be chosen to be viewed?
But for the advertising revenue again it does´t matter. They just need a platform with a critical size of users (here: embedded viewers) to get the advertisers to pay them.
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News flash you don't need Getty Viewer. Just go sign up for a free account. Now find your image. Open to comp size right click and save a ahhh now you don't need the viewer for your blog and no water mark!
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My new goal - to automate a collection of 40 million embed links on individual pages in a "blog" with adwords on the side.
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This is very, very clever move by Getty:
1) It doesn't violate or breach their current contributor's contracts because they list this new intiative as "promotional use".
2) Since over half the websites worldwide are non-profit or non-commercial, they will get a lot of usage that will advertise their site.....and they aren't giving away anything except their contributor's images. It costs the photographer - but not Getty.
3) They intend to "sell advertising" down the road - but since they aren't "selling" the photo, they won't have to pay out a commission.
And on top of that - if they disrupt their competitors by giving away 35 million blog images free - then that's a win for them as well.
They are clever folks. Very clever. And I don't say that without understanding the irony that the fool in this new deal is us - the content providers.
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Another well written article that discusses this move by Getty.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/ (http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/)
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So people don't want to spend $55 on a blog image. And Getty's answer to that is to throw their hands up and quit even trying to make a buck on this usage type? Yep, sounds about right.
Forget about the issue of there being this huge disconnect between what people are willing to pay today and what Getty charges. Let's not address that. Let's just jump to extremes and create even more confusion over what the real value of an image is. Because nothing helps people understand the value of an image like making it available for $20 or $600 or free.
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To me this sounds like a definition of anti-competitive practice... I wonder how other stock agencies going to react to that, especially SS. Unless Getty makes only their exclusive content free?
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I can just "hear" the boardroom discussion when this was proposed:
"Let's give away all 35 million images for free to non-profits and non-commercial sites. It won't cost us much except to craft some code - and we'll write that off as promotional expense.
Then we'll get all those millions of bloggers hooked on using our free images - and once we do that, then we'll embed ads and start raking in the ad revenues. And since we won't be selling any photos - we won't have to pay any commissions out to the photographers.
And we'll claim this is a promotional initiative so that we don't breach any contracts we currently have - and we won't allow anyone to opt out. Sure - it will make them mad - but we'll throw them a bone and tell them that we were forced to do this because we can no longer afford to monitor unauthorized usage of Getty photos online.
Remember - we never paid for this content to begin with - so we're monetizing it by turning it from an expense into an asset that we control...."
My guess is that the smart guy or gal who proposed this idea got a fat raise and a promotion. After all - who wouldn't jump at the chance to make money off of other people's efforts if you don't have to pay for all their efforts.
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I can just "hear" the boardroom discussion when this was proposed:
"Let's give away all 35 million images for free to non-profits and non-commercial sites. It won't cost us much except to craft some code - and we'll write that off as promotional expense.
Then we'll get all those millions of bloggers hooked on using our free images - and once we do that, then we'll embed ads and start raking in the ad revenues. And since we won't be selling any photos - we won't have to pay any commissions out to the photographers.
And we'll claim this is a promotional initiative so that we don't breach any contracts we currently have - and we won't allow anyone to opt out. Sure - it will make them mad - but we'll throw them a bone and tell them that we were forced to do this because we can no longer afford to monitor unauthorized usage of Getty photos online.
Remember - we never paid for this content to begin with - so we're monetizing it by turning it from an expense into an asset that we control...."
My guess is that the smart guy or gal who proposed this idea got a fat raise and a promotion. After all - who wouldn't jump at the chance to make money off of other people's efforts if you don't have to pay for all their efforts.
You hit the nail on the head. They'll make lots of money from the ads and the contributors will get zip...
Gee I wonder why they don't let people opt out?
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Getty should be ashamed of the 'free to use' posts that are proliferating across twitter.
I have to stop looking at Twitter - it makes me feel sick
And I hope Getty gets badly burned by this shameful giveaway of what's not theirs to give away.
I just hope they don't take us all down with them
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The Microsoft deal was about getting the "random eyes" linked to Getty.
The Getty Google Deal was about the "random eyes" linked to Getty.
Now the amazing 35 million free for blogs embedding deal is about the "random eyes" linked to Getty.
Time and attention will be devoted to this project. Maybe,perhaps,one day enough embeds will be there to include advertising (below the image,inside the image?)
Maybe then money will be paid by advertisers to Getty.
Maybe then a tiny stream will reach artists.
Maybe one in a million from the "random eyes" will click on the link go to Getty and license the file.
In the meantime other agencies invest time, efforts and resources at identifying customer groups who are ready to spend money today. They cultivate this business relationship, they cultivate the relationship with their artists. They make a huge effort to connect the right kind of target group of buyers with the right kind of content.
They generate income from direct license sales.
This is what I am interested in. Money.
My files will go where the money flows.
(removing the XS size to avoid giving blogs a cheap entry option to buy stock directly - that is also clever right? I mean - why bother with XS if they can get it all for free?)
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To me this sounds like a definition of anti-competitive practice...
You're right. This is what is called in economics 'dumping'. A company sells a product at a loss (or in this case gives it away) in order to destroy the revenue stream of its competitor (SS). In this case, it isn't Getty who will take the loss, it is us. The assets being destroyed in value are our images, even those of us who don't submit to Getty/iStock, because our sales at SS et al will fall. Getty will profit by selling ads.
There are laws against dumping, but they would not apply to this case I'm afraid.
I started submitting to IS in 2005. Some years ago I realized that IS/Getty are not operating in good faith, so I stopped doing business with iStock - stopped submitting there and withdrew almost all of my images. Personally, I do not understand the people here who continue to do business with a company they know to be acting in bad faith. Those people are hurting all of us.
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Is this just another nail in the coffin for content producers?
-gl
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I just have to jump in on this crazy concept!
This is just mind boggling! Getty gets all the revenue from the image/ad placement and contributors get $0. I understand their concept, but FREE? Why didn't they just create a new lower pricing category for bloggers only? It seems illogical to bypass a potential new revenue stream and just jump right into FREE without even testing the waters first.
Does this mean that word press and other template designers can place images directly for use in their templates and sell them? What about scam, porn and other undesirable sites? Can they place your images there? Just sign up at Getty with a fake email, copy the code and you are good to go!
Here is another article: http://thenextweb.com/media/2014/03/06/getty-makes-photo-collection-available-bloggers-free-charge/# (http://thenextweb.com/media/2014/03/06/getty-makes-photo-collection-available-bloggers-free-charge/#)!yD4dW
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I'm curious to know your thoughts on this Sean, is this the end of the stock industry or am I just overreacting?
No, you're not overreacting. I'm not Sean but IMO it's one more nail in our coffin. Too bad we can't, as a very large group, come together and do something about all of this. Stop uploading to these sites and eventually the pressure will be on them to do something about it. But, that will never happen so the downward spiral will continue.
I had a publisher contact me last month wanting to use one of my images for a book cover; the book was for resale....they were expecting to pay no more than $10....needless to say, no deal. Makes me sick.
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The sad part of this is that we've seen the enemy - and it's us.
Getty suckered in a large group of photographers (including me) with promises that they were going to keep the high end pricing firm. They demanded exclusivity and got it - and literally took millions of photos "off the market" by that bold move. They might not sell your photo - but if they don't, then at least they don't have to compete with it since they "own" it for a year or two.
Then their pricing started spiraling downhill - and they claimed that they had to make "adjustments" because of marketplace pressures. They actually started selling images in emerging markets like China for under five cents. That's a fact - I have the commission statement to prove it.
But still they maintained that "Getty" aura - you know, the one that makes a photographer feel like they've "made" it if they are part of Getty. Yes - I bought that premise hook, line and sinker.
And now - they effectively devalue the value of an image online to zero. Not 10 cents. Not one dollar. They make a photographer's image worth absolutely nothing and disrupt the marketplace for all time. After all, once you've gotten something for free - why would you ever pay for it again in the future.
The sad thing is that they are using millions of photos - including hundreds of mine - to destroy the market for me down the road. I can't opt out and they have me and so many other photographers caught up in their scheme. They claim it will ultimately be good for us all.
The fool in this deal is the photographer. That's me. I was foolish for signing with them and I was foolish for trusting them. They are going to use my own images to destroy any future value for my photos - and for photographers worldwide.
And they will make millions off the combined efforts of thousands of photographers through advertising while simultaneously destroying the marketplace for imagery online.
So very clever. So very wrong.
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This is all so frickin' depressing.....I'm going to bed with a bottle of (cheap) whiskey and a bad book.
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... Does this mean that word press and other template designers can place images directly for use in their templates and sell them? What about scam, porn and other undesirable sites?
You're right, Kelly. There will be no way to police this. Getty has opened the door to 'commercial' being a meaningless restriction, if sites which sell ads are not 'commercial':
"Blogs that draw revenues from Google Ads will still be able to use the Getty Images embed player at no cost. 'We would not consider this commercial use,' says Peters. 'The fact today that a website is generating revenue would not limit the use of the embed. '"
The value of the assets of contributors, even those who refuse to submit to IS, has just been drastically reduced. The sales of GL and other agencies will surely suffer. Only Getty will profit.
What will it take for us contributors to stop doing business with them?
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I wonder if this is why they all but scrapped inspections of new content for iStock.
There were already some people out there who maintained that any image published on the internet was automatically public domain, once Getty have finished training the entire blogosphere to think that then scarcely anybody will see any reason to pay for anything.
Ultimately, this will probably destroy Getty, too, because when their sales vanish so will their content and they won't have any "free" content to bury their adverts in.
The sooner they bankrupt themselves the better. That does seem to be their ultimate aim, anyway.
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Another well written article that discusses this move by Getty.
[url]http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/[/url] ([url]http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/[/url])
Near the end of the article, the author shows how easy it is to hide the credits: "The way the embeds are set up, it’s trivial to resize the iframe to eliminate the Getty Images credit and sharing tools at the bottom."
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normally i am a GI supporter, but this goes a bit too far.
Well done for being "a GI supporter". Look where it got you. When Klein said "We are not the photographers' friend" ... he certainly meant it.
And you dare criticise SS and Oringer!
" ... but this goes a bit too far". Did you actually say that in the 'silly girly voice' that I can only imagine it being opined? Pathetic. A bit too far???
Su*king up to Getty got you exactly what you deserve. In this case ... absolutely nothing.
tone it down a bit please. you make yourself look silly with replies like this, they add nothing to the conversation at hand.
i personally have no issues supporting GI both in the past and currently, but this give away of free images is bu!!sh!t.
it seems to me that regardless of whom you support it appears to me that each agency is trying to lower the bar by selling images at the lowest price point possible and/or giving away images for free to attract customers.
i think tickstock said it correctly "I know there are some people on here that can't help but use any excuse to attack other contributors, that's what's pathetic, but am I alone in thinking this is just as serious to all contributors? It seems to me to have the potential to affect everyone."
when does this madness stop?
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Interesting that some RM images don't have the link for this, like Photolibrary and Stone collections, but "Photographers Choice" seems to get thrown under the bus with no problem. Wonder how they can justify "‘Own’ the image for the duration of your project and control who else can use it." when they can't control who else can use it.
Great - unwatermarked 500px images free to grab:
http://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/187864566?et=3vzhf8g4REOfhzaCPwTajw&sig=oCeRWWbNxe6lsrI71TRxX4SL3V3_tZfoL3lpJhvu0ww= (http://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/187864566?et=3vzhf8g4REOfhzaCPwTajw&sig=oCeRWWbNxe6lsrI71TRxX4SL3V3_tZfoL3lpJhvu0ww=)
There's no way to police usage of that.
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I'm curious to know your thoughts on this Sean, is this the end of the stock industry or am I just overreacting?
No, you're not overreacting. I'm not Sean but IMO it's one more nail in our coffin. Too bad we can't, as a very large group, come together and do something about all of this. Stop uploading to these sites and eventually the pressure will be on them to do something about it. But, that will never happen so the downward spiral will continue.
I had a publisher contact me last month wanting to use one of my images for a book cover; the book was for resale....they were expecting to pay no more than $10....needless to say, no deal. Makes me sick.
traditional stock gave you real $$$ for a book cover.
microstock made sure you got $10 for a book cover.
the new wave in stock photography was SS which should have been called nanostock.
and now we have GI ensuring the new era of stock is called yoctostock.
in the game of stock i'd say this is check mate.
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the new wave in stock photography was SS which should have been called nanostock.
You'll remember that at the time it was launched the commissions were on a par with what iStock was paying - in fact, 20c was bang in the middle of the 10c/20c/30c which were the three commission levels at iS.
So iStock was nanostock too.
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microstock made sure you got $10 for a book cover.
Which micro? When?
Not iStock, for sure.
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the new wave in stock photography was SS which should have been called nanostock.
You'll remember that at the time it was launched the commissions were on a par with what iStock was paying - in fact, 20c was bang in the middle of the 10c/20c/30c which were the three commission levels at iS.
So iStock was nanostock too.
figuratively not literally.
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the new wave in stock photography was SS which should have been called nanostock.
You'll remember that at the time it was launched the commissions were on a par with what iStock was paying - in fact, 20c was bang in the middle of the 10c/20c/30c which were the three commission levels at iS.
So iStock was nanostock too.
figuratively not literally.
Don't you mean vindictively not literally?
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Naw, encouraging people to freely use content with no cost is just dumb.
Well said!
People keep asking about "the artists". What artists? What if these are Getty Owned images and they own all the rights? There are no more "artists". Getty bought collections and owns all rights. They are just cutting holes in their own pockets.
On the other hand, the effect for Microstock I could say, thanks Getty, I'll give you my address and you can come over and stab me in the heart to make this less time consuming and torturous. You're killing us!
Whats worse than 15-20%? FREE! Well here it is.
Is this just another nail in the coffin for content producers?
-gl
Yes, that sums it up pretty well gl.
Someone show me a link please for actual use and if I can find one of my photos from IS there, for free...
If they are actually giving away my images and yours, as promotional. Let me say, it's been nice knowing you all.
I'm outta here.
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DPReview shows the image size being provided
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_0 (http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_0)
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On istock someome wrote this affects only files on getty. So Vetta and e+ will be included but the indepedents will be spared?
Is that true?
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DPReview shows the image size being provided
[url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_0[/url] ([url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_0[/url])
I hadn't thought too hard on it, but I guess that now CNN, FOX and any other news site can use these images for free. Nice.
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I'm 100% with Getty on this, finally a bold move to tackle bloggers and spongers.
Let's face it, the actual world wide web is a lawless place where no police is moving a finger to protect OUR rights, anyone can easily steal copyrighted material and get a free lunch and apart rare cases no one is going to knock at their door or sueing their as-s.
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I'm 100% with Getty on this, finally a bold move to tackle bloggers and spongers.
Let's face it, the actual world wide web is a lawless place where no police is moving a finger to protect OUR rights, anyone can easily steal copyrighted material and get a free lunch and apart rare cases no one is going to knock at their door or sueing their as-s.
Time to change your avatar to "Will work for nothing", methinks.
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I disagree. I think this is a great idea and will encourage many more customers to the Getty web site. I hope they promote it actively in which case it could be a great success. As they rightly point out in their announcement, infringement of copyright has gone mad and is out of control. There's no way to police it properly. What they are doing is trying to replace that with a properly designed method of using images through their own embedded player. Millions of online images are viewed every day, and I want as many of those views as possible directed to my work at Getty. The embedded player will include attribution and a direct link to the image buying page. I already make very good money from my portfolio at Getty, and I think this initiative will increase my sales further.
I think that if they will give 100% of your images for free it will be a right move.
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I'm a bit baffled by all of the people saying that there is no opt-out...
I opted out quite a while ago by closing my IS account. I admit that this could have a massively chilling effect on sales at other sites, but at least my files won't be given away.
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DPReview shows the image size being provided
[url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_0[/url] ([url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_0[/url])
I hadn't thought too hard on it, but I guess that now CNN, FOX and any other news site can use these images for free. Nice.
They definitely need image gifts, these poor, poor companies. How dare we ask for money to publish our work.
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Microstock, D.E.P.
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They are not including the best Getty collections - Digital vision isn´t in there, neither is culture or images from outside providers like Blendimages. And of course no RM.
But Photodisc, photographers choice, all the Vetta content and S+, all the illustration from istock - just help yourself to illustrate your news site, magazine etc...And of course if you can get someone to write a blog about your business, but the blog is not formally hosted by your business,just flanked by ads...then you can use them too.
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<iframe src="//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/171145671?et=3Gtxcss_ekSOBcX4Vx120g&sig=eJuBujfbvcCHLWacJvbtw__yU2WTJSUFHRE-F_hKkqM=" width="565" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
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The bloggers go wild about it :( Everybody is like great great great ... only minority sees a problem with it :/ this is sick
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Just wrote this in the Flickr forum of Getty. This is becoming not only unsustainable but it's becoming offensive on the personal level.
"I'm on the verge to make my +11.000 photos collection completely free even for commercial uses in the highest resolution available.
Simply because the stock photography business has become unsustainable for photographers due to these greedy and shady anti-photographers schemes and maneuvers, that have the sole objective to deprive the artists from their income, keeping 100% of it for the agencies.
You want to play "Destruction of Stock Photography"? Guess who has the biggest weapons and the least to lose at this moment? We, the creators of the content.
We may not have the capability to unite and fight against these outrageous decisions, but all it takes is for a few of us to start offering our work for free to bring down agencies like Getty.
After all who will pay thousands of dollars for an advertisement picture when they can get a high-quality 21mp image for free, right?
Then, Getty will not be able to license a photo for a world campaign for 1 dollar. Let's see how you will explain that to the shareholders...
You're putting photographers in a position where they have nothing to lose. And when you put someone in that position very bad things usually happen."
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They're not offering full size, StockPhotosArt, only very low resolution versions.
Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue. If so one can only wonder how they will track the millions of clicks that will be needed by each individual to get to a payout.
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Getty published new rate comisions:
Free blog images:
Exclusives 20% of a crap
Not exclusives 15% of a crap (by getty 360)
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I'm still stunned by this latest move by Getty, I'm trying not to let my emotions get the better of me and say publicly how I really feel about the company, however amongst all the speculation of how this will affect the future for stock photographers and why Getty have chosen to make this move I just feel the need to point something out to everyone:
FACT - Up until now legitimate bloggers and editorial picture buyers paid to use our images and we got a fee for them doing so, as of this moment that revenue stream is gone. If you sell your images through Getty you have just lost income.
Images you have on Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Fotolia et al will have been purchased and used by bloggers and online editorial buyers, that source of income may soon diminish.
We can only speculate whether or not an embedded link will create any future revenue sources.
Speaking personally and to other photographers that have ever taken part in any free scheme, this has never lead to additional sales.
Getty have mentioned ads on the embed player, they will receive the revenue from this, the photographer gets nothing. They've created a possible additional revenue for themselves whilst taking one away from photographers.
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Present:
- Getty gives 35 million photos for free for noncommercial purposes (??? can we really define noncommercial this days ???)
Future:
- Shutterstock gives 30 million photos for free for noncommercial purposes.
- Fotolia gives 27 million photos for free for noncommercial purposes.
- Dreamstime gives 22 million photos for free for noncommercial purposes.
- ...
- Photographers all over the world gives all their work for free for COMMERCIAL USE (just for one year, just to lead all agencies to bankruptcy)
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Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue.
Someone said - Getty is promising... seriously - does anyone still believe any Getty promises? When they come via someone or directly from Getty??
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There is only one reason behind all of this. Kill off the microstock competition. Who will be hit hardest by this are middle and bottom tier agencies.
Its funny though they with this move they just killed off their own newly introduced subscription plan over at IS.
I thought we had seen rock bottom, and then Getty comes up with a new low.
This isnt over yet, I dont believe out of those 35 million images, there is not one big shot photographer or a few, that wont fight Getty on this. Surely Getty pissed off a few wrong people now.
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On istock someome wrote this affects only files on getty. So Vetta and e+ will be included but the indepedents will be spared?
Is that true?
For the moment, also S files are spared for the moment.
So, at last something to cheer - their broken connector didn't manage to migrate all our eligible content over.
Every dark cloud has one.
;)
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It does´t matter if photographers leave or sue.
If they can sell this story of the amazing new advertising platform which will create google adwords like revenue streams and pitch that to wall street investors with the right buzzwords, they can probably pick up millions of dollars of investor money long before they even sell one single advertising contract.
Instead of focussing on revenue growth or profit, all attention will now be on the number of embedded viewers. If their profits should fall, they can always say they are investing heavily in "their new platform".
So the story has many ways to generate money for Getty.
Selling more licenses isn´t even necessary.
And if it does´t work, they can just go back to blaming SS for everything.
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My two GI sales for January netted me $3 and 91c respectively, so I'm not losing too much if that's the way things are going ...
Still, I'd rather Getty weren't making money off my images while giving them away.
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There is only one reason behind all of this. Kill off the microstock competition. Who will be hit hardest by this are middle and bottom tier agencies.
to me this argument does not make sense. By fostering a "images should be free mentality" - for everyone (because seriously the line between commercial and non-commercial usage here is soo blurry that lots of usages fall under their terms - they do not just kill microstock competition, they also put pressure on higher tier price segments. Images generally speaking have just lost further value.
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They're not offering full size, StockPhotosArt, only very low resolution versions.
Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue. If so one can only wonder how they will track the millions of clicks that will be needed by each individual to get to a payout.
We know that they are not offering hi-res images, but the problem is that they are COMPLETELY killing a source of revenue we have, since in alamy we have a good amount of sales that are part of the Newspaper Scheme (that had reeeeeally low prices already) and now these are dead because newspapers can get free images for editorial purposes.
Plus, we have many blog size sales too, and we doubt that they are all meant for commercial purposes. Many are of editorial nature. These will be gone too!
And how long do you think it will take that more pressure will be put over the commercial uses and prices drop even more?
As for the clicks, we'll see if we get any of it... imagine 20% at best of $0.05c per click or something like it...
One thing is for sure, if we decide to make our whole collection free, we'll kill the travel segment for Lisbon - one of the most awarded travel destinations in Europe in recent years - and a large part of Portugal...
Since we have a few images on Getty and they sell, and on our websites we get a lot of hits coming from google, meaning there's a need for them, we think we can make a little dent in their profits if we offer thousands of high quality images for free in hi-res...
And I'm just an ant. Imagine if thousands of photographers decide to do the same when the returns becomes unsustainable for the work needed? The agencies will simply crash. Let's see what will they do next...
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only 35 million? that is only 10 years of hardcore uploading by the slaves (contributors), I wonder about the following 10 years... oh in the meantime keep uploading to the one agency we all know, I am sure they won't give images for free, don't think shareholders would be happy ;D
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Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue.
Someone said - Getty is promising... seriously - does anyone still believe any Getty promises? When they come via someone or directly from Getty??
I'm just trying to provide information. Someone who has been in on the Getty-only forums said they have stated that IF they use this for advertising they will pay 20% to exclusives and 15% to independents on the Getty 360 scheme. I've no reason to doubt that, and since it means worse terms than ever for both exclusives and independents it sounds about right.
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From BJP FB: The British Journal of Photography We'll publish industry reactions later today, asking rival stock agencies, photographers representatives and others for their opinion. Stay tuned.
Quite curios about the reactions :)
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There is only one reason behind all of this. Kill off the microstock competition. Who will be hit hardest by this are middle and bottom tier agencies.
to me this argument does not make sense. By fostering a "images should be free mentality" - for everyone (because seriously the line between commercial and non-commercial usage here is soo blurry that lots of usages fall under their terms - they do not just kill microstock competition, they also put pressure on higher tier price segments. Images generally speaking have just lost further value.
They are betting on bloggers, web builders and other small business getting their images for cheap at the micros, cheap credit or subscription sales. They just wiped that business out. Big ads are not created from 400x500px images. This will hit the micros harder then it will Getty. When the micros fall over, there is only one way to get images, from Getty.
Only thing I can think of why this wont work is that I personally dont want to see the big Getty banner at the bottom of the image with the social media buttons if I were to use it on my blog or website.
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Only thing I can think of why this wont work is that I personally dont want to see the big Getty banner at the bottom of the image with the social media buttons if I were to use it on my blog or website.
All it takes is for Getty to make it a bit more discreet and elegant. Not hard.
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Only thing I can think of why this wont work is that I personally dont want to see the big Getty banner at the bottom of the image with the social media buttons if I were to use it on my blog or website.
All it takes is for Getty to make it a bit more discreet and elegant. Not hard.
All you need to do is constrain the image box to cut off the bottom. Already done in article linked to above.
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Only thing I can think of why this wont work is that I personally dont want to see the big Getty banner at the bottom of the image with the social media buttons if I were to use it on my blog or website.
All it takes is for Getty to make it a bit more discreet and elegant. Not hard.
All you need to do is constrain the image box to cut off the bottom. Already done in article linked to above.
That could be eventually considered a breach of the license and the user could receive a bill in the mail from Getty.
If the bottom bar becomes an impediment to many users, I'm sure Getty will make it more discreet.
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Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue.
Someone said - Getty is promising... seriously - does anyone still believe any Getty promises? When they come via someone or directly from Getty??
I'm just trying to provide information. Someone who has been in on the Getty-only forums said they have stated that IF they use this for advertising they will pay 20% to exclusives and 15% to independents on the Getty 360 scheme. I've no reason to doubt that, and since it means worse terms than ever for both exclusives and independents it sounds about right.
I know BaldricksTrousers and my remark was not intented to discredit you in any way. Sorry if it came across that way. Whenever I read Getty promises... I get sarcastic, because they seem to be dragging the ethics of the industry down and lower. And any promise they give is bound to be broken the next minute. Whenever one thought it was rockbottom in ethics, they made sure to prove one wrong. I am not directly affected as I left Istock years ago, but as I said elsewhere, this is devaluing images generally plus I worry about community members who are dependent on income from this source.
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I don't even know where to start with this.
I've been saying for a while now we need a new licensing model. I guess I should have been more specific that I need to earn money from the new model.
So the message here is... if you continue to steal enough eventually you will get it for free(?)
And why should personal use be free? Everything in my house is for personal use and I still need to pay for it.
So what about personal bloggers who post about their cat but have ads on their blog that make them money? Or have referral links to cat food? They make $1,000, $10,000 or $100,000 per year and we get nothing? How many personal bloggers blog without making a penny? And how is that tracked?
And there's no income now but may be from future advertising. Kind of hard to plan my business around "maybe". So far that Getty Connect or whatever it's called has earned me 5-10 cents in the past year.
And so when you give away images for free it generates more traffic? Traffic of paying customers? Or just traffic of people who want free images?
I think the biggest issue I have is that Getty/IS continues to introduce more programs that benefit them and the end users but there's no measurable result for me the content producer. Just hollow marketing BS while I keep seeing control and earning potential of my images slip away.
I'm glad that over a year ago I started selling my work through non-stock channels and began focusing on driving sales to my own website. I only wish I would have started that a year or two earlier.
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There is only one reason behind all of this. Kill off the microstock competition. Who will be hit hardest by this are middle and bottom tier agencies.
to me this argument does not make sense. By fostering a "images should be free mentality" - for everyone (because seriously the line between commercial and non-commercial usage here is soo blurry that lots of usages fall under their terms - they do not just kill microstock competition, they also put pressure on higher tier price segments. Images generally speaking have just lost further value.
They are betting on bloggers, web builders and other small business getting their images for cheap at the micros, cheap credit or subscription sales. They just wiped that business out. Big ads are not created from 400x500px images. This will hit the micros harder then it will Getty. When the micros fall over, there is only one way to get images, from Getty.
Only thing I can think of why this wont work is that I personally dont want to see the big Getty banner at the bottom of the image with the social media buttons if I were to use it on my blog or website.
that may be what they are betting on, the longer term consequence though is that buyers, small and big in the future will think that a certain price of an image will be too high, specifically if you can get web usage i"non-commercial" mages for free - then why should you pay a massive amount for book cover images, print images etc. It is not about the market segment they are wiping out that i am immediately concerned about - it is what it does to the value of an image that i am worried about.
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This author gives a personal take on this issue.
http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what (http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what)
I wonder if his images are embedded under this scheme?
I clicked on the images and they took me to Getty.
I right-clicked on the minibus pic, and it allowed me to save it out, and when copied into Photoshop, there is no copyright notice, contact information or any other metadata.
If they're hoping to catch people out by entrapment, they clearly haven't studied a wide enough range of European national laws.
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From BJP FB: The British Journal of Photography We'll publish industry reactions later today, asking rival stock agencies, photographers representatives and others for their opinion. Stay tuned.
Quite curios about the reactions :)
Maybe Photographers should react on BJP FB's page!
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There is only one reason behind all of this. Kill off the microstock competition. Who will be hit hardest by this are middle and bottom tier agencies.
to me this argument does not make sense. By fostering a "images should be free mentality" - for everyone (because seriously the line between commercial and non-commercial usage here is soo blurry that lots of usages fall under their terms - they do not just kill microstock competition, they also put pressure on higher tier price segments. Images generally speaking have just lost further value.
They are betting on bloggers, web builders and other small business getting their images for cheap at the micros, cheap credit or subscription sales. They just wiped that business out. Big ads are not created from 400x500px images. This will hit the micros harder then it will Getty. When the micros fall over, there is only one way to get images, from Getty.
Only thing I can think of why this wont work is that I personally dont want to see the big Getty banner at the bottom of the image with the social media buttons if I were to use it on my blog or website.
that may be what they are betting on, the longer term consequence though is that buyers, small and big in the future will think that a certain price of an image will be too high, specifically if you can get web usage i"non-commercial" mages for free - then why should you pay a massive amount for book cover images, print images etc. It is not about the market segment they are wiping out that i am immediately concerned about - it is what it does to the value of an image that i am worried about.
Value of images is not a concern for micro stock agencies, they are already offering images for pennies. If Getty lowered the value by this, it is the value or Macro RF or RM (as you pointed out correctly), their own bread and butter. In that case they just wiped out the entire photography business.
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
you know that is impossible right?
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This author gives a personal take on this issue.
[url]http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what[/url] ([url]http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what[/url])
I wonder if his images are embedded under this scheme?
I clicked on the images and they took me to Getty.
I right-clicked on the minibus pic, and it allowed me to save it out, and when copied into Photoshop, there is no copyright notice, contact information or any other metadata.
If they're hoping to catch people out by entrapment, they clearly haven't studied a wide enough range of European national laws.
This is an excellent analysis, best article I have seen so far.
It has a lot of information, please read it carefully and draw your own conclusions on what your future will bring.
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
We are a very tiny percentage of all submitters; possibly the big factories, with their faux-exclusive deals may have managed to get out of these scams whoops, schemes; and in any case they show no solidarity with οἱ πολλοί, only dropping in here if they want to boast or have a personal issue they want us to take an interest in with no reciprocity.
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in only 2 hours Getty tweeted 5 times regarding this announcement
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Of course. Expect to be flooded with the announcement. They need to spread the viewers.
Millions of trojan horses for data mining and advertising revenue.
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Of course. Expect to be flooded with the announcement. They need to spread the viewers.
Millions of trojan horses for data mining and advertising revenue.
just massive, people don't stop tweeting about it
https://twitter.com/search?q=getty%20images%20embed&src=typd&f=realtime
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http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/gettys-move-is-cynical-says-british-press-photographers-association/ (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/gettys-move-is-cynical-says-british-press-photographers-association/)
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This was not inevitable! This is the low road and will put good people out of a job. We need to rally here and now we need to take to twitter and tweet more than Getty dose. You see you don't need the stupid viewer just right click the image and bam it's stripped of data and you are free to use it now any way you like! Oh they are going to police this yeah right!! Where dose this leave SS?
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It's a huge gamble for Getty, no one knows what the impact will for their business. Potentially it could be a big money spinner or it could drive them into bankruptcy.
The photographers who supply the content are an important wildcard, if they see an earnings crash they'll just pull their ports en masse. If it makes money for everyone it will be the future of image licensing.
It does make think if my earnings crash across all site because of this I may as well pull my port and give my images away for free off my own site and squeeze out some advertising revenue for myself.
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I thought the race to the bottom is when we're no longer earning money.
No, the bottom is when we're no longer earning any money but continue to allow agencies, social media sites and end users to use our images to earn money.
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'everything in my house is for personal use and I still need to pay for it' #GettyImages #embed
just tweeted that (quoting Paulie)
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I thought the race to the bottom is when we're no longer earning money.
No, the bottom is when we're no longer earning any money but continue to allow agencies, social media sites and end users to use our images to earn money.
Unbelievable, isn't it? >:(
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all of you talks about that like it isn't possible to deactivate your photos from getty? :o
I see someone making connections with embedding youtube videos, but owners of youtube videos do earn money from google ads.
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how about journalists? non-commercial as well? I wonder what is commercial then
https://twitter.com/Journalism2ls
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More info…
http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-getty-images-embed-feature/ (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-getty-images-embed-feature/)
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Kings of scammers... Soon they will give our ass for free too.
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I thought the race to the bottom is when we're no longer earning money.
No, the bottom is when we're no longer earning any money but continue to allow agencies, social media sites and end users to use our images to earn money.
It could be still worse. The next step would be, you have to pay for your images to be on Getty :D
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I thought the race to the bottom is when we're no longer earning money.
No, the bottom is when we're no longer earning any money but continue to allow agencies, social media sites and end users to use our images to earn money.
It could be still worse. The next step would be, you have to pay for your images to be on Getty :D
Isn't that happening to photographer choice collection? They pay $50 to submit photo and to be given for free to bloggers.
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They're not offering full size, StockPhotosArt, only very low resolution versions.
Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue. If so one can only wonder how they will track the millions of clicks that will be needed by each individual to get to a payout.
The same way they track clicks on banner adds.
I think you missed the point StockPhotosArt was making.
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I'm sure we will see sooner then later something like this.
"Getty images embedded free image player makes thousands of websites vulnerable to security breaks due to error in his player code"
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I'm 100% with Getty on this, finally a bold move to tackle bloggers and spongers.
Let's face it, the actual world wide web is a lawless place where no police is moving a finger to protect OUR rights, anyone can easily steal copyrighted material and get a free lunch and apart rare cases no one is going to knock at their door or sueing their as-s.
No one can argue that copyright infringement isn't a major issue. For sure it is. But don't you think Getty jumped the gun a little here?
Your typical Getty image at a realistic blog size (not the 200px size, who uses 200px images anymore?) is $55-65. That's a pretty steep price for a blog usage. Couldn't they have tested out $10 blog images? $5? Anything more than $0?
From their perspective, they figure they were offering a blog size (200px wide) for $20 and that was cheap enough. The reality is that is you grab any WordPress blog template today you'll need larger images than 200px, and $55-65 is crazy expensive for a personal blog use image at a reasonable blog size.
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
you know that is impossible right?
It is only impossible if you think it is impossible. There was a time when no one thought unions were possible.
I would have no problem at all doing this for more than one month.
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Love this quote from Getty:
“What we’ve seen is a significant amount of infringement online in an area, unfortunately, that we can’t control because this is how the Internet has developed,” senior vice president Craig Peters tells BJP.
And that loss of control has nothing to do with their exorbitant pricing, does it...
::)
They can't control the market in the way they want to control it. The market has dictated that $55 for a blog image is ridiculous, and Getty being the spoiled little child they are decided that if people won't play by their rules they're going to take their ball and go home.
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
you know that is impossible right?
It is only impossible if you think it is impossible. There was a time when no one thought unions were possible.
I would have no problem at all doing this for more than one month.
you are a numbers guy and you know it is impossible, lets not dream about it, never was done before, ok there is stocksy with a very strict elite of members and symbio that lately had more fights than ever
unfortunately we cannot stick together, its just too much contributors, opinions, earnings, etc etc
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It is only impossible if you think it is impossible. There was a time when no one thought unions were possible.
No, it's impossible.
How would you organize something like this? How would you communicate this plan to the majority of contributors, who don't read or post in forums?
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
you know that is impossible right?
It is only impossible if you think it is impossible. There was a time when no one thought unions were possible.
I would have no problem at all doing this for more than one month.
I uploaded 0 to iS between mid Dec and mid Feb, during which time I was uploading like a mad thing to FAA, not having realised that new work there was going right to the bottom of the default search, which was the main reason I wasn't uploading to iS. ::)
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The Getty Viewer on your blog is controlling your advertising and income of which you will never see! You can't scale it to fit your blog so people will just rip the image out. You can easily strip the meta data in photoshop and bam put your own adds up. Ohh that is not how you are supposed to use it and Getty dose not want this to happen but you try to police 35million free images and you see you can't.
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The Getty Viewer on your blog is controlling your advertising and income of which you will never see! You can't scale it to fit your blog so people will just rip the image out. You can easily strip the meta data in photoshop and bam put your own adds up. Ohh that is not how you are supposed to use it and Getty dose not want this to happen but you try to police 35million free images and you see you can't.
How would it work if you had a blog with no advertising?
(I shifted my short-lived blog to be hosted on my own webspace to avoid the advertising, but lost my 'audience', so gave up)
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They can't track the PP TS and other properly and they are going to track clicks. Yeah Right! :(
I honestly think the plan is to kill all the little agencies and all the competition that they can. An attempt to neuter Microstock and cage it.
Someone said Getty is promising to pay commission on advertising revenue. If so one can only wonder how they will track the millions of clicks that will be needed by each individual to get to a payout.
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Love this quote from Getty:
“What we’ve seen is a significant amount of infringement online in an area, unfortunately, that we can’t control because this is how the Internet has developed,” senior vice president Craig Peters tells BJP.
And that loss of control has nothing to do with their exorbitant pricing, does it...
::)
They can't control the market in the way they want to control it. The market has dictated that $55 for a blog image is ridiculous, and Getty being the spoiled little child they are decided that if people won't play by their rules they're going to take their ball and go home.
Well said - from my vantage point. One other thing - since they don't like the "rules", they destroy the playing field for others. Although in some courts that would be considered predatory, they claim its just "market realities". And remember - they are owned by a group who buys a company, cleans it up and sells it in a year or two. My guess is this is simply a move to maximize their selling price quickly (they are now an internet "player" like You Tube) and be gone.
The fact that they killed the value of photos used online forever is irrelevant to the "big picture". Remember, in the business world you'd always like to kill the competition - their brands and their company. Some bright soul decided that giving away other people's photos could do this .... and do it legally.
As I've said elsewhere.....this is very clever.
And so very wrong.
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IF Getty put ads. on the viewer then who would make the money the blogger? Getty-yep, The Artist-doubt it OK maybe 2cents. If you just want the image for your blog then it is really easy to rip it out of the viewer. Since you already have advertising and sponsors you just need an image hence why microstock was born.Trust me out of 35 million I will find something that can work so why ever buy an image for my blog again. I have purchased images for my blog before. Now the problem is commercial us as I said before you can easily rip the image out of the viewer and strip the meta data. Now you decided to use it to sell your product will Getty be able to stop that? Now you purchase the image and can freely use it for your commercial needs but when 35 million free images hit the market you lose all control.
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It is only impossible if you think it is impossible. There was a time when no one thought unions were possible.
No, it's impossible.
How would you organize something like this? How would you communicate this plan to the majority of contributors, who don't read or post in forums?
It will not be difficult to get their attention now and we spread the news the same way Getty is doing it now. That by the way seems to be quite effective, then news is spreading like wildfire.
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The question is what comes next?
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Hmm..
http://m.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886 (http://m.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886)
And quoting from the article:
"Getty will get its pound of flesh one way or another," (sic)
And again:
"My Twitter feed has exploded with very angry photographers going 'I don't want Getty giving away my images for free'," she said. (sic)
"For some of them, it might mean their images are never used commercially and they'll never make a penny. (sic)
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.
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The question is what comes next?
Here's just a guess:
1) Of the 80 or so microstock agencies out there worldwide, probably half of them fail within a year of this move. Getty no doubt has this outcome as one that they anticipate happening
2) The value of an image used online goes from something to nothing - permanently. Free web usage becomes commonplace and Getty is hailed as a great company for leading the charge.
3) Getty's advertising vehicle - the embedded image ad that they give away for free - helps them become an internet success story and the Carlisle Group sells Getty for $10 billion to Facebook or Yahoo or Google
4) Photographer's photos are devalued further - online and in the rapidly declining print market
5) Whoever thought of this scheme at Getty gets promoted and is awarded a nice bonus
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As this could totally destroy small agencies, how about to file a complain against unfair competition in EU ;)
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/contacts_en.html#1 (http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/contacts_en.html#1) - follow step 2A :)
Not sure if anything like that is in US.
I sent mine today :) lets see if they notice
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If you just want the image for your blog then it is really easy to rip it out of the viewer.
A simple right click save as will do it, and once it arrives in Photoshop, all metadata is gone.
Since when did someone who wanted to lift an image from the internet ever 'click' on it? Everyone knows to right-click, and there it is, unless protected, which these aren't.
Getty is officially putting our images out there and positively inviting theft.
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Forget it, the more I read about this, the more I am convinced its over. It really is done and dusted. Getty killed stock photography.
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If you just want the image for your blog then it is really easy to rip it out of the viewer.
A simple right click save as will do it, and once it arrives in Photoshop, all metadata is gone.
Since when did someone who wanted to lift an image from the internet ever 'click' on it? Everyone knows to right-click, and there it is, unless protected, which these aren't.
Getty is officially putting our images out there and positively inviting theft.
Yes - that they are....and at the same time, they are creating an environment where the competition can't compete and will fail because the value of all images online will be reduced to zero.
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Forget it, the more I read about this, the more I am convinced its over. It really is done and dusted. Getty killed stock photography.
Worse, Getty killed stock photography while still managing to monetise it for themselves.
RIP.
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Is Getty extending a model release to the users of the viewer/embedder?
I'd guess so, but I'm kinda cloudy on that detail. I know I have a release from a model, and I can assign it to an agent who can assign it to a buyer who properly licenses a file. But in a case were a photographer is not paid at all for the use, and the image is displayed outside of the agent's website for a purpose other than displaying a catalog of images available for licensing, how is the model release extended? Are bloggers at risk using these images because they haven't procured a release as part of the licensing process?
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Interesting that Getty rarely files a lawsuit about copyrights - only 7 in five years according to this Business Week article online:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos)
So - another example of their narrative ("we go after copyright infringement big time") being more of a boast than a fact.
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So images are to be 'free for non-commercial use' to bloggers, etc. So, if a blogger has links/click throughs/adverts on their blog, designed to earn them some sort of commission/income, would the use of an image be commercial or non-commercial?
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.
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So images are to be 'free for non-commercial use' to bloggers, etc. So, if a blogger has links/click throughs/adverts on their blog, designed to earn them some sort of commission/income, would the use of an image be commercial or non-commercial?
Apparently that is allowed, and considered to be non commercial use.
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The question is what comes next?
Here's just a guess:
1) Of the 80 or so microstock agencies out there worldwide, probably half of them fail within a year of this move. Getty no doubt has this outcome as one that they anticipate happening
2) The value of an image used online goes from something to nothing - permanently. Free web usage becomes commonplace and Getty is hailed as a great company for leading the charge.
3) Getty's advertising vehicle - the embedded image ad that they give away for free - helps them become an internet success story and the Carlisle Group sells Getty for $10 billion to Facebook or Yahoo or Google
4) Photographer's photos are devalued further - online and in the rapidly declining print market
5) Whoever thought of this scheme at Getty gets promoted and is awarded a nice bonus
guess we will quit after that, looking forward to see what will really happen but it ain't going to be pretty for sure
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Interesting that Getty rarely files a lawsuit about copyrights - only 7 in five years according to this Business Week article online:
[url]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos[/url] ([url]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos[/url])
So - another example of their narrative ("we go after copyright infringement big time") being more of a boast than a fact.
That's because infringers often accept fines to avoid lawsuits.
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Getty to Crook: Hey you stole our image. Crook: No it was free! Getty: You ripped it off our viewer. Crook: What viewer?? I just saw it online and I know Getty just gave away 35million images so this is "fair use" for my business Getty: You didn't pay the artist Crook:Neither did you so I guess we are even.
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So images are to be 'free for non-commercial use' to bloggers, etc. So, if a blogger has links/click throughs/adverts on their blog, designed to earn them some sort of commission/income, would the use of an image be commercial or non-commercial?
Apparently that is allowed, and considered to be non commercial use.
Really? So the blogger can get paid, and it's non-commercial but the commercial photographer gets zip?
Hmmm, great business strategy……...
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http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/embed-support-getty-images/ (http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/embed-support-getty-images/)
http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/getty-allows-use-of-images-for-free/ (http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/getty-allows-use-of-images-for-free/)
One of the problems here, is that "the people" aren't going to care enough to discern between "I have to use the Getty embedded player" and "every image on the interwebz is now free for any use!!!".
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So images are to be 'free for non-commercial use' to bloggers, etc. So, if a blogger has links/click throughs/adverts on their blog, designed to earn them some sort of commission/income, would the use of an image be commercial or non-commercial?
Apparently that is allowed, and considered to be non commercial use.
Really? So the blogger can get paid, and it's non-commercial but the commercial photographer gets zip?
Hmmm, great business strategy……...
"4 – But what if a personal blog uses Google Ads to draw revenues from its traffic?
“We would not consider this commercial use,” says Craig Peters, senior vice president at Getty Images. “The fact today that a website is generating revenue would not limit the use of the embed.” This opens up Getty’s imagery to hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites."
http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-getty-images-embed-feature (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-getty-images-embed-feature)
The sports team pic is an example of the technology, so you can see for yourself how easy it is to reapporpriate an image, in total contrast to what it says above the image: "The embed player has a width of 594 pixels and a height of 465 pixels. It cannot be resized. It includes the image, without a watermark, with the name of the photographer and the collection, plus Getty Images’ logo. This information cannot be removed. " Did no-one actually try right-clicking?
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In the end it is very simple: if Getty believed the freebie embed code would increase licensing sales, they would have given us an opt in.
They are only forcing artists, because they know they will not benefit.
Instagram tried to monetise the image of private users and lost 50% of people in one month. They had to take back their changes.
Facebook tried to monetise private images and got a huge backlash. Now they have a very professional agreement with Shutterstock.
There are interviews out there where Jonathan Klein said that he would love to see Getty connected with Google so their images are included in their adwords system. But I guess after the big drama and public shitstorm over the Getty Google deal...that never happened, did it?
So now they are trying to do it directly - offer the embed code with excellent content from getty, much better than what any other platform can offer because this is high quality, expensively produced, commercial content.
I guess they are hoping that if they get enough freebie users, they can still connect their system to Google. Because this will mean, they don´t even have to look for advertising customers themselves.
They could then just set up an automated system - Images for free from naive and trusting artists who believe that one day in the distant future they will make amazing money from image views, bloggers and naive newspaper editors who don´t mind spreading the trojan horse files for free and then a connection with Google adwords and their ad revenue stream and Getty does´t even have to go looking for advertising customers.
which is exactly why they said this as Sue posted: "4 – But what if a personal blog uses Google Ads to draw revenues from its traffic?
“We would not consider this commercial use,” says Craig Peters, senior vice president at Getty Images. “The fact today that a website is generating revenue would not limit the use of the embed.” This opens up Getty’s imagery to hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites."
"
It makes sense if you want to get connected to the google adwords revenue stream. Of course they don´t mind if there are ads on the page.
Voila a beautiful,perfect automated system, where Getty can just sit back in a small office counting money.
Meanwhile in the real world....
Shutterstock, stocksy and all others that work directly with a commercial client base and want to build longterm relationships will be quietly picking up customers who don´t want files that are floating free on the internet.
On Getty itself the embed icon will probably be the kiss of death for many projects. Even RM content is included or Photographer´s Choice files. The people who have paid 50 dollars for every file they place on Getty - how do they feel?
It is not the fault of the artists if Getty has decided to change their business model.
You just have to understand it and see how you deal with it.
Might be a wonderful new world for artist with a large portfolio of grumpy cats.
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Question to Yuri: Do you still think you made right decision by moving subscription sites to Getty? Everyone can make a mistake. I would really appreciate your opinion of this Getty's decision. Do you still think you port worth more on Getty than on sub. sites?
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I assume it's just a matter of time until SS does the equivalent - dumps all their images into an ad-supported "viewer" - and I'll have to close my account there, and be done with microstock for good.
"FREE" has been coming down the road for a long time. Here it is.
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What peeves me is that Getty arbitrarily decided to give their contributor's photos away for free online. I didn't have any say in the matter. They claim its for promotion - but it really is a an out and out giveaway.
An analogy:
I'm an author as well. If Amazon decided to give my book away for free, as a "promotion", then I could yank my book or at least threaten to sue them. I can't do either with Getty.
They "own" my images for the next year. By the time the contract is up, I'm sure my Getty photos will be all over the internet for perpetuity - even if I finally get them off the Getty site.
Said another way - Getty has come into my house (because I allowed them to do so) and pulled the photos off my walls and put them on the street for people to use. They can't resell them - but they can use them since it is a Getty promotion. And Getty tells me that somehow this is good for me.
I give them five stars for audacious behavior. Truly audacious.
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I keep reading stuff about this being a game-changer, killing stock, etc. Sure it's bad, but can Getty really kill stock? Or microstock? I doubt it.
Microstock is bigger than Getty. Much as I'm sure some will disagree with that idea, really, I think it is. Especially from my perspective, being a vector artist. The Getty mothership doesn't deal directly in vectors. They leave that to iStock. So they have no real means to kill that part of their business, nor would they want to since vectors make up a pretty huge chunk of their income.
And then there's pricing. Getty has been grossly disconnected from the reality of pricing in recent years, as is evidenced in their current pricing of $55-65 for a blog image. I think a lot of bloggers have long since found other ways to purchase (and not steal) images for their blogs at more affordable prices. Getty throwing in the towel and giving up on blog use licensing doesn't mean there is no market for it. They just don't think that anything less than $20 is reasonable for a blog use fee.
Just because Getty can't figure out how to sell blog content to bloggers doesn't mean that microstock can't (or isn't already) doing it.
What this Getty move does do is hurt the public perception of the value of images. But I think it's way too soon to be calling this the end. People still buy images at iStock despite the readily available supply of content available elsewhere for less. So opening up a flood of free content I don't think is going to send people rushing to Getty.
Getty has been a floundering, poorly-run company for a while now. They lack the ability to change the game anymore on their own. The game outgrew them years ago.
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Question to Yuri: Do you still think you made right decision by moving subscription sites to Getty? Everyone can make a mistake. I would really appreciate your opinion of this Getty's decision. Do you still think you port worth more on Getty than on sub. sites?
At times like this, I think about Yuri's "professionals work with professionals" comment and just have to smile.
:)
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They "own" my images for the next year. By the time the contract is up, I'm sure my Getty photos will be all over the internet for perpetuity - even if I finally get them off the Getty site.
No, I'm pretty sure you can close your account with 30 days notice. It's them that has to wait a year.
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Question to Yuri: Do you still think you made right decision by moving subscription sites to Getty? Everyone can make a mistake. I would really appreciate your opinion of this Getty's decision. Do you still think you port worth more on Getty than on sub. sites?
At times like this, I think about Yuri's "professionals work with professionals" comment and just have to smile.
:)
Indeed, but I wonder if he manages to side-step all the sh*t the rest of us have to 'take - or get out'.
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They "own" my images for the next year. By the time the contract is up, I'm sure my Getty photos will be all over the internet for perpetuity - even if I finally get them off the Getty site.
No, I'm pretty sure you can close your account with 30 days notice. It's them that has to wait a year.
Worth investigating. Thanks.
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I think (hope) there'll be a backlash, and Getty will have to backpedal.
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How do they control (in)sensitive use? Isn't that a black hole they could be sucked into legally? E.g. images being embedded on porn blogs - or worse.
To clarify, at present they can wash their hands of all this "stolen" imagery, but now they are monetizing it through advertising revenue do they not have an even higher obligation to police the end users?
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Question to Yuri: Do you still think you made right decision by moving subscription sites to Getty? Everyone can make a mistake. I would really appreciate your opinion of this Getty's decision. Do you still think you port worth more on Getty than on sub. sites?
At times like this, I think about Yuri's "professionals work with professionals" comment and just have to smile.
:)
Indeed, but I wonder if he manages to side-step all the sh*t the rest of us have to 'take - or get out'.
It's fun to bash Yuri but the way I see it, if it hurts him it's going to hurt all of us. Maybe you should be careful what you wish for. Oh and it seems childish and petty.
It's going to hurt us, inevitably, but does his 'special' contract teflon-coat him from this?
No one wished anything, just curious. Though of course, he won't tell.
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How do they control (in)sensitive use? Isn't that a black hole they could be sucked into legally? E.g. images being embedded on porn blogs - or worse.
They say that as embedded files are still on their server, it's easy to unembed them from commercial or abusive sites.
Still, just right-click and the image is yours.
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Oh boy!! They Have a Plan, they must have a plan.....to pay off their +$1 billion debt!!! That viewer seems stinky and full of ..... unseen traps!! Now i can easily see them advertising their new "innovative" subscription plan on istock to zillions of bloggers who embed their viewer.
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Question to Yuri: Do you still think you made right decision by moving subscription sites to Getty? Everyone can make a mistake. I would really appreciate your opinion of this Getty's decision. Do you still think you port worth more on Getty than on sub. sites?
At times like this, I think about Yuri's "professionals work with professionals" comment and just have to smile.
:)
Indeed, but I wonder if he manages to side-step all the sh*t the rest of us have to 'take - or get out'.
It's fun to bash Yuri but the way I see it, if it hurts him it's going to hurt all of us. Maybe you should be careful what you wish for. Oh and it seems childish and petty.
while the community was in turmoil over the google deal trying to take a stand by deactivating files or even leaving istock - in the middle of all that - Yuri decided that istock and Getty were his best possible outlets. One may wonder if a year later, when he (possibly) gets the subscriptions he tried to escape at SS and an even worse promotional use deal than what the Google deal ever was - if he still thinks that was his best decision. I fail to see how it could be, but I'd love to be enlightened... .
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I keep reading stuff about this being a game-changer, killing stock, etc. Sure it's bad, but can Getty really kill stock? Or microstock? I doubt it.
Microstock is bigger than Getty. Much as I'm sure some will disagree with that idea, really, I think it is. Especially from my perspective, being a vector artist. The Getty mothership doesn't deal directly in vectors. They leave that to iStock. So they have no real means to kill that part of their business, nor would they want to since vectors make up a pretty huge chunk of their income.
And then there's pricing. Getty has been grossly disconnected from the reality of pricing in recent years, as is evidenced in their current pricing of $55-65 for a blog image. I think a lot of bloggers have long since found other ways to purchase (and not steal) images for their blogs at more affordable prices. Getty throwing in the towel and giving up on blog use licensing doesn't mean there is no market for it. They just don't think that anything less than $20 is reasonable for a blog use fee.
Just because Getty can't figure out how to sell blog content to bloggers doesn't mean that microstock can't (or isn't already) doing it.
What this Getty move does do is hurt the public perception of the value of images. But I think it's way too soon to be calling this the end. People still buy images at iStock despite the readily available supply of content available elsewhere for less. So opening up a flood of free content I don't think is going to send people rushing to Getty.
Getty has been a floundering, poorly-run company for a while now. They lack the ability to change the game anymore on their own. The game outgrew them years ago.
I think most of my 10,000 sales have been for non commercial use, blog use, websites, maybe illustration in an ebook. Those sales are potentially gone now. Anyone paying a fiver to CanStockPhoto or 39 euro for 5 images at SS, for a blog or website image, no longer have to pay that money. Its free. How is that no bad for micro stock or micro agencies? Maybe vector artists get a away scott free, but stock photography is dealt a major blow. Time will tell.
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I think (hope) there'll be a backlash, and Getty will have to backpedal.
Yeah, I am hoping they pissed off the wrong photographer this time.
I cant believe AFP is in on the deal. Alas, they are crooks as well, suing a photographer for claiming copyright on a photo they stole from him in the first place.
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Not sure they can even pull this off technically. Even at low res the computer power needed to access the photo each time it is seen. Ever notice when a news program does a story about a company you can not access web site for a day. What if they have a technical glitch and it would effect every blogger.
Not a good deal for the blogger in a way. So they save $5 or less for an image. They will be bait and switched looking for them.. time consuming. If the image is deleted their content will not show up. If the service is down their content will not show up. Once they start with ads you loose control over your content on the page and will make it look junkie. No sense in giving your site control to someone else to save a few dollars.
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Unless everyone pulls their port from Getty, they will not back pedal.
This will change stock. The days of shooting things isolated on white and making money will be over. Probably already have enough strawberries on white to last a lifetime. Agencies will evolve into those that support bloggers and the like with (free) images for the advertising $$ and those that support commercial uses with images for licensing.
At least I hope it does. If these two uses stay mixed, it is the end for the working photographer.
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I had considered myself retired from posting, but this has me intrigued enough to share my take.
First, I have my doubts that this will end microstock as we know it.
I’m a buyer as well as a contributor. I would never want that viewer on my website, even my personal blog.
It’s even conceivable that a potential buyer would be attracted by the notion of free images from iStock, search through the site to find the perfect image, go through the motions of putting the viewer on his/her site, deciding it looks like crap, and then saying, “but I still really like that image… and to buy it would only be a few dollars.”
OK, that’s a very “glass half-full” way of looking at this, but it’s a possibility, and that’s the kind of person I am.
Second, assume the worst for a moment. iStock kills microstock. None of us make any money going about this the way we do it today. We would all stop doing it, right? There would be no more fresh content. Sure, with 30+ million images out there, the world would exist just fine for a few years if not a single new image was created. But it couldn’t go on for long.
New imagery would be needed, and if no one produced it because microstock was dead, a new model would HAVE TO rise from the ashes to make image creation profitable. It’s supply and demand.
I happen to think this is not the revolution. This effort will not be embraced widely enough to kill our livelihoods. But a revolution will happen one day, maybe soon, and a new model will emerge that makes creators want to create, or the world will have no new images. And since the world is becoming more “visual” every day, relying more on effective images and less on text every day, I’m confident the work I produce will be more in demand tomorrow than it is today.
That’s my prediction, anyway. Now back into retirement.
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Not sure they can even pull this off technically. Even at low res the computer power needed to access the photo each time it is seen. Ever notice when a news program does a story about a company you can not access web site for a day. What if they have a technical glitch and it would effect every blogger.
Not a good deal for the blogger in a way. So they save $5 or less for an image. They will be bait and switched looking for them.. time consuming. If the image is deleted their content will not show up. If the service is down their content will not show up. Once they start with ads you loose control over your content on the page and will make it look junkie. No sense in giving your site control to someone else to save a few dollars.
Interesting point. What if your blog is about the virtues of healthy eating and exercise and the advertising running through your embedded image of a green salad is from one of the big n' fat fast food chains?
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I certainly hope that this won't have the impact on MS that Getty hopes it will. I don't think it will but I could be wrong. But my plan B is along the same lines as StockPhotosArt. If my income is damaged and becomes unsustainable because of this, I'll pull every image I have, put it on my Sym site and give it away hi-res for free and make my pennies from ad revenue and donations. And I will tweet and facebook every day to Getty about it. :)
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Not sure they can even pull this off technically. Even at low res the computer power needed to access the photo each time it is seen. Ever notice when a news program does a story about a company you can not access web site for a day. What if they have a technical glitch and it would effect every blogger.
Not a good deal for the blogger in a way. So they save $5 or less for an image. They will be bait and switched looking for them.. time consuming. If the image is deleted their content will not show up. If the service is down their content will not show up. Once they start with ads you loose control over your content on the page and will make it look junkie. No sense in giving your site control to someone else to save a few dollars.
I agree. Given that Getty doesn't quite "shine" in technical aspects they probably did a pretty sad job implementing this. For a blogger who doesn't want to pay it's much easier to get an image somewhere else - through a screen dump or just some other site where the image is not protected. A blogger who wants to pay (= be legit with their image use)... will get it through Getty for free now! (how does this even make sense??). All Getty did by this move is gave the customers who'd be paying otherwise a free product, and led millions of internet uses to believe that stock images are now free to use... people will continue "stealing" images but now with a belief that they are not doing anything wrong.
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Second, assume the worst for a moment. iStock kills microstock. None of us make any money going about this the way we do it today. We would all stop doing it, right? There would be no more fresh content. Sure, with 30+ million images out there, the world would exist just fine for a few years if not a single new image was created. But it couldn’t go on for long.
New imagery would be needed, and if no one produced it because microstock was dead, a new model would HAVE TO rise from the ashes to make image creation profitable. It’s supply and demand.
I happen to think this is not the revolution. This effort will not be embraced widely enough to kill our livelihoods. But a revolution will happen one day, maybe soon, and a new model will emerge that makes creators want to create, or the world will have no new images. And since the world is becoming more “visual” every day, relying more on effective images and less on text every day, I’m confident the work I produce will be more in demand tomorrow than it is today.
That’s my prediction, anyway. Now back into retirement.
My thoughts exactly:) However, when something like Getty makes one stupid decision after another instead of concentrating on what a stock agency is supposed to do - just selling images, plain and simple! - it is extremely annoying....
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... go through the motions of putting the viewer on his/her site, deciding it looks like crap, and then saying, “but I still really like that image… and to buy it would only be a few dollars.” ...
Considering how people weren't even bothered by large watermarks all across the image they used, this is unlikely
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Question to Yuri: Do you still think you made right decision by moving subscription sites to Getty? Everyone can make a mistake. I would really appreciate your opinion of this Getty's decision. Do you still think you port worth more on Getty than on sub. sites?
At times like this, I think about Yuri's "professionals work with professionals" comment and just have to smile.
:)
Indeed, but I wonder if he manages to side-step all the sh*t the rest of us have to 'take - or get out'.
It's fun to bash Yuri but the way I see it, if it hurts him it's going to hurt all of us. Maybe you should be careful what you wish for. Oh and it seems childish and petty.
It's going to hurt us, inevitably, but does his 'special' contract teflon-coat him from this?
No one wished anything, just curious. Though of course, he won't tell.
I can't see the download for free option on his image here but I am not very au-fait with Getty so I may be looking at the wrong collection or something.
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/young-couple-eating-pizza-on-beach-royalty-free-image/84303011 (http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/young-couple-eating-pizza-on-beach-royalty-free-image/84303011)
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maybe there is the need to register first
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http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-kiils-us/ (http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-kiils-us/)
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Some blogs and articles on this (some as re-tweeted by Getty who are clearly trying to get this news out as widely as possible). (Edited to add that I'm adding links here to have a somewhat complete record of the articles on this topic)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140305/16180626448/getty-images-decides-its-mostly-better-to-compete-than-sue-frees-up-millions-images.shtml (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140305/16180626448/getty-images-decides-its-mostly-better-to-compete-than-sue-frees-up-millions-images.shtml)
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/getty-images-launches-new-tool-bloggers-embed-stock-photos-free/ (http://www.geekwire.com/2014/getty-images-launches-new-tool-bloggers-embed-stock-photos-free/)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/03/05/getty_images_drops_its_paywall_opens_up_photos_for_free.html (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/03/05/getty_images_drops_its_paywall_opens_up_photos_for_free.html)
http://petapixel.com/2014/03/06/gettys-new-embed-tool-makes-millions-photos-free-use-non-commercially/ (http://petapixel.com/2014/03/06/gettys-new-embed-tool-makes-millions-photos-free-use-non-commercially/)
http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-free-image-program-new-revenue-model-or-a-surrender-to-copyright-infringement.html (http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-free-image-program-new-revenue-model-or-a-surrender-to-copyright-infringement.html)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/photographers-hate-getty-imagess-plan-to-give-away-their-work (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/photographers-hate-getty-imagess-plan-to-give-away-their-work)
http://www.wcvb.com/money/technology/Getty-opens-photo-archive-to-bloggers/24838730 (http://www.wcvb.com/money/technology/Getty-opens-photo-archive-to-bloggers/24838730)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57619973-93/getty-images-makes-much-of-its-photo-portfolio-free-to-use/ (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57619973-93/getty-images-makes-much-of-its-photo-portfolio-free-to-use/)
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/5/5475202/getty-images-made-its-pictures-free-to-use (http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/5/5475202/getty-images-made-its-pictures-free-to-use)
http://fstoppers.com/incredible-news-kind-of-getty-images-makes-their-images-free-to-use (http://fstoppers.com/incredible-news-kind-of-getty-images-makes-their-images-free-to-use)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10680578/Getty-releases-millions-of-free-images-in-fight-against-copyright.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10680578/Getty-releases-millions-of-free-images-in-fight-against-copyright.html)
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/)
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886 (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886)
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/getty-free-stock-photos-price (http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/getty-free-stock-photos-price)
http://photocritic.org/getty-free-embed-feature/ (http://photocritic.org/getty-free-embed-feature/)
http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/gettys-move-is-cynical-says-british-press-photographers-association/ (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/gettys-move-is-cynical-says-british-press-photographers-association/)
http://mashable.com/2014/03/05/getty-free-photo-embeds/ (http://mashable.com/2014/03/05/getty-free-photo-embeds/)
http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/ (http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/)
http://petapixel.com/2014/03/06/thoughts-gettys-embed-tool/ (http://petapixel.com/2014/03/06/thoughts-gettys-embed-tool/)
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/03/getty-images-progressive-destructive/ (http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/03/getty-images-progressive-destructive/)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/business/media/getty-to-let-bloggers-and-others-use-photos-free.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/business/media/getty-to-let-bloggers-and-others-use-photos-free.html)
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html)
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/05/getty-images/ (http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/05/getty-images/)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/)
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/12520021/shutterstock-shares-up-as-getty-images-focuses-on-digital.html (http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/12520021/shutterstock-shares-up-as-getty-images-focuses-on-digital.html)
http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/industry-concerned-about-getty-images-free-for-all-approach/ (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/industry-concerned-about-getty-images-free-for-all-approach/)
https://econsultancy.com/blog/64482-five-key-implications-of-getty-images-embeds-that-publishers-need-to-know (https://econsultancy.com/blog/64482-five-key-implications-of-getty-images-embeds-that-publishers-need-to-know)
http://www.creativebloq.com/photography/getty-photos-free-31410913 (http://www.creativebloq.com/photography/getty-photos-free-31410913)
http://onthewebbsocialmedia.com/gettys-new-free-embedded-images-may-free-afterall/ (http://onthewebbsocialmedia.com/gettys-new-free-embedded-images-may-free-afterall/)
http://gettyimagesmustchange.com/site/getty-offers-millions-of-images-for-free/ (http://gettyimagesmustchange.com/site/getty-offers-millions-of-images-for-free/)
http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html (http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html)
http://alistapart.com/blog/post/using-embeddable-getty-images (http://alistapart.com/blog/post/using-embeddable-getty-images)
http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/ (http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/)
http://www.v3im.com/2014/03/getty-images-sets-35-million-images-free-but-theres-a-catch/ (http://www.v3im.com/2014/03/getty-images-sets-35-million-images-free-but-theres-a-catch/)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/getty-images-allows-free-embedding-cost-privacy (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/getty-images-allows-free-embedding-cost-privacy)
http://newcameranews.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-giving-away-old-crap-that-nobody-wants/ (http://newcameranews.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-giving-away-old-crap-that-nobody-wants/)
http://blog.hootsuite.com/getty-free-35-million-images-can-use/ (http://blog.hootsuite.com/getty-free-35-million-images-can-use/)
http://www.selling-stock.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JMP6130 (http://www.selling-stock.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JMP6130)
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His E+ images have the option.
this one can be:http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/rugby-team-walking-together-royalty-free-image/89512474 (http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/rugby-team-walking-together-royalty-free-image/89512474)
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maybe there is the need to register first
"1) Will users need to have a log-in account to use the embed feature?
No, it is important that users are able to easily use embed. In fact, many embedded uses will originate off other websites as people share and re-blog embedded images, which accounts for many of the uses we see today. But the Getty Images terms of use will govern shared and re-blogged embedded images. "
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His E+ images have the option.
this one can be:http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/rugby-team-walking-together-royalty-free-image/89512474 ([url]http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/rugby-team-walking-together-royalty-free-image/89512474[/url])
I still can't see it, so maybe you are right - I don't have an account there so that could be it.
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His E+ images have the option.
this one can be:http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/rugby-team-walking-together-royalty-free-image/89512474 ([url]http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/rugby-team-walking-together-royalty-free-image/89512474[/url])
I still can't see it, so maybe you are right - I don't have an account there so that could be it.
I'm not logged in there, and I can see the embed link </> under the photo beside the twitter and tumblr share buttons.
I'd love to know what his take is on this.
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[url]http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-crap-us/[/url] ([url]http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-crap-us/[/url])
"Oops! That page can’t be found.
It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try one of the links below or a search?"
'getty-crap-us' is what you chose to name it? Maybe try something a bit more professional sounding?
rephrased it
http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-kiils-us/ (http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-kiils-us/)
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Is anyone else wondering if this embeding code was not compatible with Istock Monday?
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Question:
Embed. Does this mean the photo is stored on Getty's servers? Um.... not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but if this thing explodes couldn't they have several million blogs contacting their servers at the same second of time - can they actually handle that?
Why can I go to one of the embedded photos already in someone's blog and right click on it? It doesn't even have any exif to tell me where it came from.
From an embedded photo, you can "copy this code </>" and embed it on your own blog without even visiting Getty? Now that's convenient! No end user contact info. No spam from Getty!
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maybe there is the need to register first
"1) Will users need to have a log-in account to use the embed feature?
No, it is important that users are able to easily use embed. In fact, many embedded uses will originate off other websites as people share and re-blog embedded images, which accounts for many of the uses we see today. But the Getty Images terms of use will govern shared and re-blogged embedded images. "
oh, makes it so easy, they are so kind, I wonder what other agencies will do next, can't wait to wake up tomorrow, overnight they drop the bombs without asking or letting know anyone (ok perhaps Yuri ahah NOT) and as usual with nice surprises, worst is that this can happen any day, they should pick a day per year
again nothing we can do beside quitting, have no work on GI but this is going to affect us all
now there are 35 Million free pictures and subscriptions at iStock, they really know what they are doing
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Question:
Embed. Does this mean the photo is stored on Getty's servers? Um.... not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but if this thing explodes couldn't they have several million blogs contacting their servers at the same second of time - can they actually handle that?
Why can I go to one of the embedded photos already in someone's blog and right click on it? It doesn't even have any exif to tell me where it came from.
From an embedded photo, you can "copy this code </>" and embed it on your own blog without even visiting Getty? Now that's convenient! No end user contact info. No spam from Getty!
Yes, to the first. The servers sit there serving up these images everytime a new visitor hits a page. Actually, at one point, I had thought of a service where you'd host images and let blogs embed them, and based on the number of hits the image got, you'd charge accordingly. But I thought the server traffic would cost more than you'd make, and I didn't think people would want to rely on an image hosted on someone else's servers.
You can, to the second.
You got it, for the third. They want them to spread virally.
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itunes now offering 35million songs for free at the end of the song is an audio tag that says the artist name and where you can find it. Feel free to share the song as the artist dose not care about money! The record labels are thrilled and you can share share share all for free. Thanks Getty
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What the he-ll guys, up until now we got ZERO $$$ from bloggers and spongers, at least now Getty is doing something to monetize and of course their plan is to raise the bar in the future depending on many factors.
Just think about MILLIONS of blogs showing the name GETTY IMAGES in all their articles, it's HUGE and it's gotta be another nail in the coffin for their competitors who are struggling to stay afloat.
Nothing and nobody is going to make these rascals pay for stolen images, what Getty is doing is just getting a slice of the pie which is better than nothing.
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I am sorry but the TWIP blog has an account with ShutterStock and pays for images, what the heck you mean they PAY!! You are assuming all bloggers just steal images, well they don't! I didn't Please feel free to give all your images away it's your business but I want people to buy mine!
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If I have an image that goes viral under this free scheme, what are the chances anybody will spend money to use it as a paid license? If it is already all over the Internet, then the paid uses will not be unique enough to pay for the use. Will a top company want to pay for an image that has already lost it's first view impact? Will a top company want to pay for an image that may have already been used in undesirable (ie. porn or competitors) references? Perhaps Getty has just killed paying markets they didn't expect.
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What the he-ll guys, up until now we got ZERO $$$ from bloggers and spongers, at least now Getty is doing something to monetize and of course their plan is to raise the bar in the future depending on many factors.
Just think about MILLIONS of blogs showing the name GETTY IMAGES in all their articles, it's HUGE and it's gotta be another nail in the coffin for their competitors who are struggling to stay afloat.
Nothing and nobody is going to make these rascals pay for stolen images, what Getty is doing is just getting a slice of the pie which is better than nothing.
Getty might get a slice of the pie, the content providers will be lucky to get a sugar grain.
No opt in, which would keep you happy; or opt out, which would be a slight relief to most on this thread.
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now there are 35 Million free pictures and subscriptions at iStock, they really know what they are doing
Indeed they do, because they will soon make more money with photo sharing than selling stock, just wait and see.
As for us, i'm a bit skeptic, but it's still better than nothing, if we look at the scenario of mobile apps it's a lot worse, they make a few cents per download if lucky but because of huge numbers they can end up making a LOT of money and this could have never been possible with traditional business models.
Just think about the recent Selfies at the hollywood oscars... that picture was shared millions of times and the author earned nothing .. with Getty they could have made tens of thousands $$.
Unlike you guys i come to accept we're in 2014 ... some stock agencies are adding up to 30K pics per day ... Flickr has 4-5 billion images and most of them with CC licence ... we can talk about selling images for 100$ a pop as long as we want but the world has changed and it's not going back anytime soon.
You wanted microstock ... and now you get FREE photos, i told you years ago already and ALL my prophecies came true.
And yet, nothing of this is going to kill photography, monday i'm booked for a well paid outdoor shooting, that's what we're supposed to do, real things, going on location, stock is a side business and a moribund industry.
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If I have an image that goes viral under this free scheme, what are the chances anybody will spend money to use it as a paid license? If it is already all over the Internet, then the paid uses will not be unique enough to pay for the use. Will a top company want to pay for an image that has already lost it's first view impact? Will a top company want to pay for an image that may have already been used in undesirable (ie. porn or competitors) references? Perhaps Getty has just killed paying markets they didn't expect.
Ahhh....the law of unexpected consequences. Always raising its ugly head.
I concur with your assessment. Making some images "free" ends up devaluing all imagery in the eyes of the buying public. Especially if the word free is splashed all over the web and seen as a "good" thing. And that sure seems to be consensus of writers and bloggers worldwide.
The photographers whose images are being devalued? Not so happy. But in war .... that's called collateral damage. But there is also a thing called friendly fire - where you kill your own troops while trying to kill the enemy.
That seems like an appropriate analogy as well here.
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What the he-ll guys, up until now we got ZERO $$$ from bloggers and spongers, at least now Getty is doing something to monetize and of course their plan is to raise the bar in the future depending on many factors.
Just think about MILLIONS of blogs showing the name GETTY IMAGES in all their articles, it's HUGE and it's gotta be another nail in the coffin for their competitors who are struggling to stay afloat.
Nothing and nobody is going to make these rascals pay for stolen images, what Getty is doing is just getting a slice of the pie which is better than nothing.
Actually, when I search my images online I find they've been bought by bloggers and news outlets. They paid to license the images.
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Getty might get a slice of the pie, the content providers will be lucky to get a sugar grain.
No opt in, which would keep you happy; or opt out, which would be a slight relief to most on this thread.
I understand you guys are all angry now but realistically we should wait 6-12 months to judge the outcome of all this.
May we like or not, what Getty is doing is nothing but giving the market what the market was asking for since a long time.
What the market will get back is another story, that's depending on the payout photographers will earn once this thing will be up and running.
I can't see why this is treatening out traditional business, book publishers and magazines and newspapers will still buy stock images like before, it's only bloggers and low lifers who will embed for free and they never paid a dime so far so where's our actuall loss ? there's no loss at all, i'll rather take 100$ bucks per year in royalties from bloggers than 0.00$ like i do now.
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What the he-ll guys, up until now we got ZERO $$$ from bloggers...
I have always bought microstock for my blog and I'm not the only one.
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now there are 35 Million free pictures and subscriptions at iStock, they really know what they are doing
Just think about the recent Selfies at the hollywood oscars... that picture was shared millions of times and the author earned nothing .. with Getty they could have made tens of thousands $$.
It was paid product placement and promotion for/by Samsung.
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Also, this is a hacker's dream. Because of the numbering, five lines of php code could hit their servers for every image. And since code on every blogging web site, will be hard to shut them down by changing how it is accessed.
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I understand you guys are all angry now but realistically we should wait 6-12 months to judge the outcome of all this.
Yeah, that way, we'll be distracted by the next fiasco.
May we like or not, what Getty is doing is nothing but giving the market what the market was asking for since a long time.
The "market" would probably like my car for free, but I'm not giving it to them.
What the market will get back is another story, that's depending on the payout photographers will earn once this thing will be up and running.
Right, a payout. That worked pretty well with my $.001 payouts from Connect.
I can't see why this is treatening out traditional business, book publishers and magazines and newspapers will still buy stock images like before, it's only bloggers and low lifers who will embed for free and they never paid a dime so far so where's our actuall loss ? there's no loss at all, i'll rather take 100$ bucks per year in royalties from bloggers than 0.00$ like i do now.
Plenty of bloggers license images, with real money.
http://blog.myphillylawyer.com/2012/12/29/pennsylvanias-underage-drinking-fines-soar-in-attempt-to-curb-teen-drinking/ (http://blog.myphillylawyer.com/2012/12/29/pennsylvanias-underage-drinking-fines-soar-in-attempt-to-curb-teen-drinking/)
http://asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/what-pisa-and-why-does-it-matter (http://asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/what-pisa-and-why-does-it-matter)
http://www.todaysparent.com/blogs/tracys-mama-memoirs/my-back-to-school-boycott/ (http://www.todaysparent.com/blogs/tracys-mama-memoirs/my-back-to-school-boycott/)
... and that's just a couple from searching google images for my name.
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Are ShutterStock's prices to high! Nope are they growing like crazy! yep, do people pay for the service yes. It must be outdated. Oh please let me start a company by giving way all your stuff!
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May we like or not, what Getty is doing is nothing but giving the market what the market was asking for since a long time.
I'll round up a posse to stand outside Jimmy Choo asking for free shoes.
They'll surely give us them free to try for a Big Night Out and maybe we'll buy them later.
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Yes that's the way it works, anyone can click on the code when a photo has the </> under it and you get something like this:
<iframe src="//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/180001639?et=Y6bmQlGSGEuDMaWJ-okQeg&sig=UTHDfD6LPp2rUdp2vALgZ0oKZUJnodIpbUlWJBodcUM=" width="400" height="671" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
As far as copying from any website, that's never changed. You could do that with anything on any website.
So as Sue said and I finally figured out on Getty click under ANY image with the </> and you get the frame code for embedding on anything that reads that kind of script. I don't think this forum does?
Question:
Embed. Does this mean the photo is stored on Getty's servers? Um.... not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but if this thing explodes couldn't they have several million blogs contacting their servers at the same second of time - can they actually handle that?
Why can I go to one of the embedded photos already in someone's blog and right click on it? It doesn't even have any exif to tell me where it came from.
From an embedded photo, you can "copy this code </>" and embed it on your own blog without even visiting Getty? Now that's convenient! No end user contact info. No spam from Getty!
Direct link to file using this, that's now hosted on http://www.Crapstock.com (http://www.Crapstock.com) = so to answer the question, yes. Any site with an embedded code can be linked to. There you go. Free for all. Getty tag, artists credits, everything is gone.
(http://d2v0gs5b86mjil.cloudfront.net/xc/180001639.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=D9DE238B075EBDD914B6E8022775805909E5839B2293409F366DDEAB8C3B8BF6&Expires=1394154000&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJZZHJ4LGWQENK3OQ&Signature=fN3kGdvQLv1-u~xvaaYjw8TL52iXVa72EU49wY7gGvzfQ-Or0lOkS5EXe7G5rh5p8DKNDbRvLfWO16wOwqwJDSFd7ePz6qqQkGo2xrMV7LOBNu6qEE0z7e3hd2v3pUR03ecQcN8N-8Z6Tm5W0-7We7IMIsS08P3o23x1EznAzdsVxqjDc2u6lcWseNju59ZBW1ST-Te9Vly77Tx3l8o05j0AqxhBRlZloXBfpcqRq~0R77KyuSdi1XSQgFVftRmN-4FJPBeBKN9XVbkRaHDo2E5s76FHVrboFYcziBHo3OtYkXtf0Y2lYAnYysqHSR-mUJJSp6dXF0GLi3Nc2QDecQ__)
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Just for the record, NASDAQ index flat, SS shares down 4% today.
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No, you need to put that in the html, but you can just use that embed bit:
//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/180001639?et=Y6bmQlGSGEuDMaWJ-okQeg&sig=UTHDfD6LPp2rUdp2vALgZ0oKZUJnodIpbUlWJBodcUM=
to go grab the image.
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What the he-ll guys, up until now we got ZERO $$$ from bloggers and spongers, at least now Getty is doing something to monetize and of course their plan is to raise the bar in the future depending on many factors.
That's a complete load of crap. I track my images carefully and I know my main source of customers are food bloggers and recipe sites that make money from ads. They will now qualify as non-profit under Getty's blurb. How is that raising the bar?
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May we like or not, what Getty is doing is nothing but giving the market what the market was asking for since a long time.
I'll round up a posse to stand outside Jimmy Choo asking for free shoes.
They'll surely give us them free to try for a Big Night Out and maybe we'll buy them later.
Free shoes - sounds like a GREAT idea. Then next lets get FREE lunch. And on and on it goes.
The next step in this evolution will be a form letter from Getty that will probably say something like this:
"Dear Contributor. Your photos have been viewed 756,000 times on the web. There is a cost associated with us giving you this FREE publicity. Our business model can't sustain this any longer so if you want to continue having us give your photos away for free, you'll need to pay a monthly fee. Remember, we're giving your photos away free because in the long run it will be GOOD for you. But realize that you'll need to contribute a fair amount of the cost of doing this from this point forward. After all, this is all being done to help you."
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Question:
Embed. Does this mean the photo is stored on Getty's servers? Um.... not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but if this thing explodes couldn't they have several million blogs contacting their servers at the same second of time - can they actually handle that?
Why can I go to one of the embedded photos already in someone's blog and right click on it? It doesn't even have any exif to tell me where it came from.
From an embedded photo, you can "copy this code </>" and embed it on your own blog without even visiting Getty? Now that's convenient! No end user contact info. No spam from Getty!
Yes, to the first. The servers sit there serving up these images everytime a new visitor hits a page. Actually, at one point, I had thought of a service where you'd host images and let blogs embed them, and based on the number of hits the image got, you'd charge accordingly. But I thought the server traffic would cost more than you'd make, and I didn't think people would want to rely on an image hosted on someone else's servers.
You can, to the second.
You got it, for the third. They want them to spread virally.
To make this work, you need cloud storage with sufficient bandwidth AND fast access times Amazon S3 has "edge servers" worldwide to distribute this load and provice what they call a "content distribution" service.
IMHO we are going to find out this is why Shutterstock just bought WebDAM - to get a server platform designed for quick access to shared images. We'll find out what "shared" means later, when we get the "today we are excited to announce..."
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SS made an intelligent deal with Facebook. They also have a well functioning website, know how to announce downtimes in advance and you don't hear them blame "others" when they mess up.
You don't have to like them or trust them, but they have a proven track record of being able to do what they say they will do.
As opposed to istock/getty that seem to be pumping out confusing plans that even contradict each other all the time.
And they can't even change a Valentines day image for 3 weeks after the event.
Whatever plans they have for boldly changing the world of stock - Their track record shows they will mess it up for themselves faster than any competitor could do them harm.
It is all just extremly painful to watch.
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For anyone just arriving at this disaster or wondering where to see the link Etc. Hover over the image you like:
(http://s5.postimg.org/tt8eosp9j/getty_free_sliced_tomato.jpg)
Click on </> then copy the code (it's a HTML frame). Done = free photo of sliced tomatoes.
<iframe src="//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/146104035?et=g6-y81VDPEib6nbkSMMv5g&sig=GePjNsiZenjaiCyUFsOSLxqF5x7oRjyJwhMdIrji6jo=" width="507" height="407" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Sean are you saying there's a way to display here or make a direct link? I'm missing it?
I get it... direct link.
http://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/146104035?et=g6-y81VDPEib6nbkSMMv5g&sig=GePjNsiZenjaiCyUFsOSLxqF5x7oRjyJwhMdIrji6jo= (http://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/146104035?et=g6-y81VDPEib6nbkSMMv5g&sig=GePjNsiZenjaiCyUFsOSLxqF5x7oRjyJwhMdIrji6jo=)
Just doesn't seem to display IMG here.
Seems to be this only applies to Getty Images and not people like myself who are Indys on IS.
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What the he-ll guys, up until now we got ZERO $$$ from bloggers and spongers...
What? Plenty of companies are successfully monetizing blog usage. My 3 sales at Stockfresh this week are small blog sizes. Not vectors, not large files. Smalls. Sure maybe they're not specifically being used on a blog, who knows. But they're web resolution, almost certainly being used on the web somewhere. And in use cases that Getty wants to serve for free.
I understand you guys are all angry now but realistically we should wait 6-12 months to judge the outcome of all this...
Does anyone really need 6-12 months to decide if free is a good idea? Anyone?
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Anyone could easily go in to that code and increase the constraints on the size of the image or change the frame. Or right click on the image and save it.
All of those actions are against Getty's T&Cs, of course. Based on their history of sending big payment requests when they find T&C violations—and because these images will be closely tracked—perhaps Getty sees this as a shiny new income stream when people change code or right click?
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Ohhhh, thank god I'm not with them! Never have and never will be! ???
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If I'm author of blog and put the image in article, you are reading it and want to see full article, click on image and...? It takes you to Getty? Do you (or any man reading) want to buy that image or just read my article? I don't think so... So who is it for?
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Hi All,
This is an interesting read and I think it is very relevant to the move by Getty. Information and the ability to accrue as much as possible is the biggest move by the largest companies in the world and for good reason according to Jaron Lanier. Check this link out and read the book if you can. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/27/who-owns-future-lanier-review (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/27/who-owns-future-lanier-review)
Cheers,
J
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The NSA and Getty have the same problem, get the information at any cost or rights of the people!
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Hi All,
This is an interesting read and I think it is very relevant to the move by Getty. Information and the ability to accrue as much as possible is the biggest move by the largest companies in the world and for good reason according to Jaron Lanier. Check this link out and read the book if you can. [url]http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/27/who-owns-future-lanier-review[/url] ([url]http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/27/who-owns-future-lanier-review[/url])
Cheers,
J
What are your thoughts on this move? You have a few deals with Getty, supplying them with images. Are SpacesImages also free for use now, through Getty? I heard Blendimages is not included.
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What a great idea. No one can steal your images if you give them away for free. Brilliant! What substance abuse was occurring at that executive meeting?
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What a great idea. No one can steal your images if you give them away for free. Brilliant! What substance abuse was occurring at that executive meeting?
Ha! Good point. It's like trying to prevent bank robberies by opening the vault and letting anyone take whatever they like.
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Stock licensing partnership as "roadkill"? Intriguing idea (less so if you're under the tires...)
http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/ (http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/)
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What a great idea. No one can steal your images if you give them away for free. Brilliant! What substance abuse was occurring at that executive meeting?
Full disclosure: I condemn this move by Getty. Seriously condemn it.
But as a predatory business move, I think it is brilliantly conceived. They weren't getting much - if any - of the blog and not for profit web microstock market. Their pricing was too high. So they made a very rational move to blindside the competition by allowing free usage. And they hide the fact that they aren't giving away their own assets - they are giving away their contributor's work. And they hide behind the "promotional" clause in their contracts to force their contributors to participate.
The web reaction? Almost universally positive. "Great move by Getty". "Getty Gets It". The bloggers are all over themselves and are giving Getty a standing ovation. However, I have yet to see one line on this subject that says "thanks" to the contributors that are proving the content. No - Getty gets the applause and the contributors get the.....shaft.
And boy - are they clever. They say that the marketplace has made them take this move - so they can't be accused of being predatory in a world courtroom. And while all those Getty images get used for free and the competition scrambles to stay afloat.....Getty re-positions themselves as an internet "play". They aren't in the photo business anymore - they are a consolidator like Yahoo or Google or You Tube. And they've got 35 million images to play with - at least for awhile until photographers start realizing that they are actually competing against themselves on pricing.
The Carlyle Group are smart business people. They might also be called ruthless. But they are turning a money losing proposition into positive spin and setting Getty to be resold to Google or Yahoo or someone else who decides that they want a piece of that great internet play.
My guess? 24 to 36 months from now they'll sell for billions more because they will be "The Number One provider of images in the world - by a large margin".
Clever people. Very clever people.
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SS shares now down 7% today, that's a significant hit.
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I get it... direct link.
[url]http://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/146104035?et=g6-y81VDPEib6nbkSMMv5g&sig=GePjNsiZenjaiCyUFsOSLxqF5x7oRjyJwhMdIrji6jo=[/url] ([url]http://embed.gettyimages.com/embed/146104035?et=g6-y81VDPEib6nbkSMMv5g&sig=GePjNsiZenjaiCyUFsOSLxqF5x7oRjyJwhMdIrji6jo=[/url])
Just doesn't seem to display IMG here.
Seems to be this only applies to Getty Images and not people like myself who are Indys on IS.
direct JPEG link :
http://d2v0gs5b86mjil.cloudfront.net/xc/146104035.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=31D8FB54DE31AA506B2C6A649B44F270DD1C3606758FBFDC1A08B9523F5DCD73&Expires=1394154000&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJZZHJ4LGWQENK3OQ&Signature=eUZDdbY85YDR1xt5NqwrlOHDcBM-5vtLnG79d549GHs5Zc2NQtg-RGVr7oncBNczKAzgqAjjKwd6-YYsl2nBd7k-KD4N0-iFjUV8R9Arfc5XhhU6YQfw6VWgbC4cK~doCjtoCIbYya4d8mPQpvgthzjfdTbqosOvU5U2qWOSGnYwPCenw5~jY~5zsiCcDvkuZR19-xinz~P6Wn2YsfXu7FNfaeotsWRK29JLySn3n7J2-muUVmyc-i9LkfE7DuKXWteACiin2ReMYavo86froyI2HGMovRc64N2ocEiCZlUUcPCW17vFh-vGFXEPZf4t71ym2MfbmCRaczyUjDQEEw__ (http://d2v0gs5b86mjil.cloudfront.net/xc/146104035.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=31D8FB54DE31AA506B2C6A649B44F270DD1C3606758FBFDC1A08B9523F5DCD73&Expires=1394154000&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJZZHJ4LGWQENK3OQ&Signature=eUZDdbY85YDR1xt5NqwrlOHDcBM-5vtLnG79d549GHs5Zc2NQtg-RGVr7oncBNczKAzgqAjjKwd6-YYsl2nBd7k-KD4N0-iFjUV8R9Arfc5XhhU6YQfw6VWgbC4cK~doCjtoCIbYya4d8mPQpvgthzjfdTbqosOvU5U2qWOSGnYwPCenw5~jY~5zsiCcDvkuZR19-xinz~P6Wn2YsfXu7FNfaeotsWRK29JLySn3n7J2-muUVmyc-i9LkfE7DuKXWteACiin2ReMYavo86froyI2HGMovRc64N2ocEiCZlUUcPCW17vFh-vGFXEPZf4t71ym2MfbmCRaczyUjDQEEw__)
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Brilliant? Short term maybe but certainly not for an extended amount of time. Why on earth would anyone keep their images at Getty? I don't get. Its like saying "well... since Getty can't sell the images no one else can either so I guess giving them away makes sense". Really? Getty can serve the people who want stuff for free. I'll continue to serve the people who actually pay for images. The likely scenario is that the market will divide into those who pay (for a large variety of reasons) and those who were never going to. If Getty is going after the freeloaders and thieves so be it. I've been in business long enough to know that the extremely cheap customers are the ones you wish for your competitors to have. At some point Getty is going to become the "Goodwill" (a donation store for leftover garments) of the industry. That is the type of place high school kids and poor college kids love but most professionals will not set foot in unless it is to donate. Talk about unsustainable. Unfortunately while this all transpires there will be a lot of collateral damage. Mostly in the form of the photographers and artists.
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Interesting that Getty rarely files a lawsuit about copyrights - only 7 in five years according to this Business Week article online:
[url]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos[/url] ([url]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-06/since-it-cant-sue-us-all-getty-images-embraces-embedded-photos[/url])
So - another example of their narrative ("we go after copyright infringement big time") being more of a boast than a fact.
more likely it means a letter from getty's lawyers results in a settlement w/o ever having to file a lawsuit
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Brilliant? Short term maybe but certainly not for an extended amount of time. Why on earth would anyone keep their images at Getty? I don't get. Its like saying "well... since Getty can't sell the images no one else can either so I guess giving them away makes sense". Really? Getty can serve the people who want stuff for free. I'll continue to serve the people who actually pay for images. The likely scenario is that the market will divide into those who pay (for a large variety of reasons) and those who were never going to. If Getty is going after the freeloaders and thieves so be it. I've been in business long enough to know that the extremely cheap customers are the ones you wish for your competitors to have. At some point Getty is going to become the "Goodwill" (a donation store for leftover garments) of the industry. That is the type of place high school kids and poor college kids love but most professionals will not set foot in unless it is to donate. Talk about unsustainable. Unfortunately while this all transpires there will be a lot of collateral damage. Mostly in the form of the photographers and artists.
The Carlyle Group is interested in flipping Getty after paying $3.5 billion for it last year. They really don't care about selling photos - they want to sell the company and cash out. They have done it with lots of other companies - buy them at a deep discount, make them look presentable and then sell them before anyone is the wiser.
Sure - Getty is going to lose hundreds - if not thousands - of photographers because of this move. But they have thousands of replacements waiting in the wings that would give anything to be part of Getty. I know one guy who paid Getty thousands under the Photographer's Choice banner so he could brag that he was a Getty photographer.
That said - even if every Getty photographed bailed (not likely) - they still have millions of images from agencies that they've acquired in the past. And they can disrupt the marketplace long enough that they can cash out.
You are right - it is not a LONG term sustainable business model. But that's the beauty of it for them - is IS a sustainable SHORT term model so that they can cash out.
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So are the independent files in the main collection at IS included in this? (Do I need to start disabling files today or do I have a few months/weeks before they start giving mine away for free?)
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.....
And then there's pricing. Getty has been grossly disconnected from the reality of pricing in recent years, as is evidenced in their current pricing of $55-65 for a blog image. I think a lot of bloggers have long since found other ways to purchase (and not steal) images for their blogs at more affordable prices. Getty throwing in the towel and giving up on blog use licensing doesn't mean there is no market for it. They just don't think that anything less than $20 is reasonable for a blog use fee.
Just because Getty can't figure out how to sell blog content to bloggers doesn't mean that microstock can't (or isn't already) doing it. ....
exactly - even $20 for a blog image is high now - there are millions of bloggers who might use images if they were reasonably priced. there was a discussion related to free images from photographers themselves over in the symbiostock forums. there are other options for promoting your own self hosted site, too -- it doesn't take many $5 or $10 sales to replace most of the middle tier stock agencies, and only a few more to replace all but perhaps SS for most of us
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Getty might get a slice of the pie, the content providers will be lucky to get a sugar grain.
No opt in, which would keep you happy; or opt out, which would be a slight relief to most on this thread.
We told you so already in 2007 o 2008, can't remember :
"what's cheaper than microstock ? FREE images"
and there you have it.
content providers will better sell prints and do assignments as in the past.
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What a great idea. No one can steal your images if you give them away for free. Brilliant! What substance abuse was occurring at that executive meeting?
Ha! Good point. It's like trying to prevent bank robberies by opening the vault and letting anyone take whatever they like.
Very true, since the money doesn't really belong to the bank either - they might as well.
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That's a complete load of crap. I track my images carefully and I know my main source of customers are food bloggers and recipe sites that make money from ads. They will now qualify as non-profit under Getty's blurb. How is that raising the bar?
If you read some webmasters forums you will realize that webmasters aren't very happy about embedding images in their blogs for the simple reason they can not create automated thumbnails so i don't expect blogs to switch to Getty in droves unless they find a workaround for that because at the moment the embedding only makes sense to embed editorial images inside an article where there's no need for further thumbnails etc
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Does anyone really need 6-12 months to decide if free is a good idea? Anyone?
Yes because nobody ever tried this kind of embedding in such a large scale, FotoMoto and similar startups never got rich as i know so for all we know it could be a disaster despite being backed by getty.
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So are the independent files in the main collection at IS included in this? (Do I need to start disabling files today or do I have a few months/weeks before they start giving mine away for free?)
At first, it's only going to be certain parts of Getty's collection, including those ingested via E+ and Vetta.
So AT THE MOMENT, S files and M files are safe from this (but not from cheap sub sales). However Lobo has said they'll consider rolling it out later.
Ha, it used to be that the main, and topic, topic of conversation on the Exclusive forum was why isn't the connector working to get our E+/V files over to Getty.
Oddly, it hasn't been mentioned since this bombshell.
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You are right - it is not a LONG term sustainable business model. But that's the beauty of it for them - is IS a sustainable SHORT term model so that they can cash out.
It's a marketing experiment, millions of people and especially of webmasters will click in these embedded photos and will land on getty page with prices etc ... in the very worst scenario 0.1% of these clicks will make a new sale so what do you guys know ... first of all the Getty brand will be enjoy a huge boost, secondly they will make a lot of sales, third they will maybe educate spongers and bloggers once and for all.
You should see it as the music played on radios, it's free to listen but the artists and the labels get some small return and of course free advertising.
I mean these web-sized images are NOT the products we're meant to sell, i don't know about you but i'm not in the business of selling 500px low-res thumbnails, and if you do sorry but maybe you better find a better career, it's 2014 !
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I think Jeff C is bang on unfortunately. This is now all about the data, push marketing, relevant content, brand leverage and monetizing by small increments on a vast scale. The sort of stuff that makes Wall Street reptiles drool over their shoes.
Like FB and others their share price will probably shoot up in time for the big sell off and one day people will be standing around asking "what happened to the actual money?" and some ten year old kid will say "it was virtual you idiots. it was never there."
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I understand you guys are all angry now but realistically we should wait 6-12 months to judge the outcome of all this.
Yeah, that way, we'll be distracted by the next fiasco.
May we like or not, what Getty is doing is nothing but giving the market what the market was asking for since a long time.
The "market" would probably like my car for free, but I'm not giving it to them.
What the market will get back is another story, that's depending on the payout photographers will earn once this thing will be up and running.
Right, a payout. That worked pretty well with my $.001 payouts from Connect.
I can't see why this is treatening out traditional business, book publishers and magazines and newspapers will still buy stock images like before, it's only bloggers and low lifers who will embed for free and they never paid a dime so far so where's our actuall loss ? there's no loss at all, i'll rather take 100$ bucks per year in royalties from bloggers than 0.00$ like i do now.
Plenty of bloggers license images, with real money.... and that's just a couple from searching google images for my name.
Yeah bloggers licencing subs for a few cents .. is that really the busines we're in ?
I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
Carlyle selling Getty for 5 or 10 billions ? so what ... if WhatsApp is worth 20 billions so is Getty Images ... still a good news for us in my opinion, it means our images are worth a lot more than we may think and the markets agree.
Let's face it, this is now a buyers market, we've no voice about pricing at this point, even Getty is giving images for free and this never happened before so there's no going back, we either take it or leave it.
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It's a marketing experiment ... in the very worst scenario 0.1% of these clicks will make a new sale so what do you guys know
You think converting 1 in a 1000 clicks is the worst scenario?
Whatever you're on, I'd like some of that, please.
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I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
You´ve probably never tried to convert freeloaders to pay. I have.
It is easier to upsell from paying 1 cent to 200 dollars than it is to convert people who want free to pay 1 cent.
This deal is not about licensing files.
It is only about data mining and advertising revenue while the artists image is being used for free without their permission to do so.
All the talk about copyright infringers is just the pitch to confuse the artists.
If people steal, you don´t solve the problem by giving them things for free.
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"what's cheaper than microstock ? FREE images"
Wrong, the correct answer is "Getty is cheaper than microstock"
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I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
You´ve probably never tried to convert freeloaders to pay. I have.
It is easier to upsell from paying 1 cent to 200 dollars than it is to convert people who want free to pay 1 cent.
This deal is not about licensing files.
It is only about data mining and advertising revenue while the artists image is being used for free without their permission to do so.
All the talk about copyright infringers is just the pitch to confuse the artists.
If people steal you don´t solve the problem by giving things to them free.
Completely agree
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http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/03/getty-images-progressive-destructive/ (http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/03/getty-images-progressive-destructive/)
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One more very obvious point that I don´t see people talking about but the radio silence from many friends makes it obvious:
What about all the artists that specialise in lifestyle? That work with models. With families.
Their own families.
Their own children.
This is commercial photography produced by professionals to be licensed responsibly by what used to be the most elitist stock agency in the world.
Licensed to registered buyers.
Now everyone, can embed images with models, family, children on any blog of the world. For free.
In fact anyone is being invited to embed images. Even in pages with advertising.
If you have reassured your models, although of course there is no perfect security, but that you are working with a professional agency selling files for very high prices - how can you look into their faces today??
You didn´t tell them you were going to "freely share the images for free on the internet". With ANYONE. Unregistered.
What happens to your production plans. What do you tell the models?
I mostly do still life. My easter eggs don´t care.
But I am sure my models do.
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http://petapixel.com/2014/03/06/getty-embed-tool-already-subverted-can-remove-credit-line (http://petapixel.com/2014/03/06/getty-embed-tool-already-subverted-can-remove-credit-line)
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Has someone already posted about Getty's partnership with EyeEm and I missed it?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2014/03/06/photo-app-eyeem-partners-with-getty-to-sell-user-images/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2014/03/06/photo-app-eyeem-partners-with-getty-to-sell-user-images/)
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Well, of course they agree to abide to the TOS when they embed, so no problem. ( eyeroll ) Who's going to sue when it goes wrong? Not Getty, of course. Hands in the air....
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I don't think it matters whether this is widely adopted or not. I think there's a more important issue here.
By making this move, Getty has established the idea that they can use images in any number of ways to generate income for themselves (via advertising or whatever) without paying anything to the image owners. So long as they don't collect a licensing fee, it's "promotional use" and anything is fair game.
I'm sure they are thinking of even more clever ways to monetize the image collection in ways that avoid a licensing fee. If they get away with this one they'll roll out more and so will other agencies.
Unless someone fights this in court and wins, the precedence is set.
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Yeah bloggers licencing subs for a few cents .. is that really the busines we're in ?
I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
What do we have here? A diehard fan of Getty?
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Yeah bloggers licencing subs for a few cents .. is that really the busines we're in ?
I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
What do we have here? A diehard fan of Getty?
Yep. J. Klein in disguise.
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SS shares now down 7% today, that's a significant hit.
Time to buy ;)
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Yeah bloggers licencing subs for a few cents .. is that really the busines we're in ?
I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
What do we have here? A diehard fan of Getty?
Surely he was being sarcastic?
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One more very obvious point that I don´t see people talking about but the radio silence from many friends makes it obvious:
What about all the artists that specialise in lifestyle? That work with models. With families.
Their own families.
Their own children.
This is commercial photography produced by professionals to be licensed responsibly by what used to be the most elitist stock agency in the world.
Licensed to registered buyers.
Now everyone, can embed images with models, family, children on any blog of the world. For free.
In fact anyone is being invited to embed images. Even in pages with advertising.
If you have reassured your models, although of course there is no perfect security, but that you are working with a professional agency selling files for very high prices - how can you look into their faces today??
You didn´t tell them you were going to "freely share the images for free on the internet". With ANYONE. Unregistered.
What happens to your production plans. What do you tell the models?
I mostly do still life. My easter eggs don´t care.
But I am sure my models do.
So much irony in all of this. Getty makes the photographer/contributors jump through hoops to get "official" Getty model releases. They have to be witnessed and you have to have one for every photo - even if it is the same model time and time again. That's their rules - and they don't bend them.
So those of us who play by THEIR rules just realized that they can change their rules anytime - for any reason - under the guise of promotional use. And so my children and my grandchildren's images will be all over the web in countless situations that there will be no way to monitor.
I just love the Getty employees who keep responding to all the contributor's complaints with the generic - "just wait and see"...or "trust us on this one - it's going to be good for the photographers long term".
Reminds me of the old saying - if someone shows up at your door and tells you that they are from the government and they are there to "help you" - you better grab your wallet and head out the back door.
Trust is earned. If you violate a person's trust - as Getty has just done - they won't get it back because they say that we're overreacting - or that we should wait and see.
I feel violated. And the first time I see one of my kids and grandkid's photos used freely on a website with Getty's blessing, I think I'll probably be sick to my stomach.
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Yeah bloggers licencing subs for a few cents .. is that really the busines we're in ?
I've the feeling you guys are all overreacting, Getty will bring millions of new users on their site and some of these free loaders will end up becoming loyal buyers, how is that a bad news for us ?
What do we have here? A diehard fan of Getty?
Surely he was being sarcastic?
Hobostocker, were you being sarcastic?
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Sure - Getty is going to lose hundreds - if not thousands - of photographers because of this move. But they have thousands of replacements waiting in the wings that would give anything to be part of Getty. I know one guy who paid Getty thousands under the Photographer's Choice banner so he could brag that he was a Getty photographer.
That said - even if every Getty photographed bailed (not likely) - they still have millions of images from agencies that they've acquired in the past. And they can disrupt the marketplace long enough that they can cash out.
I don't know about thousands waiting in the wings... I closed my direct account with Getty last year after Google "deal" (they were asking me why :o), and the only reason I am still selling on iStock is I am doing it non-exclusively. The moment I see my sales affected by this "free" bulls**t I am gone from iStock. So will many remaining others. Let them offer their own in-house content for free.
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Hobostocker
Your avatar is out of date.
Will Work For Beer Free
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I don't know about thousands waiting in the wings... I closed my direct account with Getty last year after Google "deal" (they were asking me why :o), and the only reason I am still selling on iStock is I am doing it non-exclusively. The moment I see my sales affected by this "free" bulls**t I am gone from iStock. So will many remaining others. Let them offer their own in-house content for free.
[/quote]
You have a point there - maybe there will be less and less photographers wanting to sign up with the "prestigious Getty agency" when they realize that Getty will take their imagery and devalue it to the point of it being worthless.
But I'm sure the finance people at Carlyle figured this out and said something to the effect that "we may lose a few million images from our database, but in the long run we'll still come out ahead with the ad revenue and data mining".
People are commenting that Getty surely didn't think this out properly - and I think that is just not the case. I think they thought out all the ramifications - the pros and the cons - and decided what was best for THEM. For Getty - not for the contributors. For Getty.
One thing is for certain - they've already done some major damage to the perceived value of any image on the internet.
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You have a point there - maybe there will be less and less photographers wanting to sign up with the "prestigious Getty agency" when they realize that Getty will take their imagery and devalue it to the point of it being worthless.
Getty has had a dreadful reputation for the way it treats is photographers for a long time, since at least 2005, yet most of us took the risk of thinking, "They can't be as bad as all that," at least for a while.
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This new move is about flipping the company again. My guess is they are trying to line up Google as a potential buyer by building an advertising platform under their nose.
This could potentially end Getty, Connect is a woefully poor revenue generator absolutely no one will produce new content for a Credit tag.
If SS get their act together on the editorial side and set up an exclusivity program it could be a gift for them, there will be a lot high quality content producers out there looking for a new agent very soon.
This whole initiative is about the existing Hedge Fund bailing out looking for a new buyer, someone with very deep pockets. Huge, huge gamble for them.
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You have a point there - maybe there will be less and less photographers wanting to sign up with the "prestigious Getty agency" when they realize that Getty will take their imagery and devalue it to the point of it being worthless.
Getty has had a dreadful reputation for the way it treats is photographers for a long time, since at least 2005, yet most of us took the risk of thinking, "They can't be as bad as all that," at least for a while.
Well Sue I do think they outdid themselves this time... plus there is such a thing as a cumulative effect. This might be just the log that will break the camel's back :-)
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Craig Peters I am trying to go into real estate now can I please have your house to give away as a boost to my business? Thank-you I knew you would understand. Just think of the buzz and exposure I will get and since I am so successful Mr. K as I know we are friends I get yours next :-)
If SS came out and stated "We will never give your hard earned content away, this is our business promise to you" open the doors to some high end editorial around the price of Stocksy and keep pursuing buyers they could really make a difference.
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Making some images "free" ends up devaluing all imagery in the eyes of the buying public. Especially if the word free is splashed all over the web and seen as a "good" thing.
That's precisely why my Symbiostock site doesn't say my images are "royalty free". I took that tag out, because many viewers don't understand what "royalty free" means. They only see the word FREE.
Not a message I want to send.
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Nothing happened after the last special deal other than a few of us pulling our ports. They must be feeling pretty confident by now and aren't concerned about backlash. So, today it's a mere 35 million images up for grabs - Wonder what gem of a promotion they are planning to roll out next!
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This new move is about flipping the company again. My guess is they are trying to line up Google as a potential buyer by building an advertising platform under their nose.
This could potentially end Getty, Connect is a woefully poor revenue generator absolutely no one will produce new content for a Credit tag.
If SS get their act together on the editorial side and set up an exclusivity program it could be a gift for them, there will be a lot high quality content producers out there looking for a new agent very soon.
This whole initiative is about the existing Hedge Fund bailing out looking for a new buyer, someone with very deep pockets. Huge, huge gamble for them.
I concur with your sentiment - but I don't think is a huge "gamble" for them. More like a calculated risk to reinvent themselves as an internet "play" versus just a stock agency.
And I think they'll destroy several dozen microstock agencies by taking away their core business - selling to small websites and bloggers. I'm sure they've calculated that out and figured out how they can do it without spending a dime. It might be called predatory pricing - but they call it "promotional activity".
The group at the hedge fund have proven time and time again that they think they are smarter than the rest of the world and they've put lipstick on a pig in other situations - so my guess is we have just begun to hear the spin doctors weave their magic about how "good" this is going to be for the industry.
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Trust is earned. If you violate a person's trust - as Getty has just done - they won't get it back because they say that we're overreacting - or that we should wait and see.
Emphasis mine.
This isn't the first time Getty has messed around with contributors and violated trust. About the only difference this time is that they announced it versus with the Getty Google deal it was kept quiet until contributors uncovered it.
Anyone who takes Getty at their word today is willfully ignoring years of outrageous behavior, including the Getty Google deal, the 2011 contract changes for Getty Images contributors (http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/04/05/new-getty-contract-met-with-apathy/) where if folks didn't like it they were told they could quit Getty entirely, the royalty cuts at just about everywhere - including those at PumpAudio where they wrote to contributors and said they'd now be getting 35% instead of 50% because they needed money for marketing.
And let's not forget the 2009/2010 grandfathering of cannister-based royalty levels plus the program to entice folks to become exclusive - and giving them 6 months past the deadline so those at DT could let their waiting period expire. That was up in August 2010 and in September they announced the train wreck that was the RC system where royalties were no longer tied to lifetime downloads.
Getty will say or do anything to get what it wants and change whatever it feels it needs to regardless of who gets hurt or left in the lurch. Take a risk and continue to supply them if it suits you, but for heavens sake don't ignore their sad track record and be surprised when things change (not to photographers' benefit) down the road.
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This new move is about flipping the company again. My guess is they are trying to line up Google as a potential buyer by building an advertising platform under their nose.
This could potentially end Getty, Connect is a woefully poor revenue generator absolutely no one will produce new content for a Credit tag.
If SS get their act together on the editorial side and set up an exclusivity program it could be a gift for them, there will be a lot high quality content producers out there looking for a new agent very soon.
This whole initiative is about the existing Hedge Fund bailing out looking for a new buyer, someone with very deep pockets. Huge, huge gamble for them.
I concur with your sentiment - but I don't think is a huge "gamble" for them. More like a calculated risk to reinvent themselves as an internet "play" versus just a stock agency.
Huge gamble in context of image producers losing money through iS and Getty, if income dwindles there and affects income elsewhere I'll pull my work completely from Getty out of pure self preservation.
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This new move is about flipping the company again. My guess is they are trying to line up Google as a potential buyer by building an advertising platform under their nose.
This could potentially end Getty, Connect is a woefully poor revenue generator absolutely no one will produce new content for a Credit tag.
If SS get their act together on the editorial side and set up an exclusivity program it could be a gift for them, there will be a lot high quality content producers out there looking for a new agent very soon.
This whole initiative is about the existing Hedge Fund bailing out looking for a new buyer, someone with very deep pockets. Huge, huge gamble for them.
I concur with your sentiment - but I don't think is a huge "gamble" for them. More like a calculated risk to reinvent themselves as an internet "play" versus just a stock agency.
Huge gamble in context of image producers losing money through iS and Getty, if income dwindles there and affects income elsewhere I'll pull my work completely from Getty out of pure self preservation.
I apologize if if misread your earlier quote. I thought you were talking about a gamble for Getty. If you're talking about a gamble for the image producers - that's us photographers - then its not really a gamble. The folks at Getty are playing craps in Vegas with our photos (remember - its not their money, its ours) and we're funding their losses.
I give them high marks for audacity. They earned those high marks by saying in no uncertain terms that photographers/contributors cannot opt out.
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You have a point there - maybe there will be less and less photographers wanting to sign up with the "prestigious Getty agency" when they realize that Getty will take their imagery and devalue it to the point of it being worthless.
Getty has had a dreadful reputation for the way it treats is photographers for a long time, since at least 2005, yet most of us took the risk of thinking, "They can't be as bad as all that," at least for a while.
Well Sue I do think they outdid themselves this time... plus there is such a thing as a cumulative effect. This might be just the log that will break the camel's back :-)
Absolutely, it just proves what I've always said no matter what my worst possible scenario might have been, they have always managed to outdo it.
Even subs (I didn't think they'd put ALL iStock's images into low-value subs, though I had expected all Main files, even exclusive Main files to be forced onto TS. I guess they realised most of us would just deactivate our Main files. Deactivating everything is a more daunting proposition.
But this freebie thing totally blindsided me, like everyone else (and has put the gas in the discussion about subs down to to a wee peep).
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I don't see this as a smart move for Getty, but it might be for Carlyle to wring a bunch more $ from it while unloading it's weakened carcass. If they time things right they could get serious $ from a FB or Google for it. I hope that the so called real professionals (and I don't mean previous microstockers here) working with Getty manage to send them a strong signal over this. There could be a huge heap of high quality content looking for a new home really soon and a clever agency could really profit from that.
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From the business week article…
"Eventually, Getty could include advertisements within the embedded images, much like YouTube videos embedded on personal blogs show ads that bring revenue to Google (GOOG). But Peters says Getty hasn’t figured out how exactly that will work."
This is going to kill revenue for Getty in the short term. They've rolled it out with no way of generating any income for anyone. They've already tried "Connect" and it hasn't worked.
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Has anyone seen an official response from any microstock agency yet?
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And if we stopped upload files to ALL agencies for a month? It would be a major announcement, what we can do together.
I think that should go viral on twitter.. right now.
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SS could use the opportunity while the site is down tonight to offer higher royalties, and watch the mass exodus from Getty. Not that I want the additional competition, mind you.
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How times have changed, my exclusive iS income plummeted I bailed out, iS switch to subs and Getty give away images for free, meanwhile on SS I've sold an SOD today for over $100. 2 years ago I would never have believed it!
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This is my best week ever for SODs there...even today, with all those free images available from Getty. ;)
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Has anyone seen an official response from any microstock agency yet?
Shutterstock:
>>Announcements
Former Exclusives Interested in Joining Shutterstock
Posted by scott / 3.5.14 12:46 pm
We are receiving inquiries from exclusives who are interested in joining Shutterstock.
If you are among those exclusives who are interested in joining, please email us at [email protected]. An email will allow us to guide you through the signup and approval process.
When contributors create a Shutterstock account via submit.shutterstock.com, they are asked to submit 10 images for review. If a contributor is leaving exclusivity to submit to Shutterstock, we ask that they write a note to the reviewer mentioning their exclusive status with a link to their portfolio.
Alternately, if you are a videographer with a collection of 500 or more clips, please email us at [email protected] and let us know how many clips you have and what type of content it is. If you have a link to your work online, please provide it. Based on the nature of your request, we may be able to provide some additional submission assistance.
Please review the terms of your agreement to make sure you are not breaching it.
Best Regards,
Scott Braut
VP of Content<<
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Shutterstock:
>>Announcements
Former Exclusives Interested in Joining Shutterstock
Posted by scott / 3.5.14 12:46 pm
We are receiving inquiries from exclusives who are interested in joining Shutterstock.
If you are among those exclusives who are interested in joining, please email us at [email protected]. An email will allow us to guide you through the signup and approval process.
When contributors create a Shutterstock account via submit.shutterstock.com, they are asked to submit 10 images for review. If a contributor is leaving exclusivity to submit to Shutterstock, we ask that they write a note to the reviewer mentioning their exclusive status with a link to their portfolio.
Alternately, if you are a videographer with a collection of 500 or more clips, please email us at [email protected] and let us know how many clips you have and what type of content it is. If you have a link to your work online, please provide it. Based on the nature of your request, we may be able to provide some additional submission assistance.
Please review the terms of your agreement to make sure you are not breaching it.
Best Regards,
Scott Braut
VP of Content<<
Thanks, I missed that one. I'm really hoping that Shutter finds a way to spin gold from this somehow for the rest of us who are not exclusive somewhere else.
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Look at the bright side.....all the Getty supporters we've been having to put up with while they bash the likes of Shutterstock and other sub sites for fueling the race to the bottom....put a cork in it, your agency just won the race.
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I find myself hoping that the other stock sites get together and sue Getty for anti-competitive practices. They are in a much stronger position to do so than contributors are, and potentially have even more to lose.
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I enquired about the right click problem in Getty's own forums and received a reply that right click will shortly be disabled.
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The artist need to make hard decisions now. Be really honest with themselves how they want to work in the next few years.
Once the files are out there and spread all over it is too late.
Getty made a unilateral decision to change their business model and didn't ask the copyright owners. All the articles talk about how they make THEIR content available for free.
No respect at all.
They might have 200k people signed up over all their agencies, but it is the vetta artists and getty house people that matter.
If Carlyle thinks getty can be sold for 20 billion dollars like whatsapp by monetising the content, do they really believe the content owners don't understand the value of their own files?
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Good analysis.
http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/ (http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/)
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The suits making the decisions will happily cash out when Getty is sold and use what they done here on their resume. I watched private equity firms purchase every company I have worked for. It always starts with the promise of business as usual. Then benefits start to slim. Then staff. Then when the company is lean enough they sell. The remaining employees will have to fend for themselves as they have to conform to new ownership. The smart ones will jump ship. The others will hang in there until they eventually get the boot. We don't come into the equation anymore. We don't come into play any more. We were dismissed long ago. A lot of the moves with Getty and IStock could not be more clear.
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I enquired about the right click problem in Getty's own forums and received a reply that right click will shortly be disabled.
Don't care. Got MWSnap. Many other screen captures available. Disabled right click is like trying to ban Pirate Bay and equally effective.
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Agreed the other sites should sue for anti-competitive practices. They've got the lawyers. They know the ins and outs. The Getty 'contract' can be found, and I doubt 'giving away 35 million images' is included.
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Boy, this has really taken the heat off the new subs program at IS hasn't it?
So, when was this announced - today? I thought they had a 30 day notice, but the scheme is already working. I seem to remember something about 30 days before they let me leave Istock a year ago. So even if you quit today you still supply free content for 30 days?
Does the free content fall of the blog when you remove it from Getty?
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I hate this deal. A good portion of my port is travel and travel editorial related. Much of my material is subject matter they decided should be given away for free. Deactivating my port maybe a sound business decision. Certainly something I'm thinking over.
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Hobostocker
Your avatar is out of date.
Will Work For Beer Free
!!! +
I think that prices of all other sizes should change also:
Blog - Free
Medium - 3 Free
Large - 15 Free
Vectors - 25 Free
Extended License - 75 Free
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I enquired about the right click problem in Getty's own forums and received a reply that right click will shortly be disabled.
That's largely pointless. Anyone with more than two seconds experience in putting together web pages (i.e. bloggers) will likely know how to find the image by looking at the browser source.
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Shutterstock responds:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shutterstock-ceo-on-deals-getty-house-of-cards-cyB75o52SvOE2B8lFo4GlQ.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shutterstock-ceo-on-deals-getty-house-of-cards-cyB75o52SvOE2B8lFo4GlQ.html)
Among some other things, after being asked about Getty near the end he says:
"Committed to making sure...our contributors continue to get paid." :)
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.
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So if I'm reading it correctly, iStock excluded the Vetta images from the new subs program... so they could be given away for free over at GettyImages. That follows the typical logic we see over there.
What happens to the embedded image when a contributor leaves Getty and the image is disabled? Does the blogger end up with a big blank panel or will Getty have something else the drop in there, perhaps an ad for Getty? (or maybe they found a new use for the glitch monster - wonder if he will show up on blogs across the web when their site goes down)
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Shutterstock responds:
[url]http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shutterstock-ceo-on-deals-getty-house-of-cards-cyB75o52SvOE2B8lFo4GlQ.html[/url] ([url]http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shutterstock-ceo-on-deals-getty-house-of-cards-cyB75o52SvOE2B8lFo4GlQ.html[/url])
Among some other things, after being asked about Getty near the end he says:
"Committed to making sure...our contributors continue to get paid." :)
He sidestepped the Getty Free Image topic like a seasoned politician.
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This is my best week ever for SODs there...even today, with all those free images available from Getty. ;)
Funny coincidence: today on SS I had my 2nd best day ever… with a SOD for $92 plus 7 other sales that brought my daily total to over $100. Only once before, in May of 2013, did I have a better day (with 8 sweet ELs totaling $224).
That may not sound like a lot to many of you, but for a niche (wildlife) shooter like me it's pretty good. If this is what happens when the morons at Getty act like greedy jerks, I'll take it!
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Shutterstock responds:
[url]http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shutterstock-ceo-on-deals-getty-house-of-cards-cyB75o52SvOE2B8lFo4GlQ.html[/url] ([url]http://www.bloomberg.com/video/shutterstock-ceo-on-deals-getty-house-of-cards-cyB75o52SvOE2B8lFo4GlQ.html[/url])
Among some other things, after being asked about Getty near the end he says:
"Committed to making sure...our contributors continue to get paid." :)
He sidestepped the Getty Free Image topic like a seasoned politician.
I noticed that :)
Like so many US TV interviewers, there's no follow up or push back to try and get the guest to answer the question, which is a bit disappointing. It would be so nice to see someone take a swing at Getty over this scheme, but I can see why it's probably wiser for Shutterstock's CEO not to do that.
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That's largely pointless. Anyone with more than two seconds experience in putting together web pages (i.e. bloggers) will likely know how to find the image by looking at the browser source.
or even better you can use logging tools like WireShark.
however from what i've seen so far the JPG file names are bogus and the image is retrieved with a crypted hex string in the URL.
i don't think it will be hard to make for instance a Wordpress plugin that grabs the embed code and sticks the JPEG URL inside an article without the need for embedding and all .. but technically this is "hotlinking" so probably against Getty's TOS.
as much as they rant about hackers and freeloaders i've never heard of a Getty Downloader or other similar desktop apps to batch download thumbnails with auto-removal of watermarks etc .. same for the other stock agencies and actually this is not technically hard considering Getty has also APIs on their site.
i remember years ago a WP plugins doing something similar for Flickr images but i think it's been discontinued and never had much success, the reasons seems to be that bloggers don't have time and patience to search for the right image, they just spend 30 seconds on google images and steal what they can find in the first 2-3 pages.
now that many are "microblogging" using tablets and smartphones it must be even more awkward to do the whole mess on a tiny touchscreen.
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If Carlyle thinks getty can be sold for 20 billion dollars like whatsapp by monetising the content, do they really believe the content owners don't understand the value of their own files?
As far as we're concerned we should just be happy that Getty is trying new ways to further monetize our images, what's good for Getty is ultimately good also for photographers because it means more sales.
There's never been such a huge demand for quality images as today but for whatever reason it's still very cumbersome to monetize this ocean of photos and the obvious result is users totally disregard copyright and embrace piracy.
However this getty experiment turns out it's finally a good move in the right direction.
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I hate this deal. A good portion of my port is travel and travel editorial related. Much of my material is subject matter they decided should be given away for free. Deactivating my port maybe a sound business decision. Certainly something I'm thinking over.
I see it differently : once your embedded images are clicked 100 or 200 times you could make one sale, the average conversion-rate on e-commerce sites is 0.5% to 1%, photos are a bit harder to sell so maybe you can expect 0.1%
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!!! +
I think that prices of all other sizes should change also:
Blog - Free
Medium - 3 Free
Large - 15 Free
Vectors - 25 Free
Extended License - 75 Free
You guys don't get it.
Flooding blogs with embedded low res images with the photographer's name anche the image linking to Getty is free advertising which will ultimately lead to more SALES.
Serious buyers will never use embedded getty images with links and all, it would be totally unprofessional and would make them look cheap.
Only rock bottom bloggers will embed so this new thing is not threatening our biz in any way, it will just monetize a niche that at the moment has been at the mercy of leechers and pirates since forever.
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It would be so nice to see someone take a swing at Getty over this scheme, but I can see why it's probably wiser for Shutterstock's CEO not to do that.
SS is not scared because there's nothing to be scared from low res embedded images, designers will still need to buy full size images and so most of the other traditional clients, only random bloggers will eventually embed free images and these guys were certainly using stolen images before so they should not even considered "lost sales" or whatever.
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You think converting 1 in a 1000 clicks is the worst scenario?
Whatever you're on, I'd like some of that, please.
Yes, it means 0.1% conversion rate and it's a realistic number considering how hard is to sell images online.
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This whole initiative is about the existing Hedge Fund bailing out looking for a new buyer, someone with very deep pockets. Huge, huge gamble for them.
Well, they better do it now before the web 3.0 bubble implodes.
New buyers ? what about Adobe, Apple, Google, just to name a few.
or even Microsoft .. so they would become the stock kings merging getty and corbis ?
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Hobostocker
Your avatar is out of date.
Will Work For Beer Free
Look, there's life outside stock.
For instance monday i'll shoot an outdoor assignment and therefore talk with customers face to face and get the money straight in my hands, no loopholes or middlemen or stock agencies involved.
I will certainly work just for fun, but never for free.
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Wrong, the correct answer is "Getty is cheaper than microstock"
Getty is in the business of selling digital images and nobody can deny it's gettying tougher and tougher in a world where anyone is uploading tons of free images with their phones and DSLRs every day.
The demand is booming but so is the supply.
What are we supposed to do ? It's 2014, the 90's are gone !
Besides, buyers using cheap images will ultimately produce cheap products so there's always a price to pay even if the images are cheap or free.
Quality means high prices and exclusivity, RF and low-res cr-ap are just dime a dozen nowadays.
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I hate this deal. A good portion of my port is travel and travel editorial related. Much of my material is subject matter they decided should be given away for free. Deactivating my port maybe a sound business decision. Certainly something I'm thinking over.
I see it differently : once your embedded images are clicked 100 or 200 times you could make one sale, the average conversion-rate on e-commerce sites is 0.5% to 1%, photos are a bit harder to sell so maybe you can expect 0.1%
So images could be used 100-200 times for free and you might get one sale out of it ?
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I hate this deal. A good portion of my port is travel and travel editorial related. Much of my material is subject matter they decided should be given away for free. Deactivating my port maybe a sound business decision. Certainly something I'm thinking over.
I see it differently : once your embedded images are clicked 100 or 200 times you could make one sale, the average conversion-rate on e-commerce sites is 0.5% to 1%, photos are a bit harder to sell so maybe you can expect 0.1%
So images could be used 100-200 times for free and you might get one sale out of it ?
His maths doesn't add up. He firstly said 1:100-200, then 0.1%, which is 1:1000. Take your pick.
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there's nothing to be scared from low res embedded images, designers will still need to buy full size images and so most of the other traditional clients, only random bloggers will eventually embed free images and these guys were certainly using stolen images before so they should not even considered "lost sales" or whatever.
Yes. Even more than that - pirates will continue to use stolen content. Legitimate quality non commercial blogging is no different from Pinterest use and will work to the advantage of content owners - or certainly to non realistic disadvantage.
Anyone who expects today to be paid for non commercial online use (boggers, education, churches, clubs etc) is fighting a battle which they cannot win. At least Getty is focusing on that as an inevitable.
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Hobo, you keep saying bloggers are freeloaders, missing the point that many of our sales are paid by bloggers. That business is gone. You keep ignoring that fact.
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there's nothing to be scared from low res embedded images, designers will still need to buy full size images and so most of the other traditional clients, only random bloggers will eventually embed free images and these guys were certainly using stolen images before so they should not even considered "lost sales" or whatever.
Yes. Even more than that - pirates will continue to use stolen content. Legitimate quality non commercial blogging is no different from Pinterest use and will work to the advantage of content owners - or certainly to non realistic disadvantage.
Anyone who expects today to be paid for non commercial online use (boggers, education, churches, clubs etc) is fighting a battle which they cannot win. At least Getty is focusing on that as an inevitable.
In your logic, lets provide all our youth with crack cocaine and heroine as the fight against drugs is a battle we cant win. That will solve the problem for sure.
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In your logic, lets provide all our youth with crack cocaine and heroine as the fight against drugs is a battle we cant win. That will solve the problem for sure.
And in this particular case it would be true 8)
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lets provide all our youth with crack cocaine and heroine as the fight against drugs is a battle we cant win. That will solve the problem for sure.
It's certainly true that many experts argue that prohibition is a failed policy. Otherwise I feel that this is an extravagant comparison.
I cannot understand anyone getting upset about an initiative which relates to non commercial online use. I also strongly suspect that had SS come up with this first there would be applause.
These things never turn out to be as catastrophic or nefarious as people imagine. The comparison with whatsapp (previously) is daft - that was about buying huge number of users. The idea that Apple or Adobe might get involved in stock misses a number of points: Apple is a hardware company - its software and content services components exist largely to compliment and promote increasingly domestic hardware sales (eg iTunes was about selling iPods - Final Cut Pro is about selling Mac Pros (which is why it is sold so cheap compared with Adobe software)). Adobe already could not make stock work for them.
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I cannot understand anyone getting upset about an initiative which relates to non commercial online use. I also strongly suspect that had SS come up with this first there would be applause.
It depends on wether the big news outlets start using the embeds, if they do big trouble ahead. I'll be keeping a close eye that's for sure.
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lets provide all our youth with crack cocaine and heroine as the fight against drugs is a battle we cant win. That will solve the problem for sure.
It's certainly true that many experts argue that prohibition is a failed policy. Otherwise I feel that this is an extravagant comparison.
I cannot understand anyone getting upset about an initiative which relates to non commercial online use. I also strongly suspect that had SS come up with this first there would be applause.
I cant believe you take this point of view. How can you not see that this is upsetting for people selling images to bloggers and websites? Stock is not solely big ads and large projects.
I said it before, I believe the majority of my sales is just that, bloggers and websites. How can I not see the Getty move as a major blow to my market potential?
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I cant believe you take this point of view. How can you not see that this is upsetting for people selling images to bloggers and websites? Stock is not solely big ads and large projects.
I said it before, I believe the majority of my sales is just that, bloggers and websites. How can I not see the Getty move as a major blow to my market potential?
The majority of images already are free , even commercially, to many users. And IMO all of the roads are going in the same direction: ie non commercial use is not going to provide long term viable sales. It is already too much challenged by free, creative commons and social media sharing. And by a perception you cannot change that images are free.
This is about non commercial use. It is also about SEO and marketing. It is also about engaging non commercial users - not necessarily as full clients yet ... but certainly more like clients than the people who use whatever they find somewhere or steal from a torrent site.
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It's not going to be one sale for every 100 embeds. The people looking for embed files now on getty are not designers taking a comp to test it in a design.
Files will be embeded Millions of times and you will still not see a single sale.
Just go back and look at the data from the Microsoft deal. Or ask the people who had files in the Getty google deal.
They were used by millions but nobody came back to istock to buy a high resolution image. Or an extended license.
Nobody came to buy other images from the series.
We already have the data from the previous "Getty experiments".
There is no increase in sales.
One image was downloaded over 2 million times at Microsoft. It had no increase in sales on istock.
It is unbelievable that Getty has the audacity to throw away our images without asking us.
They did ask Blend (very nicely I presume) - Can we spread your images all over the globe for free and make billions with data mining while you might get a sale for every 2 million backlinks?
And they (very nicely) said: No thank you. And their files have no embed icon.
Why didn't they ask the other artists?
Basically they are pretending the artist might benefit with sales, while they plan to make Billions for themselves when Getty is sold. All that money will be made riding on our files.
We will get nothing from this.
If they genuinely believed it would increase licensing there would be an opt in button.
They know the artists don't benefit and forced them into it.
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Agreed the other sites should sue for anti-competitive practices. They've got the lawyers. They know the ins and outs. The Getty 'contract' can be found, and I doubt 'giving away 35 million images' is included.
Yes they have the Lawyers and potentially a lot of money to lose. I would not expect them to make a public statement because admitting that it will impact business will only compound stock holder fears.
I look forward to hearing DT, 123, etc response.
Snip http://tinyurl.com/krmqjax (http://tinyurl.com/krmqjax)
NYSE stocks posting largest percentage decreases
NEW YORK (AP) - A look at the 10 biggest percentage decliners on New York Stock Exchange at the close of trading:
Copa Holdings S.A. fell 7.7 percent to $124.50.
Shutterstock Inc. fell 6.8 percent to $95.48.
Carriage Services Inc. fell 6.0 percent to $19.47.
Amira Nature Foods Ltd. fell 5.7 percent to $15.99.
Pandora Media Inc. fell 5.6 percent to $37.23.
Rally Software fell 5.5 percent to $18.84.
Intrexon Corp. fell 5.3 percent to $27.12.
Homeowners Choice Inc. fell 5.2 percent to $38.28.
Southcross Energy Partners LP fell 5.1 percent to $16.48.
Rouse Properties Inc. fell 5.0 percent to $18.39.
http://www.stoxline.com/quote.php?symbol=SSTK (http://www.stoxline.com/quote.php?symbol=SSTK)
Snip
SSTK
Our rating system posted a SELL today, downgraded from higher rating. This stock seems to be ready for a new bearish move. So you may continue to hold short positions or sell your long positions. You are relatively safe to short or sell now, downward move is expected.
Support1: 84.42 Support2: 72.93
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The majority of images already are free , even commercially, to many users. And IMO all of the roads are going in the same direction: ie non commercial use is not going to provide long term viable sales. It is already too much challenged by free, creative commons and social media sharing. And by a perception you cannot change that images are free.
This is about non commercial use. It is also about SEO and marketing. It is also about engaging non commercial users - not necessarily as full clients yet ... but certainly more like clients than the people who use whatever they find somewhere or steal from a torrent site.
The "majority of images" are not free. I don't even know where you came up with that. As already said, everything you use at home is "non-commercial" but you still have to buy it. This defeatist attitude is part of the problem. Getty makes it worse by now setting the market value of their blog sized images at $0, so people expect that everything they find now is free to use. I thought we had turned a corner where people were starting to realize there were consequences.
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Basically they are pretending the artist might benefit with sales, will they plan to make Billions for themselves when Getty is sold. All that money will be made riding on our files.
This is not whatsapp. It does not suddenly create millions of potential new users. Therefore it does not IMO directly inflate any valuation. I believe that this is much more strategic and nuanced than that. It certainly builds in future potential value. And I want them to have a good valuation - because that will reflect objective confidence in strategy. And it challenges other companies definitely (but nobody from microstock is allowed that complaint TBH).
I have consistently argued here that free is an inevitable part of the challenge which cheap faces. In some ways this is free challenging free maybe. Or maybe I had too much sun today.
(I never understood people going nuclear over Google Docs either FWIW). To me it seemed sensible for them to be in the room with Google.
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The "majority of images" are not free.
They are. Look at all of the content shared for free daily on Facebook and Weibo for example. And many companies are increasingly replacing a website with social media.
This defeatist attitude etc
It's not defeatist. It's about recognizing changing trends and profiles.
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You never agree with the majority, your point of view is always the opposite, regardless if you agree with it or not.
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You never agree with the majority, your point of view is always the opposite, regardless if you agree with it or not.
If you ask the 'majority' of people, you will find that they do not believe that there is any reason why they should not use whatever image they can find anywhere. Try suRveying opinion amongst the people you meet. You will also find that many of the same people think that downloading movies, music, software cracks etc is fine too. Or DVDs from the market etc.
I disagree with the majority - though the majority here would likely agree with me . But I recognize that I am not going to change what the majority think and therefore it is more interesting and constructive to think about where that leads.
But of course you mean that I often disagree with the majority here. Well so what ? Do alternative perspectives disturb or offend you ?
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The "majority of images" are not free.
They are. Look at all of the content shared for free daily on Facebook and Weibo for example. And many companies are increasingly replacing a website with social media.
This defeatist attitude etc
It's not defeatist. It's about recognizing changing trends and profiles.
You seem to be mistaking "viewing images for free" with "using images for your own purposes for free".
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I hate this deal. A good portion of my port is travel and travel editorial related. Much of my material is subject matter they decided should be given away for free. Deactivating my port maybe a sound business decision. Certainly something I'm thinking over.
I see it differently : once your embedded images are clicked 100 or 200 times you could make one sale, the average conversion-rate on e-commerce sites is 0.5% to 1%, photos are a bit harder to sell so maybe you can expect 0.1%
I do not believe free use of my images will ever result in a sale. Only lost sales.
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You seem to be mistaking "viewing images for free" with "using images for your own purposes for free".
Most images are free. Free to use including reposting and re-tagging. That effectively includes, in many cases, commercial use. Though when you start to drill down into the definitions of what uses are permitted or not then the 'majority' are going to find that a much more arcane debate. Most images are free to use - how most people use their internet.
You could wish that most images were not free to use. Even school project use would be paid. The same as some people might wish that mictostock had never been invented or that photographers had not chosen to support subscription sites.
But the majority of people uploading their images (ie the majority of today's content producers) do not care if some company or organization they have friended or followed chooses to repost (ie use) their content.
Anyhow - this will probably turn out to be no big deal. Just an evolution. Just like all of the previous predicted catastrophes !
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I hate this deal. A good portion of my port is travel and travel editorial related. Much of my material is subject matter they decided should be given away for free. Deactivating my port maybe a sound business decision. Certainly something I'm thinking over.
I see it differently : once your embedded images are clicked 100 or 200 times you could make one sale, the average conversion-rate on e-commerce sites is 0.5% to 1%, photos are a bit harder to sell so maybe you can expect 0.1%
I do not believe free use of my images will ever result in a sale. Only lost sales.
exactly, the people viewing these won't buy them, they will once again share it, bloggers will stay happy and photographers unpaid, on the long run this will be very prejudicial to all industry, perhaps even for GI
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What the folks who believe people will click on the embedded photos and then purchase them are missing is that those people are the wrong target market. They're not designers or art directors. They're there to read the blog or article, not to buy photos. If they're fellow bloggers and like the image, they can also get it for free.
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It's possible that Getty sees this primarily as a cheap way of getting its name splashed all over the internet, raising brand awareness at little or not cost to them.
Bunhill's probably right that the alarm this has generated is out of proportion to the harm it will do. But it will do some harm, I have no doubt.
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No point wetting the bed over it unless you're a Getty producer.
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Isn't the Chrome browser free? Isn't the Android software free? Isn't WhatsApp free (yet is somehow worth $19B). Do I view all my favorite web sites for free? Do I now read all my morning newspapers for free? And yet all of these things happen to be worth a fortune because they are all a portal to something else or they attract advertising fees. So being free to them wasn't a dumb move at all. Of course I can't add advertising to my images, but I can see why there are more and more apps that are free yet become worth a substantial amount of money.
I'm just a simple person. The way I see it is this: at the moment people have to search at Getty's web site to see my stuff. What if every web site in the world decides to use the Getty embedded viewer and an extra billion people a day get to see my stuff. And every one of those views sees my attributed name and a one click link to my portfolio. Will I lose money or make money? The answer is: I will make a lot more sales and a lot more money. And do I care if Getty also makes money through views or clicks or advertising? No, actually I don't care at all. In fact, I'll encourage them to do so. Why? Because I know that the more views they generate the more money I will make. It's like putting a personal link to my portfolio on every web site in the world.
I've read a lot of dumb posts on this site, but this one takes the cake.
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Check out the photo for purchase in this article...
http://www.rgj.com/viewart/20140306/NEWS/303060030/Truckee-plane-crash-survivor-prosecutor (http://www.rgj.com/viewart/20140306/NEWS/303060030/Truckee-plane-crash-survivor-prosecutor)
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An open letter to photographers
https://www.picfair.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-photographers (https://www.picfair.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-photographers)
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In the first place it is about their sneaky acts. When you have an agreement it is normal to inform people before, giving them the possibility to went out or at least to opt out. There are laws for these things. Nobody could have seen this coming and nobody could protect him/herself from their acts. And when this turns out profitable for them, what will be the next step? This is not a stockagency anymore. It is owned by a Group that only wants short-term profit.
They have no right to give away what they not own.
Do you want to do your business harm using stolen images on your blog or website? Don’t think so…
No self respecting person will.
There will always be people stealing. But good is good and bad is bad, no matter what nice names you give it. Their given reasons are nonsense. You can try to legalise theft. This way stealing is no longer called stealing, but what world are we going to live in when such a thing happens?
But again: They have no right to give away what they not own.
It is ‘only’ about blog-sizes for now. But artists depending on GI/IS/the Carlyle Group for their main income should start a quick search for other opportunities from now on, before they awake one morning seeing not only blog-sized images but their whole busisness is given away for free.
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I'm still not happy about the personal use stuff but I think this has commercial potential beyond advertising revenue.
I have said we need a new Rights Managed licensing model. RF has given open rights with no possible recurring revenue and also has made it impossible to track proper licensing versus infringement thieves.
This could be the new-age RM for commercial usage. Getty could charge a usage fee so that commercial websites are renting an image for a specified period of time and specific use. This is essentially a subscription usage model like Adobe CC. You can use it as long as you're paying for it.
This brings recurring revenue back in the equation instead of now where with RF once they buy it once and use it however they want. Even with the "restrictions" in RF licensing, what buyer pays attention to it and who polices usage? Nobody. Now they pay as long as they use it.
It also should easily provide the ability to manage rights. Should be pretty easy to find infringements because imbeds would have very specific usage just like RM.
And usage premiums would be back. If a website buys a 400x600 imbed for one page they can't enlarge it to 1200x1600 and use it across 50 websites. If they want to use it across 50 websites then they pay extra for that usage.
This also brings urgency to renew and pay on time. Who wants a whole website of disabled images that say something like "Image is Disabled for Non-Payment to Getty" or whatever.
So, IF, this is what Getty has planned this may be a good move long term and this first personal use part is the publicity stunt to advertise the model to the mainstream.
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The problem is Getty itself not image thieves! You see with an account you could always get the low res size for free non-commercial use. Getty says "people keep stealing our images so we should just give them access anyway" Well how about a water mark on all sizes until you purchase? I know that is a truly unique idea but you would have had Getty advertising and more exposure if people used the watermarked images in their blogs. Second Getty has a outdated price structure and that is because that are so greedy! they could have easily done what ShutterStock has done years ago but instead they only focus on how to twist and turn different ways to make money on what they have vs finding new buyers and invest in decent web technology. Throwing up your hands and saying this doesn't work is a cop out. How can Stocksy make a profit so early if that is the case? How can ShutterStock continue to grow and find new buyers? This move by Getty is aimed to be a one two punch to ShutterStock. First give images away free to bloggers and all non-commercial web use, next make a sub. site like ShutterStock and drive buyers there for the rest of the low end market sales. All this is done at the expense of we the artist and Getty could care less. People that say this is good just like to be abused. I make a product, get model releases, scout locations in order to SELL my work.
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The picfair letter misses the entire point.
Getty is shifting their business model in a very drastic way. It is not about licensing images.
They are using high quality professionally produced images and handing them out for free to millions of unregistered users to build a data mining and advertising network on the back of our files.
And they don´t even have a plan how to really monetise that network, they admit that freely.
Getty right now is in the business of selling itself (again). In the next 6 - 12 months, maybe 18 months max.
They need to create buzz, they need to create a "story". That is why they also partnered with eyem.
The whatsapp deal (20 Billion dollars for a start up with 50 people) has made many people hot for easy dollars. Fair enough.
Data mining and Google adwords type revenue is the big thing in investing trends today. Like the internet bubble 10 years ago.
Somebody compared Carlyle and investors to selling business like they flip burgers and it is true. It doesn´t really matter what the company does. It just has to look attractive to the investor community.
Getty was last sold for 3.3 billion. But they haven´t been able to grow their revenue from licensing images. It is stuck at around 870 million (?) from the last report Carlyle published. They also have 1.6 billion in debt.
So how can the owners demand more money? How can they upsell?
By adding something modern, cool and trendy.
The embedded viewer, data mining and advertising prospects, plus eyem sounds like a very good mix.
Throwing out high quality images for free will of course get them spread out by the millions.
I wonder what profit they are shooting for? Can they sell Getty for 5 billion? 10 Billion?
Why would you care about licensing images if you can make a few BILLION dollars in the coming months from selling Getty?
And the deal only works because of the very high quality files they are throwing around, encouraging unregistered users to post them everywhere.
The competition can probably sue Getty for unfair business practises because the market with bloggers might be ruined by the free files. The other agencies cannot compete with free.
But a clever lawyer representing the artist should go for the billions of profits when Getty is sold and the data mining and advertising revenue.
The business model has been changed completely and the artist did not send the content to Getty so that they can make millions from "promotional use" without paying us.
Any kind of use of our files that makes money is revenue created by the images and should be shared according to the royalty percentage we signed up for.
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I have said we need a new Rights Managed licensing model. RF has given open rights with no possible recurring revenue and also has made it impossible to track proper licensing versus infringement thieves.
This could be the new-age RM for commercial usage. Getty could charge a usage fee so that commercial websites are renting an image for a specified period of time and specific use. This is essentially a subscription usage model like Adobe CC. You can use it as long as you're paying for it.
This brings recurring revenue back in the equation instead of now where with RF once they buy it once and use it however they want. Even with the "restrictions" in RF licensing, what buyer pays attention to it and who polices usage? Nobody. Now they pay as long as they use it.
It also should easily provide the ability to manage rights. Should be pretty easy to find infringements because imbeds would have very specific usage just like RM.
And usage premiums would be back. If a website buys a 400x600 imbed for one page they can't enlarge it to 1200x1600 and use it across 50 websites. If they want to use it across 50 websites then they pay extra for that usage.
Getty already does this. That's what rights-managed is. Or am I missing something?
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You guys don't get it.
Flooding blogs with embedded low res images with the photographer's name anche the image linking to Getty is free advertising which will ultimately lead to more SALES....
Oh we get it, all too well. See, this is an all-too-familiar sales pitch that graphic designers, photographers, and artists of all kinds hear frequently, even from big companies. It's that old "We can't pay you, but you'll get tons of exposure leading to future paid work," line.
Heard it all before, and it never works out.
That's why we don't need to wait and see how this works out. It's been done before, and it's basically a form of spec work. No pay up front and maybe you'll get paid down the road, with heavy emphasis on "maybe."
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^^ Reminds me of when I had a contact in the music press and a comment one of them got from a member of The Jam about his agent. Something like "Oh Yeah. I've got plenty of exposure. I'm famous. But my agent has got all the f**king money."
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this is on the front page of CNN right now-
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)
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Why everybody thinks that Getty giving our images for free?
They just changed the business model of licensing for themselves and building advertising network on the back of our files.
It is us who are going to get nothing, not a single cent from this new Getty business model.
Now they can bring back the canister level so everyone will get 50% from ZERO.
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SS is not scared because there's nothing to be scared from low res embedded images, designers will still need to buy full size images and so most of the other traditional clients, only random bloggers will eventually embed free images and these guys were certainly using stolen images before so they should not even considered "lost sales" or whatever.
Wow, do you know anything at all about blogging and the people that do it for a living? How about article writers for sites like HuffPost or About.com or similar sites? A huge chunk of my sales are from bloggers and if this is successful, then that could very well go away.
Photographers lose in this deal. Getty does not. I can't wait to hear how many click-through purchases vs. free use your images get, this time next year. Then we can see how sweet the Koolaid is then.
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But Peters said the feedback he's received from photographers is "largely positive."
"We have over 200,000 photographers whose work we represent on a global basis. In that world, not everyone's going to always agree with the things we do," he said. But he said he met with a group of photographers Wednesday night, "and they were incredibly excited about it."
I dont believe for one second their photographer were happy about this.
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But Peters said the feedback he's received from photographers is "largely positive."
"We have over 200,000 photographers whose work we represent on a global basis. In that world, not everyone's going to always agree with the things we do," he said. But he said he met with a group of photographers Wednesday night, "and they were incredibly excited about it."
I dont believe for one second their photographer were happy about this.
Depends on the "photographer"
There are thousands of amateurs out there who will be thrilled to see their name and images all over the web. They can google their name and get thousands of hits. They are with Getty! It´s FANTASTC!
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What makes me ill about all these articles promoting the Getty free images is that most people will stop reading after they see FREE and will not understand the limitations associated with these to begin with. A viewer is nice, but annoyed bloggers will change the ifram size to hide it or just save the image out. And as said before...policing this is going to be much harder than policing the other. Just one of many issues I have with this idea.
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The picfair letter misses the entire point.
Getty is shifting their business model in a very drastic way. It is not about licensing images.
They are using high quality professionally produced images and handing them out for free to millions of unregistered users to build a data mining and advertising network on the back of our files.
And they don´t even have a plan how to really monetise that network, they admit that freely.
Getty right now is in the business of selling itself (again). In the next 6 - 12 months, maybe 18 months max.
They need to create buzz, they need to create a "story". That is why they also partnered with eyem.
The whatsapp deal (20 Billion dollars for a start up with 50 people) has made many people hot for easy dollars. fair enough.
Data mining and Google adwords type revenue is the big thing in investing trends today. Like the internet bubble 10 years ago.
Somebody compared Carlyle and investors to selling business like they flip burgers and it is true. It doesn´t really matter what the company does. It just has to look attractive to the investor community.
Getty was last sold for 3.3 billion. But they haven´t been able to grow their revenue from licensing images. It is stuck at around 870 million (?) from the last report Carlyle published. They also have 1.6 billion in debt.
So how can the owners demand more money? How can they upsell?
By adding something modern, cool and trendy.
The embedded viewer, data mining and advertising prospects, plus eyem sounds like a very good mix.
Throwing out high quality images for free will of course get them spread out by the millions.
I wonder what profit they are shooting for? Can they sell Getty for 5 billion? 10 Billion?
Why would you care about licensing images if you can make a few BILLION dollars in the coming months from selling Getty?
And the deal only works because of the very high quality files they are throwing around, encouraging unregistered users to post them everywhere.
The competition can probably sue Getty for unfair business practises because the market with bloggers might be ruined by the free files. The other agencies cannot compete with free.
But a clever lawyer representing the artist should go for the billions of profits when Getty is sold and the data mining and advertising revenue.
The business model has been changed completely and the artist did not send the content to Getty so that they can make millions from "promotional use" without paying us.
Any kind of use of our files that makes money is revenue created by the images and should be shared according to the royalty percentage we signed up for.
This is exactly right.
Getty do not want to be in the business of selling images any more, they are now in the business of selling eyeballs, views, links and data. None of which translate into royalties for photographers, but will no doubt generate enough buzz to unload it onto the next owner before an eventual IPO once the hype is right.
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this is on the front page of CNN right now-
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3[/url] ([url]http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3[/url])
Love all the comments under the article. Backlash!
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Having now read the 350 plus posts on this subject, I think I can recap the key points:
1) Getty did this because it is good for Getty. They may have consulted some of their photographers - but since they have 200,000 contributor/photographers - the vast majority were never consulted.
2) The Carlyle Group owns Getty. They are a hedge fund company. They buy companies and they flip them - that's what they do. They aren't concerned about photos or photographers - they are concerned with how they can quickly resell a company and cash in on the sale.
3) Getty was getting undercut on small web sales by the dozens of microstock competitors. This move - although surely denied by any official spokesperson - is aimed at derailing or destroying those small competitors. Getty has the wherewithal to give away a portion of the business because it still has most of its business on the large commercial side - whereas the other guys thrive mostly off of small sales
4) The Getty contributors cannot opt out other than leave Getty. But even if they do, it requires 30 days notice and during that time Getty will give away all the images in their portfolio for free web usage.
5) The move by Getty has been applauded almost universally by the non-photography community and the word FREE and GETTY are now splashed all over the world.
6) We can complain, but Getty has all the complaint answers down to one basic premise: This is promotion and we are allowed to do that with the contracts you all signed
7) It is hard to ascertain the long term effects of this completely - but short term it will destroy the premise that using an image on the web is a copyright infringement for most websites and bloggers. And it surely will devalue the monetary value of imagery overall - at least to some extent.
8) Getty intends to sell ads and to capture data with this new FREE initiative. The intend to become a consolidator on content - like YouTube. That turns them into an internet "play" and we've all seen where anything that is an internet "play" seems to be getting sold for billions. The smart people at Carlyle have reinvented their company - and will cash out long before the bottom drops out of the commercial market.
Bottom line - probably a very good business move by Getty. Clever and crafty and very disruptive.
Probably a very bad outcome for those of us who sell our photos.
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On the wordpress bog the bloggers are all thrilled about this. To their credit a great many are saying they have avoided using pics off the net for fear of violating copyright and now they feel safe to use the Getty files. I tried to post a question asking how they would feel if WP created a tool that would let other bloggers embed their entire post in another blog with only attribution for compensation. It didn't get past the moderators so I guess they only want woo-yays there
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this is on the front page of CNN right now-
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3[/url] ([url]http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3[/url])
Love all the comments under the article. Backlash!
Some gems! I love the one that begins "Getty is legal organized crime..."
And there's a tale that if accurate shows them in a most unflattering light - Getty sent a demand letter for use of images that a thief had uploaded to Getty; even after the photographer won his lawsuit against Getty they haven't paid him:
"Getty is also one of the largest bringer of lawsuits against websites. Charging individuals or businesses with such that the images they're using may or may not be legal property of Getty. A client I did some photography work for wanted images for her site in 04. Since I designed the site, creating all the images and graphics for the site said images and graphics were intellectual property between the client and I. In 2009, Getty sent my company a letter threatening a lawsuit if we did not pay them for using said work. They said the images they were referring to were a client of theirs they were representing. After a year of legal roundabout we proved the work was ours. It seems someone had copied some of our work and presented it as their own. We sued Getty in late 09 and the lawsuit is still pending because of Getty refusing to pay up. Since they brought the original lawsuit they are liable for every single penny we spent fighting them. So in late early 2012 we sued Getty for theft of our work. For some odd reason they still had our work listed in their catalog. We won the lawsuit last year and Getty has yet to pay."
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An open letter to photographers
https://www.picfair.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-photographers (https://www.picfair.com/posts/an-open-letter-to-photographers)
Why does this get so many positive recs? It seems to be saying what a lot of the posts that get negative recs are saying:
The web is awash with news that Getty is giving away all of its images for free. Relax. It isn't. Your work has not suddenly become worthless.
This is what has changed: people who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to ... will continue not paying for Getty images.
Bloggers can now legally embed Getty image into their sites for non-commercial use. These images are a chunk of real estate that Getty can make money from at a later date.
It fails to consider that 1000s (10000s?) of bloggers who did pay for images no longer have to, as well as the possibility (yet unrealized) that editorial sites will switch to free images.
I think it's very short-sighted to believe that this changes nothing.
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"Getty is also one of the largest bringer of lawsuits against websites. Charging individuals or businesses with such that the images they're using may or may not be legal property of Getty. A client I did some photography work for wanted images for her site in 04. Since I designed the site, creating all the images and graphics for the site said images and graphics were intellectual property between the client and I. In 2009, Getty sent my company a letter threatening a lawsuit if we did not pay them for using said work. They said the images they were referring to were a client of theirs they were representing. After a year of legal roundabout we proved the work was ours. It seems someone had copied some of our work and presented it as their own. We sued Getty in late 09 and the lawsuit is still pending because of Getty refusing to pay up. Since they brought the original lawsuit they are liable for every single penny we spent fighting them. So in late early 2012 we sued Getty for theft of our work. For some odd reason they still had our work listed in their catalog. We won the lawsuit last year and Getty has yet to pay."
just insane, shameless thieves!
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hh good timing
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This is what has changed: people who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to ... will continue not paying for Getty images.
I love this quote. The inference is that all the people that will use this service, like bloggers, news orgs, non profits, etc. are all thieves and will steal regardless, so why bother fighting them.
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This is what has changed: people who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to ... will continue not paying for Getty images.
I love this quote. The inference is that all the people that will use this service, like bloggers, news orgs, non profits, etc. are all thieves and will steal regardless, so why bother fighting them.
oh please, shall we open SS doors as well?
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This is what has changed: people who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to ... will continue not paying for Getty images.
I love this quote. The inference is that all the people that will use this service, like bloggers, news orgs, non profits, etc. are all thieves and will steal regardless, so why bother fighting them.
oh please, shall we open SS doors as well?
Huh?
Seriously though, isn't that Getty's public premise behind this? People steal, therefore lets make it free? Ergo, the people using the service are the people that would otherwise steal it anyway.
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haven't you just said that bloggers are thieves anyway? so why not opening SS doors as well right?
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I recently got accepted and had 5 new images in review, at least I was able to delete them. I don't want my pictures given away for free.
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
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I'm not a Getty photographer, so maybe someone can explain this to me. What is the supposed legal basis for this move, that allows them to give away images and collect all the ad revenue without paying royalties? A previous poster said they're calling this "promotion". But how can that hold up, if they're making a profit from this service?
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I'm thinking they need to be more clear with this. Everyone seems to think the images are now free to use, but not many have read the limitations. They are not to host these images...just embed them, but most folks see FREE, I doubt Getty is ready to police this enough to have an effect. I'd be more okay with this if the image url was masked and they had something in the viewer that distorted or removed to image when taking a screen capture...I'm not sure how possible that is, but I have seem something similar with video. In the end there are still going to folks that steal the images...I find it hard to just dismiss them and say they weren't going to buy anyway...doesn't mean they should be allowed to steal freely.
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I'm not a Getty photographer, so maybe someone can explain this to me. What is the supposed legal basis for this move, that allows them to give away images and collect all the ad revenue without paying royalties? A previous poster said they're calling this "promotion". But how can that hold up, if they're making a profit from this service?
Has it been said anywhere that they will collect ad revenues and not pay anything? I assume it would be like the Connect program where it pays very little, but something.
So if they pay you one cent a month they're covered? I'm not sure that would fly either... but who knows.
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This is what has changed: people who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to ... will continue not paying for Getty images.
I love this quote. The inference is that all the people that will use this service, like bloggers, news orgs, non profits, etc. are all thieves and will steal regardless, so why bother fighting them.
At least when you are a thief you have the underlying fear that you will one day be caught. This deal will be like going to confession for them! What a load off!
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
Really? Source please.
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The potential is there to mine data, place ads and collect ad revenue. The minute they place ads I feel most folks would stop using it. The data mining is probably the thing and the bad thing for us is they themselves will use our images freely to profit from them. Not ethical in the least, but also not something that is transparent and easy to prove...this is all conjecture, but as I said the potential is there and I am sure Getty has discussed such possibilities internally.
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The potential is there to mine data, place ads and collect ad revenue....
Of course, with 20 million new signups, presumably freebie hunters who will never convert to a real sale, when Carlyle hangs out the For Sale shingle, the can add to the bottom "over 50 million customers".
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
I don't think anyone assumes that. In fact if this does what it is intended to do, SS and others may have no choice. It's one of many points of contributor backlash.
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
Killing microstock.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/2hydy0o.jpg)
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
why would they? have you seen the latest report? they don't need to try something new like the desperate GI, do you think that SS investors would be happy to know that SS collection was now free for non-commercial purposes? I really don't...
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
This isn't about SS stop blaming SS for everything and doing your what ifs. This is about Getty right now.
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
why would they? have you seen the latest report? they don't need to try something new like the desperate GI, do you think that SS investors would be happy to know that SS collection was now free for non-commercial purposes? I really don't...
THis is just my guess, of course. And it wouldn't be every investor. But I've worked in technology companies - and the day a big competitor announces something new, the execs' phones start ringing. Some investors - often the biggest, most agressive ones - will demand to know why this enormous untapped revenue stream has been left to a competitor. In other words, some investors will drink the Kool-Aid and the result is conflict within management. As Getty manages to create positive buzz around the new "product", the pressure will become harder to resist.
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I am not saying SS I am saying all the collections on Getty! Seems they still want to sell some images. I think this is aimed at trying to destroy SS.
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Jon will tell the shareholder to stop smoking whatever he is on, because when they give images away for free, there is no dividend to pay the man, and his 100$ shares could be used as toilet paper.
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this is on the front page of CNN right now-
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3[/url] ([url]http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/tech/social-media/getty-free-pictures/index.html?hpt=hp_t3[/url])
If CNN is using those images for free, then it is violating the terms of the agreement because the Getty logo and links have been hidden.
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Well I guess I've accumulated enough minuses for one day. :-)
SS is obviously in a strong position right now and management can resist a lot of craziness. But IMHO it's naive to think of SS as the good guys and Getty as the bad guys. In publicaly held companies there are no white hats or black hats. If this deal brings in money, it will attract competition.
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This is what has changed: people who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to ... will continue not paying for Getty images.
I love this quote. The inference is that all the people that will use this service, like bloggers, news orgs, non profits, etc. are all thieves and will steal regardless, so why bother fighting them.
That may be what you infer; it's not what I take out of it.
What I take out of it is "people who don't currently purchase Getty images (nothing at all about thieves) will not be enticed to buy them now, and indeed they have free access to the entire library".
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I asked Getty public relations a couple questions. They supplied me with the following answer that can be attributed to Getty Images.
1 – Are customers able to embed images that are on iStock and Thinkstock?
“Right now the embed feature is only for images on gettyimages.com. It is not on the company’s master delegate sites. It is not on iStock or Thinkstock. Getty Images will see how it resonates and then make decisions about iStock and Thinkstock.”
Of course the iStock images that are on gettyimages.com are available for embedding including Yuri’s image
2 – I asked, if a contributor’s image is downloaded using the embed tool will the contributor be informed of the image number that was downloaded and hopefully of the site where the image will be found (Getty will capture that information).
“At launch, we will not be sharing information of this manner with contributors, but we will explore data sharing options in the future. If and when we earn revenue associated with an embedded image (e.g., ads placed in the embedded viewer), we will report that revenue to contributors through existing royalty reports.”
Last August Getty partnered with Stipple.com. Stipple embeds ads and other kinds of information in images. You can learn more about it by going to www.Stipple.com (http://www.Stipple.com).
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
why would they? have you seen the latest report? they don't need to try something new like the desperate GI, do you think that SS investors would be happy to know that SS collection was now free for non-commercial purposes? I really don't...
THis is just my guess, of course.
Now you tell us!
How 'bout getting your fact straight before you make flat-out statements like "right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors..."
If you don't know something is true, don't state it as if you know it's true.
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But IMHO it's naive to think of SS as the good guys and Getty as the bad guys. In publicaly held companies there are no white hats or black hats. If this deal brings in money, it will attract competition.
which agency have been screwing things one after another? it that SS? they aren't paying you 70% royalties that is right but other are? they are in fact paying you almost the double comparing to iStock
how do you dare saying something like that? at this moment SS is light years from GI/iStock or any other, like it or not you need to get down on earth and see what agency is indeed paying you off and making it worthwhile, its about money on your pocket and giving your pictures for free won't make you collect much...
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
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But IMHO it's naive to think of SS as the good guys and Getty as the bad guys. In publicaly held companies there are no white hats or black hats. If this deal brings in money, it will attract competition.
which agency have been screwing things one after another? it that SS? they aren't paying you 70% royalties that is right but other are? they are in fact paying you almost the double comparing to iStock
how do you dare saying something like that? at this moment SS is light years from GI/iStock or any other, like it or not you need to get down on earth and see what agency is indeed paying you off and making it worthwhile, its about money on your pocket and giving your pictures for free won't make you collect much...
I imagine a few years ago, people were saying all sorts of great stuff about IS - how they're taking on the big boys, they're all for the contributors, they'll never sell us out. Things change.
I don't hate SS . They're just a corporation like any other. In the end, they'll do what makes money.
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
Seems we've all been overreacting, it's no big deal and shouldn't affect the industry at all.
That's a possible outcome too.
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If this is such a swell idea then lets open ALL the collections on Getty! This is a PR stunt aimed at killing ShutterStock.
People seem to be assuming that SS would never do anything like this. But right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors, asking "why aren't we in this market?" and demanding that SS announce something similar before it's too late. Which I believe they will.
why would they? have you seen the latest report? they don't need to try something new like the desperate GI, do you think that SS investors would be happy to know that SS collection was now free for non-commercial purposes? I really don't...
THis is just my guess, of course.
Now you tell us!
How 'bout getting your fact straight before you make flat-out statements like "right now, SS management is getting calls from angry investors..."
If you don't know something is true, don't state it as if you know it's true.
I think it should have been obvious that I wasn't claiming to have hacked Jon Oringer's phone. But in the future I'll be sure to include "IMHO" in any speculations.
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
Seems we've all been overreacting, it's no big deal and shouldn't affect the industry at all.
guess we will need to wait a see, 35 Million free files is indeed a lot, saying that only 0.1% are non-commercial buyers seems quite low as well, he wouldn't say that this is a major concern too
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
Seems we've all been overreacting, it's no big deal and shouldn't affect the industry at all.
guess we will need to wait a see, 35 Million free files is indeed a lot, saying that only 0.1% are non-commercial buyers seems quite low as well, he wouldn't say that this is a major concern too
True, if Jon said this would kill Shutterstock, he could start using his shares as toilet paper as well ;)
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
Seems we've all been overreacting, it's no big deal and shouldn't affect the industry at all.
guess we will need to wait a see, 35 Million free files is indeed a lot, saying that only 0.1% are non-commercial buyers seems quite low as well, he wouldn't say that this is a major concern too
True, if Jon said this would kill Shutterstock, he could start using his shares as toilet paper as well ;)
Right. I'm pretty sure he sees Getty's plan as junk, but he's nevertheless forced to respond to it - and he'll have to answer the same questions at the next shareholders' meeting.
In the long run, the money Getty makes (or doesn't) from this may not matter. What matters is the huge perceived devaluation of stock imagery, and IMHO that's a disaster which is not recoverable.
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I asked Getty public relations a couple questions. They supplied me with the following answer that can be attributed to Getty Images.
1 – Are customers able to embed images that are on iStock and Thinkstock?
“Right now the embed feature is only for images on gettyimages.com. It is not on the company’s master delegate sites. It is not on iStock or Thinkstock. Getty Images will see how it resonates and then make decisions about iStock and Thinkstock.”
Of course the iStock images that are on gettyimages.com are available for embedding including Yuri’s image
The moment they allow embedding on my non-exclusive iStock portfolio (over 9000 images) I'll be gone from there. I will not be giving away for free images that I sell on other sites, this would be complete insanity. Whoever is in charge of decisions like that please take note.
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
Seems we've all been overreacting, it's no big deal and shouldn't affect the industry at all.
guess we will need to wait a see, 35 Million free files is indeed a lot, saying that only 0.1% are non-commercial buyers seems quite low as well, he wouldn't say that this is a major concern too
True, if Jon said this would kill Shutterstock, he could start using his shares as toilet paper as well ;)
Right. I'm pretty sure he sees Getty's plan as junk, but he's nevertheless forced to respond to it - and he'll have to answer the same questions at the next shareholders' meeting.
In the long run, the money Getty makes (or doesn't) from this may not matter. What matters is the huge perceived devaluation of stock imagery, and IMHO that's a disaster which is not recoverable.
I agree with that
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http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/ideas-and-small-talk/stock-photographers-are-prisoners/ (http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/ideas-and-small-talk/stock-photographers-are-prisoners/)
well written
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Looks like Vetta vectors are up for grabs, too:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/#comment-1275000962 (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/#comment-1275000962)
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I see a Vetta illustration embedded under point #4 in the article.
This one: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/social-media-gathering-royalty-free-illustration/467771121?suri=1 (http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/social-media-gathering-royalty-free-illustration/467771121?suri=1)
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I'm simply making the point that photographers' images are not the only ones being given away...illustrators' are, too.
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I see a Vetta illustration embedded under point #4 in the article.
This one: [url]http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/social-media-gathering-royalty-free-illustration/467771121?suri=1[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/social-media-gathering-royalty-free-illustration/467771121?suri=1[/url])
The vector isn't available though, it's an image of a vector.
It's pretty big though and wouldn't be that hard to autotrace. If I were motivated I could reproduce that image about 10 minutes. Kind of negates the whole need for the vector file at all. And on top of it people think it is OK because the image is free.
ETA: I was speaking of the thief in the car illustration. The detailed one would obviously be more difficult to recreate.
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Please let me explain and summarize:
(http://s5.postimg.org/3p4vkwesn/getty_free_images_trojan_horse_600.jpg)
Thank You!
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The moment they allow embedding on my non-exclusive iStock portfolio (over 9000 images) I'll be gone from there. I will not be giving away for free images that I sell on other sites, this would be complete insanity. Whoever is in charge of decisions like that please take note.
Then let's hope that free embedding remains an exclusive "privilege"
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I'm simply making the point that photographers' images are not the only ones being given away...illustrators' are, too.
Ok but those are different things. A vector being given away implies that the entire full sized image is being given away with layers etc.. That's not what this is.
I sell jpgs of my vectors on Shutterstock. I'd be awfully POed to see them being given away by Getty.
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Ok but those are different things. A vector being given away implies that the entire full sized image is being given away with layers etc.. That's not what this is.
Is a JPG of a vector any less valuable than a JPG photo?
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I see a Vetta illustration embedded under point #4 in the article.
This one: [url]http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/social-media-gathering-royalty-free-illustration/467771121?suri=1[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/social-media-gathering-royalty-free-illustration/467771121?suri=1[/url])
The vector isn't available though, it's an image of a vector.
It's pretty big though and wouldn't be that hard to autotrace. If I were motivated I could reproduce that image about 10 minutes. Kind of negates the whole need for the vector file at all. And on top of it people think it is OK because the image is free.
Getty did give unwatermarked comp images away before and is it difficult to use autotrace on watermarked images?
Perhaps... but I wouldn't even need to autotrace that image to recreate it. And now I am under the misinterpretation that it is OK because the image was free. Why should they care if I vectorize it? I mean its free right?
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If I was a Vetta contributor I'd be steaming mad right now.
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Ok but those are different things. A vector being given away implies that the entire full sized image is being given away with layers etc.. That's not what this is.
Is a JPG of a vector any less valuable than a JPG photo?
A JPG of a vector is less valuable than a vector of a vector and a JPG of a photo can be less valuable than a RAW of a photo. Sorry I'm not sure I get your point. Someone said vectors were being given away, they aren't that is all I was saying.
If your argument made any sense at all, Getty would never watermark vectors.
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If I was a Vetta contributor I'd be steaming mad right now.
If Jon says it's no big deal then I'm cool with it.
Jon?
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Jon?
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Anyone halfway adept at illustrator can do this. The issue up until now is that it was considered theft and everyone knew it. Getty just made it seem OK to redraw this artists image and use it in vector format. Of course it is still theft but now most people won't realize it. This free message they are sending is very concerning.
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Jon?
Oringer.
He works at Getty now?
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Anyone halfway adept at illustrator can do this. The issue up until now is that it was considered theft and everyone knew it. Getty just made it seem OK to redraw this artists image and use it in vector format. Of course it is still theft but now most people won't realize it. This free message they are sending is very concerning.
I don't disagree with that, hopefully they spend some time educating people. I don't think they want people taking the images from their embed player either, that defeats the purpose.
Not if the purpose is to track that and then send letters demanding payment.
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Jon?
Oringer.
He works at Getty now?
I don't think so but maybe that's where the subs idea came from? This is what I was talking about: [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
I just wanted you to admit you were dragging Oringer into a discussion about Getty giving away images free, which he wasn't involved with in any way. If you're that obsessed with Shutterstock why don't you just upload there already? Sheesh.
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Jon?
Oringer.
He works at Getty now?
I don't think so but maybe that's where the subs idea came from? This is what I was talking about: [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
I just wanted you to admit you were dragging Oringer into a discussion about Getty giving away images free, which he wasn't involved with in any way. If you're that obsessed with Shutterstock why don't you just upload there already? Sheesh.
I'd say SS's official response to this deal is very relevant to the discussion. As is their unofficial, behind-the-scenes response, to the extent we want to speculate on it.
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I took a look on GettyImages to get an idea of which third of their images they're allowing users to embed (35 million of about 105 million was what one article stated).
It now seems to me that being embeddable means Getty considers you the "low rent district" - if you look at the hover previews for an image you will see the </> icon at the end of the row for images that are embeddable, so you can quickly scan results to see what is.
Having noticed that things like National Geographic were excluded and Flickr included, I started with their Collections page
http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection (http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection)
And saw that huge chunks of the creative stuff is not embeddable - Rubber Ball, Digital Vision, Tetra, Images Bazaar, Dorling Kindersley, Yuri Arcurs, Blend Images, Ingram,
But Vetta, E+, Flickr are embeddable. Photodisc is interesting in that only a portion are embeddable and it appears that the search (not for a term but browsing the collection) puts all the embeddable images up front - half way through page 4 the images are no longer embeddable (I only spot checked a few pages after that, so there could be something I missed)
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=image&family=creative&contractUrl=1&b=PDI#4 (http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=image&family=creative&contractUrl=1&b=PDI#4)
My assumption is that they're only taking a risk (offering for free) with things they don't value very much anyway...
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A JPG of a vector is less valuable than a vector of a vector and a JPG of a photo can be less valuable than a RAW of a photo. Sorry I'm not sure I get your point. Someone said vectors were being given away, they aren't that is all I was saying.
It's ok, I don't get your point either.
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A JPG of a vector is less valuable than a vector of a vector and a JPG of a photo can be less valuable than a RAW of a photo. Sorry I'm not sure I get your point. Someone said vectors were being given away, they aren't that is all I was saying.
It's ok, I don't get your point either.
The point was that someone said they were giving away vectors and they aren't. You cannot get the vector. That's all, very simple.
Obviously we all know the embedded player doesn't distribute actual vectors. The OP was saying that the previously sacred cow of the 'vector created illustration' is now included. I know you're playing obtuse to make some sort of point, but let it go.
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That is very interesting Jo Ann.
Vetta, E+ and Flickr.
The files from the "low level crowd source amateurs"....the real content from professional artists like Yuri are of course too valuable to be degraded with free embedding.
In case there is anyone left at istock with illusions where their place is in the Getty Foodchain.
They must be laughing themselves silly about the naive istock exclusives and Flickr artists.
But hey, it's crowd sourced! These guys love exposure, right?
This is all so exciting!!!
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Fun fact:
5 years ago in an office job I was hoping one day I'd become professional photographer selling on Getty.
Now I am professional photographer hoping Getty won't ever touch any of my images.
;D
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The point was that someone said they were giving away vectors and they aren't. You cannot get the vector. That's all, very simple.
No one thought you could actually get vector format files. The discussion was about the image type, pointing put that not just photos are part of this. What I didn't get is why it matters what the file format is. Images are being given away. Format is irrelevant. JPGs of vectors are equally valuable to some buyers, if not more valuable. That's why I get a lot of JPG sales, to some people that format is better for them.
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I asked Getty public relations a couple questions. They supplied me with the following answer that can be attributed to Getty Images.
1 – Are customers able to embed images that are on iStock and Thinkstock?
“Right now the embed feature is only for images on gettyimages.com. It is not on the company’s master delegate sites. It is not on iStock or Thinkstock. Getty Images will see how it resonates and then make decisions about iStock and Thinkstock.”
Of course the iStock images that are on gettyimages.com are available for embedding including Yuri’s image
The moment they allow embedding on my non-exclusive iStock portfolio (over 9000 images) I'll be gone from there. I will not be giving away for free images that I sell on other sites, this would be complete insanity. Whoever is in charge of decisions like that please take note.
I'll also immediately leave. I don't give my images away for free.
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What happens when the image is no longer available on Getty? Will the embedded image become an empty space?
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I took a look on GettyImages to get an idea of which third of their images they're allowing users to embed (35 million of about 105 million was what one article stated).
It now seems to me that being embeddable means Getty considers you the "low rent district" - if you look at the hover previews for an image you will see the </> icon at the end of the row for images that are embeddable, so you can quickly scan results to see what is.
Having noticed that things like National Geographic were excluded and Flickr included, I started with their Collections page
[url]http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection[/url])
And saw that huge chunks of the creative stuff is not embeddable - Rubber Ball, Digital Vision, Tetra, Images Bazaar, Dorling Kindersley, Yuri Arcurs, Blend Images, Ingram,
But Vetta, E+, Flickr are embeddable. Photodisc is interesting in that only a portion are embeddable and it appears that the search (not for a term but browsing the collection) puts all the embeddable images up front - half way through page 4 the images are no longer embeddable (I only spot checked a few pages after that, so there could be something I missed)
[url]http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=image&family=creative&contractUrl=1&b=PDI#4[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=image&family=creative&contractUrl=1&b=PDI#4[/url])
My assumption is that they're only taking a risk (offering for free) with things they don't value very much anyway...
Some of Yuri's stuff was embeddable yesterday.
Also in re earlier posts,
"What content is included?
Comp-sized creative and editorial stills files on gettyimages.com (excluding certain restricted collections such as Premium Archive, Contour and Reportage) are available for embed, as well as exclusive iStock photos and vectors on gettyimages.com." Which must include Vetta.
Does Yuri also submit to Getty outwith iStock?
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Finally Getty discovered SEO.................... ::) ;)
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Hi Petr,
We’d like to invite you to our private beta launch of 500px Prime—royalty-free licenses for premium photos.
You know 500px as a community of 37 million breathtaking photos created by over 3 million photographers in 200 countries.
Today we’re making a collection of these photos available for commercial licensing. In a world of diminishing profits for photographers our revolutionary 70% royalty plan is sure to make waves, but from a buyer’s perspective here’s what’s even more exciting:
Exclusive content – Over 75% of our collection has never been published.
Simple buying – One option covers it all. For $250 per photo you get the highest resolution and it’s always royalty-free with a worldwide, any-media usage license. No expiries or seat limits. That means unlimited print and digital impressions forever.
Audience insights – We collect billions of consumer signals each month and give you in-depth audience metrics to ensure your photo choices are the best ones for your needs.
Can’t find the perfect photo? Email your brief to [email protected] and we’ll reach out to our photographers on your behalf. Or call our researchers at 1.855.561.4584 x105 and they can handpick a custom selection for you.
Please visit [url]http://prime.500px.com[/url] ([url]http://prime.500px.com[/url])
hh good timing
Full disclosure - I'm one of the photographers in this beta test with 500px.com - and everything I've seen so far makes me think that this particular start up still is keeping the photographer's interests in mind. Paying out 70% to photographers with commercial licenses starting at $250 seems like a bold move.
Will it work? Who knows. But I know that my portfolio is moving from Getty to 500px. Sure - its only 1000 photos or so, but I'd rather sell 10 photos a year for a decent price then allow all of my work to be devalued to zero.
And if that doesn't work - well then I'll give them away for free - but then I'll get the credit and I won't help the millionaires at Carlyle become billionaires.
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I got that email as well today, but couldn't see how to upload files to the 250 dollar market. Just an area were files cost 2,99?
Maybe we can talk more about this in the 500px thread? I am not sure I understand their system.
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Does Yuri also submit to Getty outwith iStock?
http://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?artist=Yuri+Arcurs&family=Creative (http://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?artist=Yuri+Arcurs&family=Creative)
I really don't know all the ways Yuri got into bed with Getty :) I found one image of his via a google search and then clicked on his name on Getty which produced the above. I don't see any embeddable there. Those are $20 - $609, slightly "cheaper" than Vetta which is $25-$699
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Photographer's blog post about the Getty deal (warning, foul language ;)):
http://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/im-a-photographer-getty-me-out-of-here/ (http://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/im-a-photographer-getty-me-out-of-here/)
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[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
Love it. Great response.
Seems we've all been overreacting, it's no big deal and shouldn't affect the industry at all.
guess we will need to wait a see, 35 Million free files is indeed a lot, saying that only 0.1% are non-commercial buyers seems quite low as well, he wouldn't say that this is a major concern too
True, if Jon said this would kill Shutterstock, he could start using his shares as toilet paper as well ;)
Right. I'm pretty sure he sees Getty's plan as junk, but he's nevertheless forced to respond to it - and he'll have to answer the same questions at the next shareholders' meeting.
In the long run, the money Getty makes (or doesn't) from this may not matter. What matters is the huge perceived devaluation of stock imagery, and IMHO that's a disaster which is not recoverable.
Agreed and you can be guaranteed that they will not give Jon the passes that contributors do. The SSTK is already receiving sell ratings.
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Photographer's blog post about the Getty deal (warning, foul language ;)):
[url]http://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/im-a-photographer-getty-me-out-of-here/[/url] ([url]http://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/im-a-photographer-getty-me-out-of-here/[/url])
Nice article, loved the foul language! ;D
I am not a SEO specialist, but if a gazillion sites embed links back to Getty wouldn't that propel them right to the top of search results? That would be a very tangible benefit for them.
And I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet, but for photographers having their images plastered all over web - wouldn't that reduce the sellability of the image instead of increasing it? Just one more point on "how Getty screws photographers" list...
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Photographer's blog post about the Getty deal (warning, foul language ;)):
[url]http://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/im-a-photographer-getty-me-out-of-here/[/url] ([url]http://paulclarke.com/photography/blog/im-a-photographer-getty-me-out-of-here/[/url])
Nice article, loved the foul language! ;D
I am not a SEO specialist, but if a gazillion sites embed links back to Getty wouldn't that propel them right to the top of search results? That would be a very tangible benefit for them.
And I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet, but for photographers having their images plastered all over web - wouldn't that reduce the sellability of the image instead of increasing it? Just one more point on "how Getty screws photographers" list...
If Google feels that a site has too many links boosting it's SEO unfairly they can always hammer it down, which could happen. Or maybe Getty will only show up for the people searching for free images.
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the stock industry is becoming like prostitution in germany .. in some FKK clubs now they have "flat rates" and "all you can F kk" promotions, along with rock bottom cheap women working inside RVs and roulottes for as low as 10-20 euros.
due to the prices falling down i've read many girls moved to greener pastures as they felt germany is no more a place for easy money.
my feeling ? all this getty bashing is totally overboard, we should better be concerned about oversupply and oversaturation instead, serious buyers will still pay decent prices, bloggers and scroungers shouldn't even be expected to be near our core business and if you do i'm sorry for you guys, you've put yourself in a very risky business where you'll fight to survive among iphone snaps, flickers, embedded images, and who knows what's next.
i mean if getty decided your images are worth nothing who am i to say otherwise, and most of that ancient Photodisc cr-ap should be thrown to the dogs anyway, it's 2014 for f ks sake ...
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Getty is a pimp no doub :)...I guess that makes us the prostotutes :o
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the stock industry is becoming like prostitution in germany .. in some FKK clubs now they have "flat rates" and "all you can F kk" promotions, along with rock bottom cheap women working inside RVs and roulottes for as low as 10-20 euros.
due to the prices falling down i've read many girls moved to greener pastures as they felt germany is no more a place for easy money.
my feeling ? all this getty bashing is totally overboard, we should better be concerned about oversupply and oversaturation instead, serious buyers will still pay decent prices, bloggers and scroungers shouldn't even be expected to be near our core business and if you do i'm sorry for you guys, you've put yourself in a very risky business where you'll fight to survive among iphone snaps, flickers, embedded images, and who knows what's next.
i mean if getty decided your images are worth nothing who am i to say otherwise, and most of that ancient Photodisc cr-ap should be thrown to the dogs anyway, it's 2014 for f ks sake ...
"If Getty decided your images are worth nothing".
Ahh.....that's the exact thing we're all upset about. Getty does not have the right to say our images are "worthless". Only the copyright owner could make such a statement. If you want to say it about your own work - you sure can do so. But Getty doesn't have the right to do so.
Getty is a broker. They offer representation for 80% of the take of an image's sale. We are suppliers/contributors or perhaps just simply fools to be in bed with them.
But NEVER did they say they would give away our total image library for free. That's why they keep referring to this as "promotional use". Every one of their spokespeople keep using those exact words. Why? Because they know that VERY FEW photographers would agree to this massive online use giveaway.
It sounds like you are a big Getty fan. I get that. You have a different viewpoint than the majority of us here, it appears. I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is the devaluation of millions of images overnight and the Getty = FREE online campaign.
I'm pulling my stuff and you're obviously staying with them. Its a gamble either way. But at least I won't have to find my stuff for free with Getty's name all over it - and with Getty ads in much larger visibility than my credit line.
Choices. We all have them. I don't fault yours. Why fault others who have a contrarian viewpoint?
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http://tinyurl.com/lyg5cod (http://tinyurl.com/lyg5cod)
Snip
Form 8-K for SHUTTERSTOCK, INC.
5-Mar-2014
Other Events
Item 8.01 Other Events.
Each of the following executive officers of Shutterstock, Inc. (the "Company") have informed the Company that, as of February 28, 2014, he entered into a pre-arranged stock trading plan to sell shares of the Company's Common Stock:
Thilo Semmelbauer (President and Chief Operating Officer), Timothy E. Bixby (Chief Financial Officer) and James Chou (Chief Technology Officer). Their trading plans are designed to comply with Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Mr. Semmelbauer further advised the Company that his plan provides for selling up to 60,000 shares (subject to, among other things, the volume limitations imposed by applicable securities regulations), which represents approximately 15% of his current holdings of the Company's Common Stock.
Mr. Bixby further advised the Company that his plan provides for selling up to 60,000 shares (subject to, among other things, the volume limitations imposed by applicable securities regulations), which represents approximately 20% of his current holdings of the Company's Common Stock and options to purchase Common Stock.
Mr. Chou further advised the Company that his plan provides for selling up to 19,750 shares (subject to, among other things, the volume limitations imposed by applicable securities regulations), which represents approximately 14% of his current holdings of the Company's Common Stock and options to purchase Common Stock.
Each of the trading plans provides for sales of specified share amounts at specified market prices, subject to certain limitations. Sales pursuant to the trading plans are expected to begin as early as May 1, 2014 and will end no later than July 31, 2015. The trading plans may terminate sooner in accordance with their terms.
Each of Messrs. Semmelbauer, Bixby and Chou have informed the Company that their sale of shares is being done for asset diversification, tax and estate planning, and charitable giving purposes.
In accordance with Rule 10b5-1, officers and directors of a public company may adopt a plan for selling stock of the public company. The plan may be entered into only when the officer or director is not in possession of material, non-public information about the company. The stock transactions under this plan will be disclosed publicly through Form 144 and Form 4 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as may be required by law, the Company does not undertake to report on specific Rule 10b5-1 pre-arranged stock trading plans of Company officers, nor to report modifications or terminations of the aforementioned 10b5-1 Plans or the plan of any other individua
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Please let me explain and summarize:
([url]http://s5.postimg.org/3p4vkwesn/getty_free_images_trojan_horse_600.jpg[/url])
Thank You!
Good but got lost in the debate from dumb tickpicking. When people let the Getty past the gate they let the invasion into their web page. Next ads or blank pictures, Getty owns your web site.
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If you wanted exhibit A on horribly sloppy reporting and a fundamental misunderstanding of what they were reporting on, you'd go for this from The Street:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/12520021/shutterstock-shares-up-as-getty-images-focuses-on-digital.html (http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/12520021/shutterstock-shares-up-as-getty-images-focuses-on-digital.html)
The reporter clearly says, after noting that Getty owns iStock, that iStock is for free images but they are of lower quality. I'm not sure what the early reference to Shutterstock offering free images is about either - they do have a freebie a week, (or is it a month?) but that's it.
Possibly she made the mistake so many do - hearing "royalty free" and thinking "free"...
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A troll on one of the blogs I've commented on told me I should get my own website. I said .... yes, I agree... have you heard of symbiostock.com ?
Shoot, if Leo had some templates and whatnot to sell this event could have been a big turning point for him. We could comment like crazy and promote symbiostock for him, but..... not sure I am supposed to mention symbiostock any more?
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Possibly she made the mistake so many do - hearing "royalty free" and thinking "free"...
Exactly. We need to eradicate every reference to "free" when speaking or writing about our images.
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Possibly she made the mistake so many do - hearing "royalty free" and thinking "free"...
Exactly. We need to eradicate every reference to "free" when speaking or writing about our images.
We can lock that barn door, but the horse is already in the next county.
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Possibly she made the mistake so many do - hearing "royalty free" and thinking "free"...
Exactly. We need to eradicate every reference to "free" when speaking or writing about our images.
We can lock that barn door, but the horse is already in the next county.
Not on our own websites.
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Choices. We all have them. I don't fault yours. Why fault others who have a contrarian viewpoint?
All i'm saying is that many of you guys are over reacting, Getty is just offering embedded images, it doesn't mean webmasters will be able to use them as they please (making thumbnails, removing credits, etc etc), actually it's a way to get free advertising for getty and brand awareness and eventually make some sales too.
As for educating the spongers, once they click for the 100th time on an image and they're served with a getty page where the image is on sale for a hefty price then maybe they will finally learn once and for all that good photos are not free and can not be stolen for fun and profit as they did so far with impunity.
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"If Getty decided your images are worth nothing".
Ahh.....that's the exact thing we're all upset about. Getty does not have the right to say our images are "worthless". Only the copyright owner could make such a statement. If you want to say it about your own work - you sure can do so. But Getty doesn't have the right to do so.
Getty is a broker. They offer representation for 80% of the take of an image's sale. We are suppliers/contributors or perhaps just simply fools to be in bed with them.
And what if Getty is right ?
Seriously, agencies owe us nothing, even more nowadays when good images are dime a dozen.
If our photos were so valuable they would sell for 500$ a pop like hotcakes but guess what it's not gonna happen anytime soon and agencies are struggling to make sales even for less than 5$/download.
This is the reality guys, the money is just not there anymore.
Good money will come from us seeking buyers and making private deals, for prints, for assignments, for posters, reproductions, whatever but not traditional stock no matter if RF or RM.
I would love the industry going back to expensive RM-only licencing but i'm forced to have a realistic look on the industry, clients are still OK paying good money for assignments but can't see much value in stock anymore.
Microstock finally managed to kill stock altogether and now there's no going back.
I guess many suppliers will leave in droves but the numbers are telling otherwise.
And it's going to get a lot worse than that .. i expect the many Instagram, Flickr, and similar sites to start selling anything they can for a few cents desperately trying to monetize their user generated content, totally disregarding legal rights and copyrights exactly as google did in the last 15 yrs.
It's photographers who are devalueing their images in the moment they put them for sale on the internet and with RF licence to top if off.
The only exit is traditional photography that means dirtying our hands meeting buyers face to face, shooting on assignment, selling them prints and getting the money in our hands.
Either that or you can forget about doing this job for long unless you're a stock factory with dozens of photographers working full time for a pittance in some third world country.
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Getty is a pimp no doub :)...I guess that makes us the prostotutes :o
It's very very unfair for us, but stock agencies setting the bar so low will ultimately kill their own golden goose because they can't expect any serious photographer to sustain the production costs involved and earn a pittance for too long.
They will be flooded by an ocean of cheap images but no one will supply expensive stuff, and buyers in need of expensive will be forced to either pay the right price or to hire somebody on assignment.
So ironically this global devalueing of stock could make us a favour in the long run because it will polarize the market in two well defined price segments.
Pay peanuts, get monkeys !
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The picfair letter misses the entire point.
Getty is shifting their business model in a very drastic way. It is not about licensing images.
They are using high quality professionally produced images and handing them out for free to millions of unregistered users to build a data mining and advertising network on the back of our files.
And they don´t even have a plan how to really monetise that network, they admit that freely.
Getty right now is in the business of selling itself (again). In the next 6 - 12 months, maybe 18 months max.
They need to create buzz, they need to create a "story". That is why they also partnered with eyem.
The whatsapp deal (20 Billion dollars for a start up with 50 people) has made many people hot for easy dollars. Fair enough.
Data mining and Google adwords type revenue is the big thing in investing trends today. Like the internet bubble 10 years ago.
Somebody compared Carlyle and investors to selling business like they flip burgers and it is true. It doesn´t really matter what the company does. It just has to look attractive to the investor community.
Getty was last sold for 3.3 billion. But they haven´t been able to grow their revenue from licensing images. It is stuck at around 870 million (?) from the last report Carlyle published. They also have 1.6 billion in debt.
So how can the owners demand more money? How can they upsell?
By adding something modern, cool and trendy.
The embedded viewer, data mining and advertising prospects, plus eyem sounds like a very good mix.
Throwing out high quality images for free will of course get them spread out by the millions.
I wonder what profit they are shooting for? Can they sell Getty for 5 billion? 10 Billion?
Why would you care about licensing images if you can make a few BILLION dollars in the coming months from selling Getty?
And the deal only works because of the very high quality files they are throwing around, encouraging unregistered users to post them everywhere.
The competition can probably sue Getty for unfair business practises because the market with bloggers might be ruined by the free files. The other agencies cannot compete with free.
But a clever lawyer representing the artist should go for the billions of profits when Getty is sold and the data mining and advertising revenue.
The business model has been changed completely and the artist did not send the content to Getty so that they can make millions from "promotional use" without paying us.
Any kind of use of our files that makes money is revenue created by the images and should be shared according to the royalty percentage we signed up for.
Yep, it's the continuation of the IPO hype method to sell/flip mediocre crap waay overpriced,the apple marketing model. They are not 'building a data mining and adverstising network', that's just BS, they are just handing out links. Data mining is crawlers, high class Db and SQL, it shows you how layman are clueless about these terms.... and what advertising networks? How? They gonna suddenly, heeyy, surprise, change the illustrative images to ad-banners from paying advertisers?? :)) They are not building anything, but they might fool some the more naive old folk who just don't get this whole 'internets' thing.
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hobostocker,
if you believe your files are worthless or allow Getty to devalue you work like this - your decision.
But I would just send my files to an agency that is primarily in the business of selling files and making money with licensing images.
If Getty wants to use my images for additional income through data mining and ad revenue...they can ask.
A simple opt in button solves the problem.
Then everyone who wants to be included can be part of this exciting new opportunity and the rest of us who are not working to make Getty rich will be safe.
They can even openly say that those opted in will be preferred in best match, the way other agencies do if you opt in and out of the subs model.
But because they know it will not translate into more sales, they forced people into it. If it was good to encourage licensing it would have been Digital Vision first. But the "crowd sourced images" - Vetta, E+,Flickr...they just love exposure..
Getty is not the God of stock. They haven't even been able to grow their revenue in the last 3 years, they have piled on 1,6 billion dollars in debt, they can't even man the front page of istock to change a Valentines day image...etc...
But if you love the way they treat you and feel it is a fantastic way to make money - enjoy!
I'll put my energy in the agencies that haven't changed their business model and want to add buying customers for files, not random people who supply data.
I hope they keep the viewer an exclusive honor and privilege. I mean, they want to share their unique content and not the files everyone else has right??
:)
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I don't want to make any more pictures :(
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A troll on one of the blogs I've commented on told me I should get my own website. I said .... yes, I agree... have you heard of symbiostock.com ?
Shoot, if Leo had some templates and whatnot to sell this event could have been a big turning point for him. We could comment like crazy and promote symbiostock for him, but..... not sure I am supposed to mention symbiostock any more?
Has it become a Secret Society?
I couldn't get my potential site to work at all, so deleted it; but I wondered why I hadn't read of anyone mentioning sales there other than Ron.
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No, no secret. We're still plugging along, with people starting to make more sales, and we're about to reach 250,000 images in the network. I'm interested in my site succeeding now more than ever.
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I don't want to make any more pictures :(
I thought this was a pretty good summation of the embedding:
"This move requires uptake, but the right kind of uptake. Ideally, it would generate new value among the web scofflaws while not harming Getty’s business with pro publishers. I’m not sure these embeds hit that balance. The workflows are too ungainly for the people who currently have contracts with Getty, true, but they’re also not quite easy enough to be a good substitute for people who don’t mind stealing. My wager is that, as transformational as this announcement might seem to be, Getty’s embeds won’t be pockmarking the web."
http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/ (http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/03/getty-images-blows-the-webs-mind-by-setting-35-million-photos-free-with-conditions-of-course/)
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I'm on strike.
http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-kiils-us/ (http://7horses.eu/wp/blog/getty-kiils-us/)
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Seriously, agencies owe us nothing, even more nowadays when good images are dime a dozen.
Still, they have no right to give away our images for nothing.
Added: I mean 'moral' right. Apparently they gave themselves the legal right when they forced us to agree to letting them use our images free for whatever they might designate 'promotional use'.
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"If Getty decided your images are worth nothing".
Ahh.....that's the exact thing we're all upset about. Getty does not have the right to say our images are "worthless". Only the copyright owner could make such a statement. If you want to say it about your own work - you sure can do so. But Getty doesn't have the right to do so.
Getty is a broker. They offer representation for 80% of the take of an image's sale. We are suppliers/contributors or perhaps just simply fools to be in bed with them.
And what if Getty is right ?
Seriously, agencies owe us nothing, even more nowadays when good images are dime a dozen.
If our photos were so valuable they would sell for 500$ a pop like hotcakes but guess what it's not gonna happen anytime soon and agencies are struggling to make sales even for less than 5$/download.
This is the reality guys, the money is just not there anymore.
Good money will come from us seeking buyers and making private deals, for prints, for assignments, for posters, reproductions, whatever but not traditional stock no matter if RF or RM.
I would love the industry going back to expensive RM-only licencing but i'm forced to have a realistic look on the industry, clients are still OK paying good money for assignments but can't see much value in stock anymore.
Microstock finally managed to kill stock altogether and now there's no going back.
I guess many suppliers will leave in droves but the numbers are telling otherwise.
And it's going to get a lot worse than that .. i expect the many Instagram, Flickr, and similar sites to start selling anything they can for a few cents desperately trying to monetize their user generated content, totally disregarding legal rights and copyrights exactly as google did in the last 15 yrs.
It's photographers who are devalueing their images in the moment they put them for sale on the internet and with RF licence to top if off.
The only exit is traditional photography that means dirtying our hands meeting buyers face to face, shooting on assignment, selling them prints and getting the money in our hands.
Either that or you can forget about doing this job for long unless you're a stock factory with dozens of photographers working full time for a pittance in some third world country.
you are close to the mark or right on the mark.
i just wrapped up a shoot for a magazine that paid $1000 USD for a day, and the assignment before that a week before was for $1350 for two days, so yes assignments are the way to go. out of all the images i shot, several are 'stock' photos, and many are 'editorial' images that sell periodically just cause the access was there.
that all said, the terms for the shoots i do have an embargo period of 3 months, then i blast the images over to either IS or GI, and make additional money.
now that i give it some thought, it's been like that for the last 25+ years. it certainly helps when you get access to locations then can dump it to stock sites.
either way, this whole GI thing stinks big time. they have no right to give my/our work away.
it's wrong.
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Apologies if this link has been posted already on this thread ~
http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/industry-concerned-about-getty-images-free-for-all-approach (http://www.bjp-online.com/2014/03/industry-concerned-about-getty-images-free-for-all-approach)
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If our photos were so valuable they would sell for 500$ a pop like hotcakes but guess what it's not gonna happen anytime soon and agencies are struggling to make sales even for less than 5$/download.
This is the reality guys, the money is just not there anymore.
Actually, I'm selling quite a few hotcakes at Stocksy. Real money. Because they're making the effort to find the customers and do it right. So, giving up may work for you, but don't assume the rest of us want to do that.
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Photographers angry:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/photographers-hate-getty-imagess-plan-to-give-away-their-work (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/photographers-hate-getty-imagess-plan-to-give-away-their-work)
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Photographers angry:
[url]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/photographers-hate-getty-imagess-plan-to-give-away-their-work[/url] ([url]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/photographers-hate-getty-imagess-plan-to-give-away-their-work[/url])
Qnd of course, the telling quote is:
"In an interview earlier this week, Craig Peters, a business development executive at Getty, said opponents of embedding would turn out to be a small minority clinging to a past that no longer exists; Getty plans to make money from uses that were simply not going to pay off in other ways."
So, photographers are clinging to a past where they got paid for their efforts.
Getty plans to make money from their brand, but are not even claiming they'll be able to make money for their content providers.
It's official, folks. >:(
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Choices. We all have them. I don't fault yours. Why fault others who have a contrarian viewpoint?
All i'm saying is that many of you guys are over reacting, Getty is just offering embedded images, it doesn't mean webmasters will be able to use them as they please (making thumbnails, removing credits, etc etc), actually it's a way to get free advertising for getty and brand awareness and eventually make some sales too.
As for educating the spongers, once they click for the 100th time on an image and they're served with a getty page where the image is on sale for a hefty price then maybe they will finally learn once and for all that good photos are not free and can not be stolen for fun and profit as they did so far with impunity.
You said it well in your comments above - "actually it's a way to get free advertising for Getty and brand awareness..."
Once again, I am now certain that you are a big fan of this new and innovative approach. If you don't work directly for Getty - you should. Because your statement indicates that what's good for Getty is naturally good for the photographers.
But I DO NOT AGREE. I did NOT sign up and offer a thousand photos of mine that took years to create so that it could be used to create free advertising for Getty. Sure - if they want to use a few photos - I'm willing to agree to that. But ALL of my stuff? No - that's morally wrong and clearly a stretch that would probably be found to be illegal if anyone had the deep pockets to fight them legally.
Your argument is flawed because you wrongly assume that we should all "see the light" and realize that our stuff isn't worth much. You keep shouting via this forum that we are overreacting. You are trying to get us to believe it because you personally believe the Getty narrative that this is "good for photographers".
Saying it over and over doesn't make it right.
Yes - the market has changed. Yes - photography and photos cost a lot less than they did ten years ago. But you can post 10,000 posts telling all of us how wrong we are and how great this new Getty promotion is and it doesn't mean you are right and we are wrong.
A vast majority of us here see if differently. Is the reason you can't accept that FACT is because somewhere deep inside your mind you are worried that we MIGHT be right and you might be wrong?
This move from Getty to devalue online use of images is BAD for photographers - in my opinion. I'll be happy to meet you back here at this forum in 24 months and we can see the fallout. If you're right and this is a great move for Getty and the photographers - I will publicly state how right you were and how wrong I was. That's a promise.
But I will never agree that you - or any other human on this planet - has a right to tell me how I should feel about something, or that my photos have no value.
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I took a look on GettyImages to get an idea of which third of their images they're allowing users to embed (35 million of about 105 million was what one article stated).
It now seems to me that being embeddable means Getty considers you the "low rent district" - if you look at the hover previews for an image you will see the </> icon at the end of the row for images that are embeddable, so you can quickly scan results to see what is.
Having noticed that things like National Geographic were excluded and Flickr included, I started with their Collections page
[url]http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.com/creativeimages/imagecollection[/url])
And saw that huge chunks of the creative stuff is not embeddable - Rubber Ball, Digital Vision, Tetra, Images Bazaar, Dorling Kindersley, Yuri Arcurs, Blend Images, Ingram,
But Vetta, E+, Flickr are embeddable. Photodisc is interesting in that only a portion are embeddable and it appears that the search (not for a term but browsing the collection) puts all the embeddable images up front - half way through page 4 the images are no longer embeddable (I only spot checked a few pages after that, so there could be something I missed)
[url]http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=image&family=creative&contractUrl=1&b=PDI#4[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=image&family=creative&contractUrl=1&b=PDI#4[/url])
My assumption is that they're only taking a risk (offering for free) with things they don't value very much anyway...
Like Jo Ann, I found a lot of collections that are not embeddable. However, I have been told by senior management at one of the Image Partner collections whose images so far are not embeddable that they have been told that none of the Image Partners can Opt Out. They expect their images in their collection to be embeddable in the near future.
My guess is that Getty has to go through some process to turn embedding on with each collection and they haven't got around to it yet. I suspect that if we wait a week we'll find that it will be possible to embed nearly all the images in the Creative Stock Images and Editorial collections.
This certainly sounds like something Getty would do. Instead of having one simple switch in their software that they can turn on or off they have 500 different switches, each of which has to be individually turned on or off.
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The genius of it is that they don't have to share any revenue with the content creator for money generated by the valuable data and information extracted from embedding those images into other sites.
They hugely increase the value of their company without having to pay royalties.
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Possibly she made the mistake so many do - hearing "royalty free" and thinking "free"...
Exactly. We need to eradicate every reference to "free" when speaking or writing about our images.
We can lock that barn door, but the horse is already in the next county.
It was a bad mistake in the first place but it really is time to rebrand the license name. Maybe "extended value" licenses would be a good term, or "unlimited value". it only needs the vendors at private sites and maybe one big site to embrace a new name and it could become the new norm. It wouldn't be long before people stopped talking about RF and switched to EV or UV.
How about it?
... maybe "Special Value".....
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either way, this whole GI thing stinks big time. they have no right to give my/our work away.
it's wrong.
They can only give your work away if you give it to Getty to do with as they please.
Personally I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back and all the talented photographers go elsewhere leaving Getty with nothing but pictures of Cats and 'wot I ate for dinner' pictures uploaded from mobile phones.
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Personally I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back and all the talented photographers go elsewhere leaving Getty with nothing but pictures of Cats and 'wot I ate for dinner' pictures uploaded from mobile phones.
Where should they go?
Symbiostock!
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They hugely increase the value of their company without having to pay royalties.
It's all perceived value, truth is their turnover is shrinking in size year on year. It may be good for an IPO but eventually they will have to stop cannibalising their own business or their running costs will outstrip the revenue and debt burden.
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Seriously, agencies owe us nothing...snip...
And what happens if we all withdraw all of our images from these agencies? We are their lifeblood, seems like they owe us everything. It's just that some seem to have forgotten that.
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They will move to all the other agencies or sell direct. There is a huge world of agencies out there.
The exclusives just have no idea how many opportunities there are. But a lot of people can see the writing on the wall, especially with the looming subs, so they are already moving their content.
The success of stocksy has also woken up a lot of people in the high end. They have to ask themselves: if stocksy can be so incredible successful with such a small team - what are they doing wrong?
But if you believe that unless you can sell via Getty your work is worthless, if you allow them to judge you and demoralize you...YOUR choice...
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Personally I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back and all the talented photographers go elsewhere leaving Getty with nothing but pictures of Cats and 'wot I ate for dinner' pictures uploaded from mobile phones.
Where should they go?
Any of the Top Tier, Corbis, Stocksy take your pick.
My February indie earnings were close to equaling my february 2012 iS exclusive earnings without iS.
The transition to indy was painful but I'm glad I did it, my income feels much more stable as an indy now.
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On the other hand, exclusives are reporting that their earnings are dropping year after year. At some point the tipping point will be reached where income from exclusivity will equal income from non-exclusivity, and Getty giving images away free is bringing that point rapidly closer.
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I read that Getty Images is partnering with Stipple. I went there to check it out and it looks like anyone can sign up.
https://stipple.com/creators
From how I understand it, you are granting them a non-exclusive license to spread your content all over the Internet. However, you retain copyright and the information you embed in it stays with it. So, you could advertise your own photography website and personal social media. That would be an improvement over letting Getty use your content to advertise their website.
I think I might just try it out with a few images and put my own ads in it to see how it goes. I'm wondering if you could use it in affiliate marketing? Like say if I wanted to promote something, I could take a picture of it and put in my affiliate link? I would be interested in any one else thought that. Just thinking out loud.
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It takes more than a year to recover your income. I don´t understand why people always think there is a "magic button" to instantly move up into the best search positions on the other agencies. They would´t be earning what they do now if they came in new to istock/getty with their portfolios, even if everything was accepted and went live immediately.
Sean could be earning a lot more money now, if he had embraced Shutterstock. Yuri had 3000 - 4000 downloads a day. At around 70 cents to one dollar on average, you just need a fraction of that to pay your bills.
Instead Sean decided to join a total start up and otherwise focussed on ethical companies that were low earners. This year he is following a different approach.
Do you have any doubts, that he will be successful?? I don´t.
Robert Kneschke keeps posting his results, he is now at over 13 000 dollars of revenue a month as a single artist without employees and saw a YOY growth of 28% last year.
80% of his income is from Fotolia and Shutterstock, he hardly supplies the macros, because he makes easier money on the micros.
He stopped supplying istock in 2010.
Will I earn 13 000 dollars a month in one year, even if I had 12 000 files ready and sitting and uploaded them? No, because my files need to move up in the best match search positions. This takes time.
But if you work consistently and think about your content, I really don´t see a problem. I only have 600-700 files on average on the agencies because I took a whole year to understand the wider industry. And I have come to the conclusion I should have gone indie earlier.
There is absolutely no way I am going back, I love money.
And Getty is not even giving you any vision that there will be money in the future, all we keep reading is how it is all over, we have to accept that our work is worthless etc...
So why would my main focus be there?
I supply istock as a normal subs agency, like I supply Fotolia or Shutterstock. I might even see growth there when they add more subs customers.
But there is so much money out there, you just have to open your ideas and work smart.
The stock industry is a market with over 6 Billion dollars a year. Getty has a large piece with 870 million, but there is so much more.
But if you are looking for a perfect blueprint for someone to write it out for you so that you just follow in their footsteps without thinking for yourself...why would I do that? I share a lot, but not everything. ;)
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Good article:
http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/03/07/getty-images-not-quite-free-to-use/ (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/03/07/getty-images-not-quite-free-to-use/)
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We do have a difference of opinion. I can't see myself ever contributing to Fotolia or iStock as a nonexclusive.
Like I said, your choice.
You will now be selling subs on istock and Getty shares your files for free.
I am not trying to be cynical. i gave you a heart, because I understand. I used to think like that as well.
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Good article:
[url]http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/03/07/getty-images-not-quite-free-to-use/[/url] ([url]http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/03/07/getty-images-not-quite-free-to-use/[/url])
Very good article, Sean - thanks for sharing.
Unfortunately, I doubt if many of the thousands of people who are already using this "free" feature of Getty have read the terms. They get to the part that says FREE = GETTY and that's all they need to know.
By the way - I read your latest at your site. Great recap. You do a really fine service to your fellow photographers by sharing so much of what is happening in the industry. On behalf of all of us....
Thank you.
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By the way - I read your latest at your site. Great recap. You do a really fine service to your fellow photographers by sharing so much of what is happening in the industry. On behalf of all of us....
Cheers. Here's another :)
http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/ (http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/)
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After the google scam I expected this kind of scheme. However, I thought they would create freestock with the Flickr and Istock collections possibly with some other collections too. The scale of this scheme is surprising. After the google scam I have been only deleting stuff from IS. They offered me a contract through Flickr, I even printed it out, but never signed it because I was sure they wanted to scam me.
No doubt SS and DT will be hit, I will be hit personally because my photos are often used in editorial contexts. I think the chances that Getty succeeds are 50:50. The more top photographers quit, the lower Getty’s chances are.
Did Getty devalue photography? In the lower end of the market – yes, definetely. As for high-end commercial photography I would say no, at least not for now. Most of all they devalued their own collections. It actually raised the value of independent exclusive commercial collections, like Stocksy. Who would now licence Getty photos for big bucks? Their photos will float everywhere, why would big brands use them in their campaigns? This is a Getty Images picture, even losers and hobos can afford it.
I don’t want to whine about Getty. I haven't read the whole thread. I will try adapt to the new situation and look for alternatives. I started to learn programming this week… I am happy I can upload my best work to Stocksy.
What can be done about Getty? I believe the only solution is a big, multi-tiered co-op run by the right people. The Stocksy team did an excellent job and is very successful, but it is not designed to challenge the whole of Getty. Two years ago I was very skeptical about co-ops in the context of stock but Stocksy proved that the co-op model can work, and that “happy cows give more milk”.
A big, multi-tier, multi-collection co-op could now challenge Getty, even if particaption in the co-op required buying shares to fund it. For sure many top Getty photographers are sick and tired by now. A co-op could have a lower end collection to challenge Getty’s freestock if the real profits are distributed among photographers. It's not impossible. The only way to fight Getty is to deprive them of content.
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I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer.
This income can also be clawed back after a year or two, when they discover a "glitch" in the viewer. These muppets cannot even calculate subscription royalties, why do you expect they would be able to report ad revenue? It would be rocket science for them.
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By the way - I read your latest at your site. Great recap. You do a really fine service to your fellow photographers by sharing so much of what is happening in the industry. On behalf of all of us....
Cheers. Here's another :)
[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer. In your article you seem to say they won't but it's hard to tell if you are just talking about the data collecting part, which by the way I don't think Shutterstock is sharing with contributors either.
I'm saying I haven't seen anything that concretely says contributors will ever see any money (fair or not) from this.
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On the other hand, exclusives are reporting that their earnings are dropping year after year. At some point the tipping point will be reached where income from exclusivity will equal income from non-exclusivity, and Getty giving images away free is bringing that point rapidly closer.
My Istock income isn't dropping. Yet. But my downloads are dropping to 2008 levels and income is only being propped up by price increases and stuff like E+ on Getty. So the stable income is just an illusion. Eventually for me, there absolutely will be a tipping point, soon.
My non-stock and direct stock sales are increasing nicely. And direct sales are showing that my work is worth way more than $1 or even $100. But now as an exclusive I need to send direct buyers to IS and I get 35% of $5-$50 per image. Some buyers are shocked at the prices. Selling direct I could be getting 100% of hundreds of dollars per image. Plus with every new program GI rolls out the trend seems to be benefits for them and either little, or even negative, financial benefits for contributors.
I have nothing against Getty. I've earned plenty of money through them and appreciate the opportunity. But business is business and it's my choice to work with them or not. At some point a business arrangement may no longer make sense and I may be getting close to that point.
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By the way - I read your latest at your site. Great recap. You do a really fine service to your fellow photographers by sharing so much of what is happening in the industry. On behalf of all of us....
Cheers. Here's another :)
[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
Another stellar recap, Sean. Best article online yet that I've read summarizing the situation. Should be required reading for any photographer who sells stock or is interested in making money with their photos.
My biggest concern on this move by Getty is that for the vast majority of non-photographers, this move makes them “think” that all of Getty’s photos are free for online use.
That’s sure been the reaction of a the many bloggers who have applauded this move with a standing ovation online.
And ultimately, whether it does hurt sales or not – it threatens the premise that an image has value and can’t be used for free in all situations. That “devaluation” is a real threat to photographers worldwide.
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It actually raised the value of independent exclusive commercial collections, like Stocksy. Who would now licence Getty photos for big bucks? Their photos will float everywhere, why would big brands use them in their campaigns? This is a Getty Images picture, even losers and hobos can afford it.
Yes, I agree - the content on stocksy just increased tremendously in value. Even RM content can be embedded in the viewer, how silly is that?
Offset, stocksy,imagebrief and other specialised agencies - they will be the big winners, no doubt.
Just imagine you are a salesperson working for them - "Do you really want to go and pay 500 dollars at that other site...did you see the little embed icon below the file where anyone can use it for free"...this will make selling, especially at higher prices, a lot easier.
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By the way - I read your latest at your site. Great recap. You do a really fine service to your fellow photographers by sharing so much of what is happening in the industry. On behalf of all of us....
Cheers. Here's another :)
[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer. In your article you seem to say they won't but it's hard to tell if you are just talking about the data collecting part, which by the way I don't think Shutterstock is sharing with contributors either.
Maybe...but that's a loooong way off. First Getty has to get many, many images embedded, then prove to advertisers they'll get a decent ROI. And so far this announcement is not even a blip on the radar of the advertising trade press. Not one word about it. Nobody cares. (In fact, I'm in the camp that feels this will devalue the images used, because advertisers don't like to use the same images everyone else does.)
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By the way - I read your latest at your site. Great recap. You do a really fine service to your fellow photographers by sharing so much of what is happening in the industry. On behalf of all of us....
Cheers. Here's another :)
[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer. In your article you seem to say they won't but it's hard to tell if you are just talking about the data collecting part, which by the way I don't think Shutterstock is sharing with contributors either.
I'm saying I haven't seen anything that concretely says contributors will ever see any money (fair or not) from this.
Yes, "maybe at some undefined point down the road" doesn't pay bills for using my images. And even if there is an opportunity how can we assume we'll like the royalty structure? They could make a fortune on advertising revenue and come up with some secret royalty scheme where we get peanuts like Connect's .001 cents.
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I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer.
Working that crystal ball in the dark again? Where do you get this "I think" from. Any shred of evidence? Or you just want to believe in something that I think will never happen.
Now who's I think has more credibility? (possibly neither) But we don't know!
Did you read Sean's article and all the loopholes and conditions and vague limitations? It's obvious by the terms that imbedded ads will be added at some date. (I think?)
As for data collection, from IS or other sites? Nice try, who cares. All sites do that and they have no obligation to share it.
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They will move to all the other agencies or sell direct. There is a huge world of agencies out there.
The exclusives just have no idea how many opportunities there are. But a lot of people can see the writing on the wall, especially with the looming subs, so they are already moving their content...
I think this is one of the most important things said in this thread, maybe on this whole forum in recent days. Probably worth starting a whole other thread about.
People want to know what they can do to retain some control in this business, keep the big companies from taking and taking and not giving anything back. I think the #1 thing anyone can do is not give all of the control to a handful of companies. Or worse, a single company.
The biggest threat to the success so many people see at Shutterstock is the fact that so many people see such huge success there. Over 50% of many peoples' microstock income comes from Shutterstock. And as much as I am happy to see Shutterstock succeed, it's also a little terrifying that a single company has so much power.
My income from 2012 to 2013 increased by 30%. My income at Shutterstock represented 55% of my 2012 income, 49% of my 2013 income. I'm happy with that trend. I think it means I'm doing something right with diversifying my portfolio across enough growing companies and keeping my situation a little safer.
It's a lesson that I think a lot of people learn the hard way in working with Getty/iStock. Giving any one company so much power and control is dangerous. And counterproductive, I think. You are absolutely right, cobalt, there are so many good opportunities out there. Opportunities beyond the Poll list, too. I hope that anyone looking to make a move away from Getty is looking at all of the opportunities available to them, not just the obvious ones.
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The genius of it is that they don't have to share any revenue with the content creator for money generated by the valuable data and information extracted from embedding those images into other sites.
They hugely increase the value of their company without having to pay royalties.
Yes but in the long run they will earn a terrible reputation among pros and ultimately they give a bad name to the whole stock industry.
Good luck to the next su-ck-er in line ready to buy Getty for 10 or 20 billion $ ...
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They could make a fortune on advertising revenue and come up with some secret royalty scheme where we get peanuts like Connect's .001 cents.
Looking at the very worst possible scenario, Getty could pretty much self-destroy its own industry if they start making more money with advertising and embedding and semi-free images, who are we to judge ? it's all about money, not about us, we're just the suppliers and nowadays there's an endless supply of cheap images and buyers seem to be more than willing to use cr-ap shot with iphones even for commercial and expensive stuff.
All i can say is pro photographers will be forced to adapt or die but this could be beneficial for us in many ways, we should all go back to assignment jobs because that's where the money is.
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BaldricksTrousers on: March 05, 2014, 20:12
I take it this includes iStock "from Getty".
Does it?
I made a few searches for my istock images on Getty and couldn't find any there (although some were on Thinkstock).
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I still think Getty made a brilliant move for them but not for us.
But you have to admit it's a revolution not the kind I would had hoped for but as a blogger I would be super excited about this move. Wordpress will offer PlugIns etc in no time this embedding feature will rule the blogs and small newspapers in no time.
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But if you love the way they treat you and feel it is a fantastic way to make money - enjoy!
I'll put my energy in the agencies that haven't changed their business model and want to add buying customers for files, not random people who supply data.
Look, i'm just saying Getty is diversifying and by trial and error they're waiting to see what will stick on the wall.
And by the way, we should never put all our eggs in the stock basket, there's still so much traditional photography going on despite the bad economy and all, i've friend who switched from news to fashion to weddings to events to workshops, either that or they were going bankrupt and yet they're still doing fine now.
We must accept the photographic market is getting tougher and tougher, even Nikon announced big losses in the last quarter, blaming smartphones for decreasing sales of pocket cameras (which is their core business, not the DSLRs).
So, photographers struggling, camera makers struggling, agencies selling images for 1$ or even for free.
No matter how you paint it, it's a buyers' market now and it ain't gonna change soon and i said many times already we still have it better than journalists or photojournalists, they're the ones scrapping the bottom of the barrel and begging for assignments or food stamps.
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Seriously, agencies owe us nothing, even more nowadays when good images are dime a dozen.
Still, they have no right to give away our images for nothing.
Added: I mean 'moral' right. Apparently they gave themselves the legal right when they forced us to agree to letting them use our images free for whatever they might designate 'promotional use'.
It's immoral but what else do you expect from companies like Getty ?
Besides that, promotional use with the photographer's credit line is also promoting ourselves, correct me if i'm wrong.
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you are close to the mark or right on the mark.
i just wrapped up a shoot for a magazine that paid $1000 USD for a day, and the assignment before that a week before was for $1350 for two days, so yes assignments are the way to go. out of all the images i shot, several are 'stock' photos, and many are 'editorial' images that sell periodically just cause the access was there.
either way, this whole GI thing stinks big time. they have no right to give my/our work away.
it's wrong.
Can we really blame agencies for making profits ? are they a business or are they a charity ?
Do YOU work for free ?
It's getting a bit boring to read dozens of pages with comments like this.
Yes, getty is as greedy as it gets but so are many bad photographers i know who ripoff and scam their gullible customers, we're not saints either.
I mean, now it's take it or leave it, if Getty is so bad than stick with SS and good luck making a living selling subs for 0.30$
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Seriously, agencies owe us nothing, even more nowadays when good images are dime a dozen.
Still, they have no right to give away our images for nothing.
Added: I mean 'moral' right. Apparently they gave themselves the legal right when they forced us to agree to letting them use our images free for whatever they might designate 'promotional use'.
It's immoral but what else do you expect from companies like Getty ?
Besides that, promotional use with the photographer's credit line is also promoting ourselves, correct me if i'm wrong.
We all know what "credit" will buy you...
Just sold two blog sized images through my Symbiostock site. Guess I should have been giving them away for free. What was I thinking?
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Actually, I'm selling quite a few hotcakes at Stocksy. Real money. Because they're making the effort to find the customers and do it right. So, giving up may work for you, but don't assume the rest of us want to do that.
Actually I'm the only one who keep saying we either find a profitable niche or we diversify or we move to greener pastures.
Generic mediocre stock images are dime a dozen nowadays and will lose their remaining value pretty soon, first on Getty and then anywhere else, they'll become a given and a commodity.
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A troll on one of the blogs I've commented on told me I should get my own website. I said .... yes, I agree... have you heard of symbiostock.com ?
Shoot, if Leo had some templates and whatnot to sell this event could have been a big turning point for him. We could comment like crazy and promote symbiostock for him, but..... not sure I am supposed to mention symbiostock any more?
Symbiostock is very much alive, and there are templates -- there's even a home page generator for those who don't wish to design their own.
setting up a site is straightforward, the main time, like submitting to an agency , is uploading images
the biggest advantage remains that only a few sales will outperform 90% of the other agencies listed in the ms poll
http://cascoly-images.com/pix/sell-your-photography/ (http://cascoly-images.com/pix/sell-your-photography/)
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Actually, I'm selling quite a few hotcakes at Stocksy. Real money. Because they're making the effort to find the customers and do it right. So, giving up may work for you, but don't assume the rest of us want to do that.
Actually I'm the only one who keep saying we either find a profitable niche or we diversify or we move to greener pastures.
Generic mediocre stock images are dime a dozen nowadays and will lose their remaining value pretty soon, first on Getty and then anywhere else, they'll become a given and a commodity.
So at what point do agencies start giving away all photos including professional-awesome-really-expesnsive-to-produce-niche photos where they make money but we don't? And then photos aren't worth anything.
There's plenty of generic mediocre products everywhere. But everything has a price point. That's why there is generic mediocre clothing. Generic mediocre food. Generic mediocre cameras. Does that mean all that stuff should be free? That would be nice but it's not going to happen.
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Your argument is flawed because you wrongly assume that we should all "see the light" and realize that our stuff isn't worth much. You keep shouting via this forum that we are overreacting. You are trying to get us to believe it because you personally believe the Getty narrative that this is "good for photographers".
Saying it over and over doesn't make it right.
Yes - the market has changed. Yes - photography and photos cost a lot less than they did ten years ago. But you can post 10,000 posts telling all of us how wrong we are and how great this new Getty promotion is and it doesn't mean you are right and we are wrong.
A vast majority of us here see if differently. Is the reason you can't accept that FACT is because somewhere deep inside your mind you are worried that we MIGHT be right and you might be wrong?
This move from Getty to devalue online use of images is BAD for photographers - in my opinion. I'll be happy to meet you back here at this forum in 24 months and we can see the fallout. If you're right and this is a great move for Getty and the photographers - I will publicly state how right you were and how wrong I was. That's a promise.
But I will never agree that you - or any other human on this planet - has a right to tell me how I should feel about something, or that my photos have no value.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Before jumping and screaming in horror we should wait 6-12 months in order to move accordingly, this whole embedded stuff could just be yet another fiasco for all we know.
Bad for photographers ? unless it's paid very well even Stock is indeed bad for photographers, ask anyone working on assignments.
Our photos have a value only as long as someone is willing to pay for it.
The cr-ap sold for millions of $ in art gallery are valueable because it's a Ponzi scheme and therefore there's a market for that, at least for a while, and good luck to the last suc-ker in the chain.
Stock images have a value only as long as they're cheaper than assignments, that's the simple reason why stock is born.
So, from the very start this industry existed ONLY because it was meant to be cheaper than its direct competition, is it any wonder that now we're fighting for pennies ? it was the logical consequence of the inevitable price war and it's just the tip of the iceberg.
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If our photos were so valuable they would sell for 500$ a pop like hotcakes but guess what it's not gonna happen anytime soon and agencies are struggling to make sales even for less than 5$/download.
This is the reality guys, the money is just not there anymore.
Good money will come from us seeking buyers and making private deals, for prints, for assignments, for posters, reproductions, whatever but not traditional stock no matter if RF or RM.
I would love the industry going back to expensive RM-only licencing but i'm forced to have a realistic look on the industry, clients are still OK paying good money for assignments but can't see much value in stock anymore.
Microstock finally managed to kill stock altogether and now there's no going back.
I guess many suppliers will leave in droves but the numbers are telling otherwise.
And it's going to get a lot worse than that .. i expect the many Instagram, Flickr, and similar sites to start selling anything they can for a few cents desperately trying to monetize their user generated content, totally disregarding legal rights and copyrights exactly as google did in the last 15 yrs.
It's photographers who are devalueing their images in the moment they put them for sale on the internet and with RF licence to top if off.
The only exit is traditional photography that means dirtying our hands meeting buyers face to face, shooting on assignment, selling them prints and getting the money in our hands.
.....
it's not that photographers are de-valuing their work -- the world has changed. when creating stock was time consuming and expensive (physically mailing slides to customers, so that only a handful could see them at a time), simple stock images could command $100 or much more. digital stock changed that -- you could then buy a cd with 100 images for that price!
it's not that the images are worth less , rather too many photographers still believe their images had that value in the first place; forgetting it was the process, not any intrinsic value in the image.
technology, not microstock agencies, has torn the innards out of the photography business -- agencies, flicker, getty et al are merely RE-ACTING to the reality that photos ARE now a commodity.
so photographers need to decide which path to take -- find the few remaining areas where individual photographers can still command a livable sum; or find ways to make money in this new world.
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Just sold two blog sized images through my Symbiostock site. Guess I should have been giving them away for free. What was I thinking?
Expect a refund request soon.....and don't let it happen again.... ;)
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But you have to admit it's a revolution not the kind I would had hoped for but as a blogger I would be super excited about this move. Wordpress will offer PlugIns etc in no time this embedding feature will rule the blogs and small newspapers in no time.
Maybe some gullible bloggers will get excited.
As a blogger myself, I would never use such surreptitious elements (being exposed to future changes of the embedded images and contaminating my blogsite), and give Getty free stats on the traffic on my blogsite. On top of it, also the response times for the retrieval of embedded images will suffer.
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Seriously, agencies owe us nothing, even more nowadays when good images are dime a dozen.
Still, they have no right to give away our images for nothing.
Added: I mean 'moral' right. Apparently they gave themselves the legal right when they forced us to agree to letting them use our images free for whatever they might designate 'promotional use'.
It's immoral but what else do you expect from companies like Getty ?
Besides that, promotional use with the photographer's credit line is also promoting ourselves, correct me if i'm wrong.
We all know what "credit" will buy you...
Just sold two blog sized images through my Symbiostock site. Guess I should have been giving them away for free. What was I thinking?
Congratulations to your Symbiostock sales, Sean! Two Symbio sales will beat 1 million free Getty rentals. And no blog stats are passed to Getty!
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you are close to the mark or right on the mark.
i just wrapped up a shoot for a magazine that paid $1000 USD for a day, and the assignment before that a week before was for $1350 for two days, so yes assignments are the way to go. out of all the images i shot, several are 'stock' photos, and many are 'editorial' images that sell periodically just cause the access was there.
either way, this whole GI thing stinks big time. they have no right to give my/our work away.
it's wrong.
Do YOU work for free ?
You do if you upload to Getty.
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[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
Every photographer and user of photography should read this - the best article on this whole debacle by far.
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Do YOU work for free ?
You do if you upload to Getty.
+1 Bingo!
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[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
Every photographer and user of photography should read this - the best article on this whole debacle by far.
Brilliant Piece.
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Excellent article, Sean.
BTW, has anyone officially confirmed that if an image is removed from Getty, it will disappear from any embedded locations? I thought I'd been keeping up, but I've missed that if so.
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I'll keep this short and maybe people can add details.
On the IS forums it says this: "it's only images on Getty" and looks like about 1/3rd of those. Some collections are exempt. Rasters of the Vectors are included in some cases, but actual Vectors are not.
So no IS and no TS. At this time... :-*
http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/ (http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/)
BaldricksTrousers on: March 05, 2014, 20:12
I take it this includes iStock "from Getty".
Does it?
I made a few searches for my istock images on Getty and couldn't find any there (although some were on Thinkstock).
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[url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url] ([url]http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/08/free-images-from-getty-why-it-matters/[/url])
Every photographer and user of photography should read this - the best article on this whole debacle by far.
Brilliant Piece.
Really an excellent essay! Thank you Sean!
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Personally I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back and all the talented photographers go elsewhere leaving Getty with nothing but pictures of Cats and 'wot I ate for dinner' pictures uploaded from mobile phones.
Where should they go?
Symbiostock!
Thanks, I needed a laugh after reading this thread. ;)
Glad I gave you a good laugh, Tickstock! :D
However, the truth is… if all those "talented photographers" mentioned above actually did leave Getty and start their own Symbiostock sites—and if we all made a lot of very public celebratory noise about it—the SYS network as a whole would take off. It's poised to do that right now but needs more strong artists to join in. A bold and gutsy collective act like that could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
There's strength in numbers, but only if people have the courage to band together and fight for themselves.
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Well there goes the new camera body for my work this year like I had planned. I have to wait and see how/if this affects my stock income. Sorry Nikon.
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"So no IS and no TS. At this time... "
Well, we already know E+ and Vetta are included, and what is TS but stuff that's on Getty?
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Before jumping and screaming in horror we should wait 6-12 months in order to move accordingly, this whole embedded stuff could just be yet another fiasco for all we know.
You're probably right the impact could be very small. The real scandal will be when the advertising platform kicks in and the percentage payments to photographers will be unknowable. I still have no idea what the Getty Connect royalties really are or what advertisers actually pay for these clicks? They are such an opaque and powerful company they are impossible to prise open.
In the meantime I'll be scouring news sites to see if they switch over to these embeds, that will be when the sh*t really hits the fan.
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Before jumping and screaming in horror we should wait 6-12 months in order to move accordingly, this whole embedded stuff could just be yet another fiasco for all we know.
You're probably right the impact could be very small. The real scandal will be when the advertising platform kicks in and the percentage payments to photographers will be unknowable. I still have no idea what the Getty Connect royalties really are or what advertisers actually pay for these clicks? They are such an opaque and powerful company they are impossible to prise open.
In the meantime I'll be scouring news sites to see if they switch over to these embeds, that will be when the sh*t really hits the fan.
Apparently/allegedly (i.e 'according to Lobo') they're going to pay 20% of any advertising/other monetisation revenue, but as you say, there is no transparency.
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Apparently/allegedly (i.e 'according to Lobo') they're going to pay 20% of any advertising/other monetisation revenue, but as you say, there is no transparency.
You never know what the advertisers cost actually is, anything can be dumped in there, admin costs etc before the 20% royalty is reluctantly dished out. It's deliberately opaque behaviour and makes me very suspicious of how much money is actually flowing through these schemes.
At least with straight forward licensing you can reverse engineer the original income generated to get an inkling of whether you've been stiffed or not.
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There are other sources as well (more than my crystal ball Pete). Transparency is not something any of these companies are known for even the Shutterstock deal Sean praises isn't exactly transparent.
True none of it is particularly pretty, but f*(k me this latest Getty scheme makes YayMicro and their crazy schemes look positively rosy.
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Per Lobo:
Posted By georgeclerk:
I've not read all the detail around this, so sorry if this question has already been answered..
It sounds as though Getty are planning to monetize this concept by including advertising along with the embedded images that can be used freely.
Question - will Getty be paying 20% royalties to artists for the revenue generated from this?
The answer to your question is yes, George.
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Before jumping and screaming in horror we should wait 6-12 months in order to move accordingly, this whole embedded stuff could just be yet another fiasco for all we know.
You're probably right the impact could be very small. The real scandal will be when the advertising platform kicks in and the percentage payments to photographers will be unknowable. I still have no idea what the Getty Connect royalties really are or what advertisers actually pay for these clicks? They are such an opaque and powerful company they are impossible to prise open.
In the meantime I'll be scouring news sites to see if they switch over to these embeds, that will be when the sh*t really hits the fan.
Getty's royalties to photographers ? At least an order or two of magnitude less than what you are getting now.
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Personally I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back and all the talented photographers go elsewhere leaving Getty with nothing but pictures of Cats and 'wot I ate for dinner' pictures uploaded from mobile phones.
Where should they go?
that is the question of the day.
the whole industry is a mess.
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I should have been more clear, the Independent IS and TS files, are not included at this time. IS files that are not on Getty, are not included. What I wrote was GETTY only. So the path to Getty even if it includes Exclusives on IS or Getty people who aren't on IS, is still from Getty, not from IS? (and sure feel free to correct me, I read it on the IS forum) :)
About the 20% part. Different numbers have been tossed out, but I'll accept that IF this is ever monetized and someone gets 20% that could be (using web standards, not my crystal ball) 1 cent for a click. 20% would be .002 cents per click. On a small blog, why someone could bring in as much as 80 cents, maybe even a dollar for 500 clicks! And the one cent might be high!
When they say how much really, then I'll believe it. Until then we are guessing. And I need to add, who's the source? Lobo or IS and Getty. Oh good, 100% accurate and truthful sources. ??? They would never lie to us, change or go back on promises. No not them.
Quote is Craig Peters from Getty: ...the company has "certainly thought about" monetizing usage data, but has no specific plans.
"So no IS and no TS. At this time... "
Well, we already know E+ and Vetta are included, and what is TS but stuff that's on Getty?
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A forum post about %20 is not a contact, or dependable.
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A forum post about %20 is not a contact, or dependable.
That's not the only source.
I must have missed the other legally binding sources. Links?
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A forum post about %20 is not a contact, or dependable.
That's not the only source.
I must have missed the other legally binding sources. Links?
Do they consider anything legally binding, if it benefits us, not them?
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Interview with Craig Peters, Senior Vice President of Business Development, Marketing at Content Images at Getty,
http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html (http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html)
FWIW
"PDN: If you generate ad revenues from this initiative, will you share that revenue with contributors?
CP: The answer is yes. This is their content, and if we generate any revenue from that content, we not only have the obligation, but we have every intent to share that revenue.
PDN: How might that be divvied up with contributors?
CP: We have contractual obligations back to our contributors that require us to pay certain royalty amounts to our contributors."
What a pity they have 'contractual obligation' burdens towards their contributors.
And of course, "we have every intent" means nothing. We all know what the Road to Hell is paved with.
Actually, that whole interview is very scary.
(Sorry to anyone who posted that link earlier, surely it's on this thread, but I need to get to bed ...)
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Another blog post, again sorry if it's been posted earlier, taking a very postive view:
http://blog.melchersystem.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-gamble (http://blog.melchersystem.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-gamble)
Zzzzzzz
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A forum post about %20 is not a contact, or dependable.
That's not the only source.
I must have missed the other legally binding sources. Links?
I'm not sure what you want to see. Pretty much all the agencies have language that they can change the terms at anytime. So by that standard nothing is really legally binding for the future on pretty much any agency. There isn't a new contract as far as I know if that's what you want?
So once again, when asked to name the "sources" you reference for your declarations, you fail to list any at all. What a surprise! I guess we would all be as certain as you if we didn't have to bother with the pesky facts.
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So I was reading about the Getty deal in the NY Times, and noticed this banner ad for Dreamstime...
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Before jumping and screaming in horror we should wait 6-12 months in order to move accordingly, this whole embedded stuff could just be yet another fiasco for all we know.
Call me crazy, but I don't want to be in bed with a company that dreams up a way to give away my work for free, even if their plan doesn't work out. Who knows what they'll come up with next?
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Tickstock, you went from being against this deal, back to your old Getty defending antics. Did you get an email from Getty saying your content wouldnt be included if you got with the program again?
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Call me crazy, but I don't want to be in bed with a company that dreams up a way to give away my work for free, even if their plan doesn't work out. Who knows what they'll come up with next?
There would be no problem if selling digital images was easy but of course it's getting more and more difficult and buyers are no more willing to pay decent prices too so first we had microstock and now we're reaching the third phase : free/embedded images, and who know's what's next, probably super cheap "all you can eat" subscriptions which are already the norm for news-wire agencies since a long time !
We may refuse going in bed with such companies but we must accept the market has changed for worse.
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Another blog post, again sorry if it's been posted earlier, taking a very postive view:
[url]http://blog.melchersystem.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-gamble[/url] ([url]http://blog.melchersystem.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-gamble[/url])
Zzzzzzz
Of course it's positive because finally someone as big as Getty is trying radical new ways to actually increase sales.
By the way, Klein already talked about doing something similar to Youtube's monetization months ago in a BJP interview.
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Jon says we are all safe 8):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/)
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You're probably right the impact could be very small. The real scandal will be when the advertising platform kicks in and the percentage payments to photographers will be unknowable. I still have no idea what the Getty Connect royalties really are or what advertisers actually pay for these clicks? They are such an opaque and powerful company they are impossible to prise open.
In the meantime I'll be scouring news sites to see if they switch over to these embeds, that will be when the sh*t really hits the fan.
But where is the "scandal" ?
Good luck monetizing stuff belonging to the past century like their Photodisc pile of cr-ap.
If you guys think to be marketing genius why you don't sell your own images on your e-commerce site ? You will quickly realize it's going to cost you a LOT in advertising fees to make just a few sales, your net gain will be maybe 5-10% if lucky or you could easily lose a lot of money before even trying to break even.
Shutterstock is spending half of their earnings in advertising and then they've to pay for a whole data center, employees, engineers, and all .... in the very best scenario they're making a 20% net gain per year and this is sustainable only because they're paying us a pittance.
Again, if you think selling photos is easy you're totally wrong and you can see the same going on for music downloads, videos, ebooks, etc
Google, Facebook, Apple, Sony, Samsung, Lenovo ... they're all spending 90 to get back 100 ... none of them is making "good money", they look super rich because they operate on huge volumes but it takes nothing for them to lose billions the next quarter because of whatever unplanned scenario in the market.
Getty itself could crash and burn next year for all we know, and so Shutterstock or iStock, their net margins are too slim to properly cover their as-s, it;s a terminally ill market in reality and they stay afloat because the banks give them fat loans.
If they can barely make profits how can you expect they pay us well ? They can't.
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it's not that photographers are de-valuing their work -- the world has changed. when creating stock was time consuming and expensive (physically mailing slides to customers, so that only a handful could see them at a time), simple stock images could command $100 or much more. digital stock changed that -- you could then buy a cd with 100 images for that price!
it's not that the images are worth less , rather too many photographers still believe their images had that value in the first place; forgetting it was the process, not any intrinsic value in the image.
technology, not microstock agencies, has torn the innards out of the photography business -- agencies, flicker, getty et al are merely RE-ACTING to the reality that photos ARE now a commodity.
so photographers need to decide which path to take -- find the few remaining areas where individual photographers can still command a livable sum; or find ways to make money in this new world.
Assignments, Prints, Exhibitions, that's where the money is.
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If you replace the "We" with "I" your posts will make a lot more sense hobostocker.
The micro community is made up of digital entrepreneurs. Those of us who understand sales and business will always make money.
But yes, there is a large group of talented artists who have either never bothered to think about their business or just shut their eyes and say "I don't want to deal with this money stuff - that is what my agent does." This song is usually accompanied by "I want to be free to be creative!"
I teach at a photography art school, I hear this many times. Very talented people, but it is clear someone else will be making the money of their talent.
For these people Getty is ideal, they'll do all the difficult business thinking for them.
So if you personally cannot see how to make money from your images at a time with incredible and growing demand for quality files, why should we explain it to you?
The community of artists here at msg has extremly successful people.
All this talk about the general public supplying millions of files daily makes no sense. They will never produce quality content consistently.
And using smartphones won't help either, you still need to know how to shoot. The iPhone cannot think for you.
Stock media production takes a very unusual set of skills and a lot of discipline and frustration resilience to make it work.
So, I am not worried about selling my files, but I do need to work with companies who have selling licenses as their main focus.
And I need to react to market trends and understand what the management decisions of companies really mean.
If you have never had a webshop, you have no idea how easy it can be to sell products to all the corners of the world. You will be amazed from where people might buy your stuff, even if they can buy something similar at home or cheaper from amazon.
Thiis is why I don't understand the production companies like Plainpicture, Blend, Tetra images....they can have the same success as stocksy if they want to.
They can still supply Getty if they want. But if they keep part of the content exclusive to their own site, it will be easy to market that specific collection and they will have something unique to draw the customers in.
Image buyers love fresh content the market hasn't seen yet. This is what they pay money for.
With Gettys free for all embedding viewer, the value of fresh content that is not all over the internet has gone up a lot.
So if you are personally pessimistic about your own business, your choice. Keep working those assignments, prints and exhibitions. This is what you personally understand. Good for you.
But I think most people here who do stock will just go and continue to make money.
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Do YOU work for free ?
You do if you upload to Getty.
Getty is still the only agency who knows how to sell its sh-it.
Good luck with the other third-tier agencies promising the moon.
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And what happens if we all withdraw all of our images from these agencies? We are their lifeblood, seems like they owe us everything. It's just that some seem to have forgotten that.
Realistically, the maximum they could give us is 30-40% of a sale but then they would make zero profits.
Sorry, not gonna happen !
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Do YOU work for free ?
You do if you upload to Getty.
Getty is still the only agency who knows how to sell its sh-it.
Good luck with the other third-tier agencies promising the moon.
The majority of people here have been making money and feeding families without sending Getty a single file. They have been doing it for years.
Are you sure you shouldn't spend more time over in the getty forum with the real "professionals"?
So the unwashed masses of msg can continue to discuss how to make money with the agencies on the right.
Getty isn't even on that list.
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And what happens if we all withdraw all of our images from these agencies? We are their lifeblood, seems like they owe us everything. It's just that some seem to have forgotten that.
Realistically, the maximum they could give us is 30-40% of a sale but then they would make zero profits.
Sorry, not gonna happen !
Thats not very realistic then
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So if you are personally pessimistic about your own business, your choice. Keep working those assignments, prints and exhibitions. This is what you personally understand. Good for you.
But I think most people here who do stock will just go and continue to make money.
I'm not throwing my stock business out of the window anytime soon and frankly i don't see any big decrease in sales as far as i'm concerned.
I'm just saying there are more profitable ways to monetize our work and stock is just one of the many ways photographers can earn a living.
It's you guys who are full of doom and gloom in this long discussion, not me, actually i'm pretty realistic about the market reality because i've seen the same sh-it going on in other industries before, music, audio, video, web design, content, mobile apps, and even outsourcing, all pushing prices down until they reached the rock bottom, what we're seeing now in stock is nothing new at all and we're still having it better than in other fields so we can't complain too much, it's still easier to shoot images than recording songs or coding a mobile game or writing articles for a pittance.
And what about fun, it's a lot more fun to deal with clients face to face than with a computer screen.
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Personally I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back and all the talented photographers go elsewhere leaving Getty with nothing but pictures of Cats and 'wot I ate for dinner' pictures uploaded from mobile phones.
Where should they go?
Symbiostock!
Thanks, I needed a laugh after reading this thread. ;)
Glad I gave you a good laugh, Tickstock! :D
However, the truth is… if all those "talented photographers" mentioned above actually did leave Getty and start their own Symbiostock sites—and if we all made a lot of very public celebratory noise about it—the SYS network as a whole would take off. It's poised to do that right now but needs more strong artists to join in. A bold and gutsy collective act like that could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
There's strength in numbers, but only if people have the courage to band together and fight for themselves.
Great post Martha and I would love to see it come to pass which it will if enough people have the courage to work for themselves, the skills and talent are available in abundance, just the will to do so is currently seems to be lacking. I just wish there was as much energy put into Symbiostock as there is in complaining about certain other agencies
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Hobostocker, will you be so nice and tell why don't you use edit option to your posts? It would be much easier to read this forum...
Thank you.
Sorry for OT.
... I just wish there was as much energy put into Symbiostock as there is in complaining about certain other agencies
Great point!
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Shutterstock is spending half of their earnings in advertising and then they've to pay for a whole data center, employees, engineers, and all .... in the very best scenario they're making a 20% net gain per year and this is sustainable only because they're paying us a pittance.
If Shutterstock moved from the Empire State Building somewhere to a Buffalo or Syracuse suburb, they could save a lot of money and return some of it to their contributors.
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it's not that photographers are de-valuing their work -- the world has changed. when creating stock was time consuming and expensive (physically mailing slides to customers, so that only a handful could see them at a time), simple stock images could command $100 or much more. digital stock changed that -- you could then buy a cd with 100 images for that price!
it's not that the images are worth less , rather too many photographers still believe their images had that value in the first place; forgetting it was the process, not any intrinsic value in the image.
technology, not microstock agencies, has torn the innards out of the photography business -- agencies, flicker, getty et al are merely RE-ACTING to the reality that photos ARE now a commodity.
so photographers need to decide which path to take -- find the few remaining areas where individual photographers can still command a livable sum; or find ways to make money in this new world.
Assignments, Prints, Exhibitions, that's where the money is.
Assignments - maybe for some. Prints, Exhibitions - in your dream!
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It’s hard to see how Getty—or anyone, really—can claim with a straight face they are creating an “innovation” . . . and a few sentences later, says they have “no choice” but to take this course of action.
There is zero innovation that comes from having one choice. That’s what people with blinders on do: the only thing they can.
So which is it??? Innovation or no choice? It’s not both because it can not be both. If they really had “no choice” then stop claiming this as an innovation. Disruption, yes. Innovation, no.
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Shutterstock is spending half of their earnings in advertising and then they've to pay for a whole data center, employees, engineers, and all .... in the very best scenario they're making a 20% net gain per year and this is sustainable only because they're paying us a pittance.
If Shutterstock moved from the Empire State Building somewhere to a Buffalo or Syracuse suburb, they could save a lot of money and return some of it to their contributors.
Better yet, move somewhere like Chapel Hill or Atlanta where it's even cheaper, and they'd probably get some serious tax breaks to do it. Not to mention the weather and quality of life are better.
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Article includes internal video from Craig Peters describing embedding to contributors:
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/03/getty-images-progressive-destructive/ (http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/03/getty-images-progressive-destructive/)
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"The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has released a memo that all but advises Getty contributors to quit the agency and find other ways to distribute their stock photographs if they can. American Photographic Artists (APA), meanwhile, has issued a veiled threat of legal action against the stock photo agency."
[url]http://www.pdnonline.com/news/ASMP-to-Getty-Photog-2608.shtml[/url] ([url]http://www.pdnonline.com/news/ASMP-to-Getty-Photog-2608.shtml[/url])
That's from 2011.
So I realized, which is why I replaced it. But it is interesting to see how long photographer's organizations have been encouraging people to bail out of Getty.
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"The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has released a memo that all but advises Getty contributors to quit the agency and find other ways to distribute their stock photographs if they can. American Photographic Artists (APA), meanwhile, has issued a veiled threat of legal action against the stock photo agency."
[url]http://www.pdnonline.com/news/ASMP-to-Getty-Photog-2608.shtml[/url] ([url]http://www.pdnonline.com/news/ASMP-to-Getty-Photog-2608.shtml[/url])
That's from 2011.
So I realized, which is why I replaced it. But it is interesting to see how long photographer's organizations have been encouraging people to bail out of Getty.
In the UK, they've been saying it since well before 2006 - I know that for a fact, because Getty was the Big Ogre in the UK long before I started iStock, which was in late 2006.
All it goes to show is that you can't get enough traction to fight the beast. Probably mostly because even though people realise that Getty is a threat, they are not agreed on the best way to proceed outwith their clutches. Divide and conquer. And the legal threat from 2011 seems to have come to naught.
FWIW, I wrote to the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) when the Getty-Google thing was announced and got an auto- reply promising a response within 48 hours. I didn't get that, and my follow-up email only got the auto-receipt reply too. For those who haven't heard of it, BAPLA is the UK sister organisation of CEPIC in Europe and PACA in the USA, and Getty is a member.
"BAPLA’s core objectives:
Represent picture libraries and agencies of all sizes and types.
Encourage best practice within the industry.
Lobby at UK and international level to ensure the core principles of our industry are protected.
Develop and deliver solutions on 21st Century copyright.
Channel the knowledge and expertise of the wider picture community."
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Are you sure you shouldn't spend more time over in the getty forum with the real "professionals"?
So the unwashed masses of msg can continue to discuss how to make money with the agencies on the right.
IMO it is shocking the way in which anyone who does not go along with the groupthink here gets dismissed. Often people who have years of background in these markets and how image is sold. Whilst anything anti-Getty is popular, however wild or ignorant of the actual economics.
People here especially should be savvy re the implications of an internet economy and at least see the logic and benefits behind Getty beginning to gradually address and explore the way in which the licensing model must begin to change in response to how images are used. Especially people who were once happy (and right) to justify as inevitable the old microstock model when that was the new thing which disrupted a previous very brief status quo.
Also - IMO at every stage every historical iStock controversy has turned out to be nothing much (with the possible exception of f5 which was idiotic IMO and signalled how out of their depth the old team were) . Why not step back and take a calmer longer term view. React to how things actual happen instead of seeing everything as a 'sky is falling' event.
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Also - IMO at every stage every historical iStock controversy has turned out to be nothing much (with the possible exception of f5 which was idiotic IMO and signalled how out of their depth the old team were) . Why not step back and take a calmer longer term view. React to how things actual happen instead of seeing everything as a 'sky is falling' event.
That may be your experience, but I can firmly say that both the RCs thing (never got to 35% which I would have under the old system almost three years ago, so that's a lot of money I've lost) and their auto-Collections move (how long have you got?) have both demonstratively impacted me negatively.
So forgive me if I don't share your optimism.
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Shutterstock is spending half of their earnings in advertising and then they've to pay for a whole data center, employees, engineers, and all .... in the very best scenario they're making a 20% net gain per year and this is sustainable only because they're paying us a pittance.
If Shutterstock moved from the Empire State Building somewhere to a Buffalo or Syracuse suburb, they could save a lot of money and return some of it to their contributors.
I completely agree, I would feel much better about SS if they made the same type of business decisions that most responsible corporations make. I worry that shutterstock is in this shorter term to take advantage of the stock run up.
Companies that are successful long term, do not ignore the people who help them get there. How many Fortune 500 companies stiff the people who help them grow by offering zero cost of living increases for well over 8 years?
And very few Fortune 500 companies take Shutterstock's approach and locate their main offices in the Number One most expensive realestate and cost of living location in the United States. In fact we are seeing the opposite, companies are moving out of expensive metro areas, so that they can remain competitive and offer employees better quality of life. No wonder shutterstock has high employee turnover.
There are plenty of high tech metro locations which shutterstock could have chosen that would offer a qualified workforce, low housing and lower cost of living expenses for shutterstock's workforce. This would result in higher employee retention, lower training, healthcare and other associated company expenses.
The PPI Tech/Info Job Ranking
http://tinyurl.com/kk9zjpd (http://tinyurl.com/kk9zjpd)
America's Top 25 High-Tech Hotspots
http://tinyurl.com/lgbncxh (http://tinyurl.com/lgbncxh)
America’s Leading High-Tech Metros
http://tinyurl.com/7zmxekd (http://tinyurl.com/7zmxekd)
Where Techies Call It Home [Infographic]
(http://kickassinfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Top-Technology-Region.jpeg)
Manhattan and Brooklyn Highest Cost of Living Nationwide
http://tinyurl.com/9ractoa (http://tinyurl.com/9ractoa)
Snip
Manhattan and Brooklyn are the most expensive places to live in the United States, according to research from the nonprofit Council for Community and Economic Research.
The organization uses pricing data from across the country for almost 60 different items, based in six areas—housing, utilities, grocery items, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous goods and services—to measure the cost of living.
MANHATTAN RENTAL MARKET REPORT
http://www.mns.com/manhattan_rental_market_report (http://www.mns.com/manhattan_rental_market_report)
Snip
To begin 2014, average rents across Manhattan increased 2.07% since the previous month, climbing to $3,833. Pricing for each Non-Doorman unit type across the borough increased since the previous month:
Studios (+1.69%), One-Bedrooms (+0.94%), Two- Bedrooms (+1.22%).
Fifth among world’s priciest office markets
http://tinyurl.com/lf5ek7a (http://tinyurl.com/lf5ek7a)
Manhattan’s Madison and Fifth avenues, with rents averaging $127 per square foot, is the world’s sixth-priciest office market, up from eighth place last year.
“The [Madison and Fifth avenues] submarket is home to many of the city’s trophy assets, which command higher asking rents, and is a desired location for occupiers like hedge funds and private-equity firms willing to pay triple-digit rents,”
Paying the Rent: The World’s 12 Most Expensive Office Locations
http://tinyurl.com/l44hyve (http://tinyurl.com/l44hyve)
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getty-images-makes-35-million-images-free-in-fight-against-copyright-infringement
Shutterstock
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Did you want them to hire an all new staff in Buffalo or pay to move them all?
"As with every choice we make, this was a decision driven by data. By analyzing the addresses of our 300+ NYC-based employees, we discovered the new location would save our staff an average of 3 minutes of commute time each way."
Sorry, back on topic.
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I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer.
Working that crystal ball in the dark again? Where do you get this "I think" from. Any shred of evidence? Or you just want to believe in something that I think will never happen.
Now who's I think has more credibility? (possibly neither) But we don't know!
Did you read Sean's article and all the loopholes and conditions and vague limitations? It's obvious by the terms that imbedded ads will be added at some date. (I think?)
As for data collection, from IS or other sites? Nice try, who cares. All sites do that and they have no obligation to share it.
Well, he didn't say when, or how much... in an infinite universe, in infinite time, anything will happen sooner or later.
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Did you want them to hire an all new staff in Buffalo or pay to move them all?
"As with every choice we make, this was a decision driven by data. By analyzing the addresses of our 300+ NYC-based employees, we discovered the new location would save our staff an average of 3 minutes of commute time each way."
Sean I am sure that you are aware that there are companies who move thousands of employees and still find the move cost effective.
To put it into perspective, we are talking about 300 employees and 10 plus million dollars spent on rent and tenant improvements to house those 300 employees over the last year alone.
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20%, when they start monetizing it.
"There are multiple statements from people in positions to make them along with more information on the Getty website (if you are a Getty contributor you can go there and see more details). You can look a couple posts up and see the link ShadySue posted. jjneff posted a quote from Lobo. "
[url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url] ([url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url])
Not seeing it. Where does it say 20% in the article you cited? And the 20% referred to in ShadySue's link was about the 80-20 split in what sells and what doesn't. I'm not a Getty contributor, so can you please cite something to back this up?
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from bunhill:"
IMO it is shocking the way in which anyone who does not go along with the groupthink here gets dismissed. Often people who have years of background in these markets and how image is sold. Whilst anything anti-Getty is popular, however wild or ignorant of the actual economics.
"
Getty's reputation is related completly to their track record of success - or lack thereof - in the last few years.
Shutterstock has been increasing the earnings of artists, istock/getty are making people less and less money.
They also don't communicate professionaly and spring "experiemnts" on people without asking the owners of the content.
Like I said before: a simple opt in button would have been the professional way to work.
If you love the project and are excited about it...go ahead and opt in.
But it is entirely unethical, not to mention completly arrogant to go over everyones heads.
Obviously if the last few years had been successful, reactions would be different.
The only people responsible for the reputation of gettyimages is gettyimages.
But of course it is easier to play the blame game and assume everyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid.
Give the artist an opt in and prove they can make money. Because all we see from the last few years is experiments and falling income.
They could have easily started this project in a way that gave them positive buzz from the artist. Unfortunately, they decided they prefer all the negativity they are getting now.
Or did you seriously think our reactions haven't been factored in?
The controversy has been intentionally provoked.
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The controversy has been intentionally provoked.
And has successfully diverted heat from the low-payout subs issue.
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20%, when they start monetizing it.
"There are multiple statements from people in positions to make them along with more information on the Getty website (if you are a Getty contributor you can go there and see more details). You can look a couple posts up and see the link ShadySue posted. jjneff posted a quote from Lobo. "
[url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url] ([url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url])
Not seeing it. Where does it say 20% in the article you cited? And the 20% referred to in ShadySue's link was about the 80-20 split in what sells and what doesn't. I'm not a Getty contributor, so can you please cite something to back this up?
There is the quote that jjneff posted a page or two ago from Lobo. In the link he refers to the Getty contract also.
Aaaaand we're back to the original statement when you told Sean that there was more than one source when he mentioned Lobo. Ok, I'm going to assume in the absence of any reliable sources that the 20% is completely made up, except for an opinion by a forum censor.
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20%, when they start monetizing it.
"There are multiple statements from people in positions to make them along with more information on the Getty website (if you are a Getty contributor you can go there and see more details). You can look a couple posts up and see the link ShadySue posted. jjneff posted a quote from Lobo. "
[url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url] ([url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url])
Not seeing it. Where does it say 20% in the article you cited? And the 20% referred to in ShadySue's link was about the 80-20 split in what sells and what doesn't. I'm not a Getty contributor, so can you please cite something to back this up?
There is the quote that jjneff posted a page or two ago from Lobo. In the link he refers to the Getty contract also.
Yebbut how often has Lobo said something, no doubt prompted by TPTB, which has not come to pass, or not in the way he first said it.
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Great article, Sean. This sentence sums it up for all the freebie hunters out there and should be put on every blogger's forum on the web.
"Basically, you’ve given up control to part of your blog to a company who’s goal is to make as much money for themselves while sharing the least with the people that enable it to make that money." Sean Locke
Make it clear to them that it's not just the image creators that Getty is abusing, it's potentially ALL content creators. Why any blog writer would associate with Getty after seeing what they'll do to their own artists is beyond me.
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Did you want them to hire an all new staff in Buffalo or pay to move them all?
"As with every choice we make, this was a decision driven by data. By analyzing the addresses of our 300+ NYC-based employees, we discovered the new location would save our staff an average of 3 minutes of commute time each way."
Sorry, back on topic.
Who cares where they are, no one is going to get a raise anytime soon. I see you haven't corrected your article. Or replied on the topic, are you still thinking they are planning on not paying?
As far as I know, this usage is still "promotional use", which requires them to pay zero.
And if %20 turns out to get $.0001 per usage, that's still zero in my book.
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If this link was already posted please remove, I did not go through all 25 pages to check. :)
Anyway interesting text to read.
http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/ (http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what/)
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But of course it is easier to play the blame game and assume everyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid.
That's what the msg group often seems like to me: Shutterstock good, Getty bad. Black and white.
I find it disappointing and depressing that some people who were once so bullish about the old microstock model, when that was disrupting established markets a decade ago , can now be so negative about the inevitable further evolution of these models. As if only some change is good. Why not be more positive and interested ?
Surely any business should position itself where it believes the market will go. Personally I believe that free will completely replace cheap in some uses. That certainly does not mean that pictures stop selling or that people who own and manage content will stop earning money from it.
Surely an interested conversation about the what-ifs are what this thread should be about. Instead of worrying etc.
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You still have images on Getty (part of the embed program) can't you go there and see more details on the deal? I don't see why you wouldn't want to be truthful accurate. One of the biggest reasons people trust you is because they believe you to be an honest, objective person. Also where are you getting that Getty has claimed this is 'promotional use' looking it up on Google I find your article shows up calling it promotional use but I don't see anyone from Getty or even any other articles claiming that. I'm sure I'm just missing that, you can provide those links if you like, and no they don't have to be legally binding. ;)
And if the advertising revenue turns out to be millions, paying out 20% is very much different than 0.
If it isn't "promotional use" then what is it? If you want to tell me what clause allows them to give usage away for free with no benefit to the other party in the contract, I'll consider changing that part of the article.
And no, there are no details listed anywhere else.
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Just out of interest, does anyone know whether the EyeEm collection is also part of the 35M?
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Trying to think this through on a positive side to try and grasp both sides. What if you got paid via advertising 20cents per ad view on our image would it be worth the risk seeing it is non-commercial use? No I am not a Getty fan boy I am just trying to see if there is real money to be made with this concept. How do people do with youtube ads? do they work? Seeing that images are easier to share the views could be higher then youtube for a lot of them. Forget Getty for a moment...is there any money to be made with this model?
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Very few people make money with advertising on YouTube.
Besides, YouTube is a whole different animal. It started out as a way for regular people to post and share silly videos of their families or pets. Getting revenue from it was an unexpected bonus.
On the other hand, Getty started from the beginning as a rep for photographers to make money. The two have pretty much gone in opposite directions, IMO.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-22/its-getting-harder-to-make-money-on-youtube (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-22/its-getting-harder-to-make-money-on-youtube)
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(http://mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com/files/2012/09/Screen-shot-2012-09-04-at-9.21.39-AM.png)
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Lets say this is our idea and we the artist want to start this model. First no rt. click of course and then 20cents for clicked view and no commercial use! If Sean stated this experiment I would probably trust it I do think it is a new way to make money so how can we improve it and use it for your own good instead of Getty. What would it take for this model to work? Can it work? Please I am as angry as you but I can look down the road as well.
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What if you got paid via advertising 20cents per ad view on our image would it be worth the risk seeing it is non-commercial use?
Not for me, because my images are almost totally not aimed at the commercial market. So 20c would be even worse than starting at SS.
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So Spotify pays way to little for it to be worth it. With all the brain power here and the indie Symbo Sites I bet we could hatch a play like this only much better. Help me think this through.
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But if you got 20cents per view of your image at SS my bet is you would be pretty rich by now. You see I just don't trust Getty with our best interest in mind. I do like the concept here so lets figure it out.
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"Trying to think this through on a positive side to try and grasp both sides. What if you got paid via advertising 20cents per ad view"
Put your thinking in line with .20 per 10000 views, I think.
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@bunhill,
it might seem like black and white to you. But don't worry, if SS messes up, we will let them know...
And if Getty did something sensible - abolish the RC system, add the option of exclusive images on istock, the way they have for getty, or simply just real time view for the coming sub sales...they will get my applause.
Getty had nothing to do with the microstock revolution. That was the work of Bruce and his team and then later all the other micro agencies. Getty just bought istock, the way they always try to buy innovation.
They have no track record of in house innovation. It is not part of their company culture.
They are buyers, not innovators. Nothing wrong with that if it is done well. But looking at istock and all the mess they have been creating in the last few years for themselves, they just don't seem to be organically connected to online business 2014. They always come across as still living in the eighties or nineties.
The fact they always keep pointing the blame "elsewhere" tells you everything you need to know. Today business leaders take charge of their own mistakes. Blaming others does not inspire confidence.
But if they do turn the company around and work in a positive, energizing way, their reputation will improve with their success.
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There are things Getty could have done to make this much more palatable. (like set it up as some sort of streaming buffet - you pay and then you can pick which images to have shown on your web site).
I think Sean is probably much more realistic with the $ numbers when they do make some $. just a few cents for many many views. now multiply that by .2 and that doesn't leave much for the artist. Multiply it by .8 and 35 million and it might be a nice chunk for Getty.
My guess is that artists see nothing for a while as they don't show ads or anything like that in the hopes that it becomes more popular. Ideally (for Carlyle) they get massive participation and can sell it for big $ without having to try to place ads. Then the next sucker tries to monetize it and it annoys the bloggers enough so that they take them out (perhaps).
There is nothing in their track record to make me optimistic about this move other than the fact that their IT can be so poor that maybe it will fail because of that.
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I certainly agree with the .002 per 1000 views as far as Getty goes but could we do it different? It's early in the game, I bet we could.
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From a certain person no longer amongst us
Now if you are a member of GI you can go in to their own Forum and read, not many are worried over there. Why not? because some House members have received PMs telling us exactly whats it all about and its confidential info, as always.
Some 90% of people screaming/shouting over at the MSG for example are just hangers-ons, latching on to something they havent even got a clue about but of course. It sounds good, makes them feel a little important.
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...But if they do turn the company around and work in a positive, energizing way, their reputation will improve with their success.
Your posts have been very clear, thoughtful and to the point, but dismissing them as "groupthink" is just an attempt to dismiss them en masse without addressing any of the issues. iStock and Getty's reputations are in the toilet with lots of us because of what they've done, not because of groupthink, however the expression "save your breath to cool your porridge" comes to mind with respect to the spin doctors who for whatever reason feel they need to troll these threads to open our eyes to how we have not been once again damaged by the actions of istock (subs) or Getty (yet another giveaway with no opt out).
As with the Google deal, if it was such a good idea, it should have been easy to offer contributors an opt in - people would be rushing to participate. As it is, there is one beneficiary (if any) and that's Getty/Carlyle. I had noted their alexa ranking last week (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/istock-new-sub-model-just-announced!/msg368270/#msg368270) as part of a comment on the subscription deal. I just checked and surprise surprise it has improved since the announcement:
Global last week /today
3,003 / 2,858
USA last week/today
1,107 / 932
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Nobody posts in those forums. The most recent post in one if the sub forums is from me from a year ago.
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it's not that photographers are de-valuing their work -- the world has changed. when creating stock was time consuming and expensive (physically mailing slides to customers, so that only a handful could see them at a time), simple stock images could command $100 or much more. digital stock changed that -- you could then buy a cd with 100 images for that price!
it's not that the images are worth less , rather too many photographers still believe their images had that value in the first place; forgetting it was the process, not any intrinsic value in the image.
technology, not microstock agencies, has torn the innards out of the photography business -- agencies, flicker, getty et al are merely RE-ACTING to the reality that photos ARE now a commodity.
so photographers need to decide which path to take -- find the few remaining areas where individual photographers can still command a livable sum; or find ways to make money in this new world.
Assignments, Prints, Exhibitions, that's where the money is.
true -- but how many of the thousands of microstockers can even attempt that?
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If they are ust trying it out, why not use their wholly-owned content to start with; then let people opt in, if they choose.
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If Getty had run this in a test market somewhere and it had proven successful, then were rolling it out internationally, it would have been welcomed by excited contributors looking forward to making more money. The fact that there's no test, they've sprung it on contributors with no opt out, and they're not sure it'll even work shows they're doing this for reasons other than the way they're attempting to spin it. It's either out of desperation, a way to falsely inflate the value of the company to get a better sell price, or to knock out smaller competitors and perhaps swallow them up to monopolize the market. It's just very fishy they've done no pretesting of such a big decision.
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From a certain person no longer amongst us
Now if you are a member of GI you can go in to their own Forum and read, not many are worried over there. Why not? because some House members have received PMs telling us exactly whats it all about and its confidential info, as always.
Some 90% of people screaming/shouting over at the MSG for example are just hangers-ons, latching on to something they havent even got a clue about but of course. It sounds good, makes them feel a little important.
I've been reading the Getty Contributor's forum at Flickr for the past few days and there are plenty of people jumping up and down. Getty personnel are fielding some of the questions but the answers are often glib and patronizing - scant on detail about any compensation to the contributor and vague on when the embedded images will actually stream advertising and start to accrue revenue.
As usual, your man is talking out of his other hole.
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I think contributors will see income from the ad revenue generated by images in the embed viewer.
Working that crystal ball in the dark again? Where do you get this "I think" from. Any shred of evidence? Or you just want to believe in something that I think will never happen.
Now who's I think has more credibility? (possibly neither) But we don't know!
Did you read Sean's article and all the loopholes and conditions and vague limitations? It's obvious by the terms that imbedded ads will be added at some date. (I think?)
As for data collection, from IS or other sites? Nice try, who cares. All sites do that and they have no obligation to share it.
Well, he didn't say when, or how much... in an infinite universe, in infinite time, anything will happen sooner or later.
20%, when they start monetizing it.
"There are multiple statements from people in positions to make them along with more information on the Getty website (if you are a Getty contributor you can go there and see more details). You can look a couple posts up and see the link ShadySue posted. jjneff posted a quote from Lobo. "
[url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url] ([url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url])
that's a percentage, not an amount. I will give you 20% of my earnings from driving racecars.... I have no hands.
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it's not that photographers are de-valuing their work -- the world has changed. when creating stock was time consuming and expensive (physically mailing slides to customers, so that only a handful could see them at a time), simple stock images could command $100 or much more. digital stock changed that -- you could then buy a cd with 100 images for that price!
it's not that the images are worth less , rather too many photographers still believe their images had that value in the first place; forgetting it was the process, not any intrinsic value in the image.
technology, not microstock agencies, has torn the innards out of the photography business -- agencies, flicker, getty et al are merely RE-ACTING to the reality that photos ARE now a commodity.
so photographers need to decide which path to take -- find the few remaining areas where individual photographers can still command a livable sum; or find ways to make money in this new world.
Assignments, Prints, Exhibitions, that's where the money is.
true -- but how many of the thousands of microstockers can even attempt that?
Assigments & co. will provide enough work for about 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of people bit more involved wih photography
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that's a percentage, not an amount. I will give you 20% of my earnings from driving racecars.... I have no hands.
Isn't it so darn frustrating trying to change the ISO with your nose ;)
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I think I'm over it now.
I keep having to remind myself that the "stock industry" or "photo buyers" as only one thing means next to nothing nowadays. It's too broad a subject and too broad a pool of customers and users.
I strongly suspect that a huge amount of potential buyers will know nothing about Getty, or Shutterstock, or any other agency until they have a need for an image and click on the first agency or site that comes up in Google or another search engine with what they need. I also think this will have a negligible effect on established companies with accounts at agencies, except at Getty of course (whether they'll like this or hate it remains to be seen). Just my opinion, and I'm working on my plan B for just in case it does impact my target market(s).
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Nobody posts in those forums. The most recent post in one if the sub forums is from me from a year ago.
There are lots of posts on this deal and most all of them have been responded to by Getty.
They avoid answering any questions about how the money this deals brings (ad-money but also money made with the data from this deal) is shared.
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A few home truths that we should probably come to grips with.
Microstock will never be a source of reasonable income (time/ effort invested to returns made) for most of us - at least I can speak for myself.
Just in the last month we have had 2 issues that go to show how the agencies view contributors. This Getty embed deal - good or bad - contributors were neither consulted nor given opt out. And just before that the DP - Shotshop deal that paid contributors lowly sub rates while the eventual sale was for hugely greater amounts. And if you scan over the last year or two, almost every other agency has unilaterally decreased our commissions, to increase their share. Furthermore many have forced us into accepting the sub model with absolutely no justification if one sees the volume generated for an individual contributor. Some agency wont let you opt out of the partner programs or give you take it all or leave it all, opt-in ultimatums. And while all this is going on there are more and more contributors and uploads, that have now taken the larger agencies to 20 million+ images - further strengthening them to act willfully backed by large and growing reserves of images.
What does all of this tell me? That most of us (microstock contributors) are seen by the agencies as a large photography- interest group of some sort, perhaps not too different from Flickr, and we need to get our 'kicks' because our work gets featured somewhere and rejoice if a few pennies get thrown in our direction. Its maybe not how we see ourselves. Its how the agencies appear to see us.
I like Shutterstock. Sure its sub based. That is their model from the outset and one can take it or leave it. They justify it with regular, consistent volume month over month, in most months. But Shutterstock cant be the one answer for all of us for all time. Anyway with time we are likely to see sales spread thinner over more and more contributors. Simply because the market is not growing at the rate of supply to all indications.
It seems clear that we are not a cohesive group of any sort that can influence the microstock business chain in a meaningful way.
We see this again and again.
So I think its time to clean up my little microstock house - get out of all dysfuntional type agencies and deals. Be happy with whatever microstock income I make every month from a few 'good' and carefully selected agencies. And focus lots more positive energy into more productive avenues of photography. Nothing else I do can get as bad as all this. That's the point.
Meanwhile I, and I hope most other contributors, should actively STOP contributing to agencies that willfully act contrary to our interest. That is the one thing we can do which will make a difference - and may change the writing on the wall.
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Nobody posts in those forums. The most recent post in one if the sub forums is from me from a year ago.
There are lots of posts on this deal and most all of them have been responded to by Getty.
They avoid answering any questions about how the money this deals brings (ad-money but also money made with the data from this deal) is shared.
I think we all know what's going to happen to money made from data, I don't expect it's different at any of the competitors either. Do you?
Well others don't let embed my images for free. The data received from the embeds is actually very valuable.
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Nobody posts in those forums. The most recent post in one if the sub forums is from me from a year ago.
There are lots of posts on this deal and most all of them have been responded to by Getty.
Last I saw, there were two, both positive of course, because no one likes to rattle the cage.
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Hi JoAnn,
I was quoting bunhill. the "groupthink" term isn´t from me. Sorry if my quote looked funny.
It´s interesting to read about the flickr group but also no surprise. It´s a different crowd of people. I was excited about VOX too, but now I have the experience from Vox, the Microsoft deal and the Getty Google deal. And many years of Getty management (expectations set - results received...or not...)
When they have their own experience, they will understand this board better.
Getty and many istock admins think of msg as a terrible place and would NEVER dare post here in person. Which makes you wonder how they will handle the investor community if there really ever is an IPO. msg is a warm fuzzy place with lots of rainbows compared to those boards.
Unlike Shutterstock or other agencies, whose admins have no problem interacting with people online on public boards they cannot control. They work in an internet company, this is completely normal for them.
Again, a simple opt in or opt out button solves everything. Let the people who are enthusiastic about the project enjoy it. And the rest of us would join if they can show us the money.
Just look at the way Shutterstock handles their reputation - they communicate respectfully and thoughtfully and they have no track record of shitstorms on the internet. They work very hard at being a reliable business partner and know how to work with a large international customer and contributor group.
Whereas Getty has a long history of pain. They seem to love the drama, that is why they keep provoking it.
Makes no sense to me, but if they wanted to have positive reputation, they would just do things correctly to achieve that.
It is not rocket science and doesn´t need a huge investment. Words are cheap.
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I get paid for every Facebook sale, there is no need to opt out. Every time my file gets used, I get a normal sub download. And the customer does´t even get the file, the tiny thumbnail is only incorporated into the Facebook ads. If they want something larger for prints, they have to go to SS and buy a file.
Here is Michael´s summary, he tried it (and he bought one of my files, so I can verify it is correct):
http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/shutterstock-and-the-facebook-deal/?fb_action_ids=10152378985371802&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582 (http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/shutterstock-and-the-facebook-deal/?fb_action_ids=10152378985371802&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582)
It is actually a better deal than the normal sub download (no XXXL for 33 cents).
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Nobody posts in those forums. The most recent post in one if the sub forums is from me from a year ago.
There are lots of posts on this deal and most all of them have been responded to by Getty.
Last I saw, there were two, both positive of course, because no one likes to rattle the cage.
There are at least 5 pages from what I remember. No one is being excessively rude if that's what you mean.
Wow, it must have blown up since last I looked, when there were just two responses. Both positive.
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I get paid for every Facebook sale, there is no need to opt out.
Oh because YOU like the deal there is no need for an opt out? Didn't you just say "Again, a simple opt in or opt out button solves everything. Let the people who are enthusiastic about the project enjoy it." ?
It's not 'a deal'. It's a simplification of a process that can already be done. That's all.
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It is a sub deal. It is not different from anything else they do. A normal API deal.
Offering files for free on the internet with the vague promise that one day down the line there might be ad revenue is.
They didn´t change their business model, this is exactly what I signed up for and what I am sending them my files for. 33 cents (or more) a download.
Honest and upfront.
But here are the downloads that people get from Getty:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=359726&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=359726&page=1)
Is this what you are expecting to get?
I am sure they are getting 20%. But 20% of what?
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What are you trying to imply? That somehow with Facebook SS is making a lot more money than with their regular subscription service?
The 28 -30% they claim to pay out is consistent with the data from the balance sheet they publish every quarter. SS is a publicly traded company.
They can´t hide.
In any case - what does it have to do with Getty offering 35 million files for free on the internet to UNREGISTERED users? Of very expensive content, even RM content?
ETA: You can also just go and supply pond5 if you like. Always 50%, no subs and you can set your own prices. Works great with video. And I´m not aware of any major dramas in the last few years.
Now back to the topic.
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:)
I know this whole discussion is hard. We all make our living from our work. But for many people who are shy or simply not very good with English these discussions on MSG are extremely helpful.
It´s the main reason I am here so often. I get a lot of emails or phone calls if something drastic happens,especially from the German community. So I just point them to msg and they keep following here while they have their own discussions on the German boards.
Others discuss it on Facebook etc..but msg is widely read and even if discussions swing wildly here, they are very useful.
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So I think its time to clean up my little microstock house - get out of all dysfuntional type agencies and deals. Be happy with whatever microstock income I make every month from a few 'good' and carefully selected agencies. And focus lots more positive energy into more productive avenues of photography. Nothing else I do can get as bad as all this. That's the point.
Meanwhile I, and I hope most other contributors, should actively STOP contributing to agencies that willfully act contrary to our interest. That is the one thing we can do which will make a difference - and may change the writing on the wall.
Exactly how I feel and am proceeding. I've dropped Getty House and iStock and am feeling better about that every day. Just got the latest edition of Photographers Market and will get back into self marketing. Will stick it out with a couple of the agencies I am with and look at others that charge reasonable prices and pay reasonable rates.
I used to do very well with self marketing but got lazy when signing on with some of the better agencies several years ago. Time to go back to the beginning.
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I was quoting bunhill. the "groupthink" term isn´t from me. Sorry if my quote looked funny....
It was quite clear where the groupthink term came from - no worries there. I was trying to avoid giving any attention to the poster of that comment as I try not to "feed the trolls" and I ended up blending things badly in my post.
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It is a sub deal. It is not different from anything else they do.
Except that none of the end users of those images had to pay for subscriptions. All we know is this: SS made a deal with FB for use of images. Every time one gets used, the contributor get 35 cents. So what was actually "paid" for that image, in total, over time, by FB? I don't know. Does anyone, outside of SS?
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It is a sub deal. It is not different from anything else they do.
Except that none of the end users of those images had to pay for subscriptions. All we know is this: SS made a deal with FB for use of images. Every time one gets used, the contributor get 35 cents. So what was actually "paid" for that image, in total, over time, by FB? I don't know. Does anyone, outside of SS?
Right, they didn't have that purchase barrier of ponying up for a full subscription. Opens the door to a whole new audience. Since the usage is less and the pay is the same, why would I care what was 'paid'?
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heading off topic here - but more of a comment on the FB deal:
It does make you wonder if one could open up a freelance cooperative design company and purchase a subscription (or more) and then for a small fee designers could join and get subs from SS. As long as that small fee was less than the cost of a SOD it would be attractive to them. Not as good for photographers (but still maybe a higher percentage than a normal sub), and probably very unpopular to SS. I am guessing if it isn't outlawed in the TOS it would be soon if it became popular.
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It is a sub deal. It is not different from anything else they do.
Except that none of the end users of those images had to pay for subscriptions. All we know is this: SS made a deal with FB for use of images. Every time one gets used, the contributor get 35 cents. So what was actually "paid" for that image, in total, over time, by FB? I don't know. Does anyone, outside of SS?
Right, they didn't have that purchase barrier of ponying up for a full subscription. Opens the door to a whole new audience. Since the usage is less and the pay is the same, why would I care what was 'paid'?
I guess at the end of the day, if you don't care what the buyer (FB) actually paid - in whatever form - and are satisfied with what SS chooses to pay you for your work- then so be it.
Back in the old days images were "sold" for a "price" and we got a percentage of that price, and maybe we would have cared if we found out the agency was selling them for $10 and giving us 50 cents. I guess that's just obsolete 20th century thinking.
What if SS wasn't in the picture, and FB offered this "deal" on its own? You upload all your images to FB, and if one is used in an ad you get 38 cents. Would you sign up?
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I was quoting bunhill. the "groupthink" term isn´t from me. Sorry if my quote looked funny....
It was quite clear where the groupthink term came from - no worries there. I was trying to avoid giving any attention to the poster of that comment as I try not to "feed the trolls" and I ended up blending things badly in my post.
it's completely exasperating that you consider me to be trolling. For simply expressing a different perspective. My use of the term 'groupthink' was in relation to exactly this kind of attitude - ie that there should be only one way of considering a thing.
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... sorry, decided not to post another opinion. I need more sleep to write coherently.
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@bunhill,
it might seem like black and white to you. But don't worry, if SS messes up, we will let them know...
And if Getty did something sensible - abolish the RC system, add the option of exclusive images on istock, the way they have for getty, or simply just real time view for the coming sub sales...they will get my applause.
Getty had nothing to do with the microstock revolution. That was the work of Bruce and his team and then later all the other micro agencies. Getty just bought istock, the way they always try to buy innovation.
They have no track record of in house innovation. It is not part of their company culture.
They are buyers, not innovators. Nothing wrong with that if it is done well. But looking at istock and all the mess they have been creating in the last few years for themselves, they just don't seem to be organically connected to online business 2014. They always come across as still living in the eighties or nineties.
The fact they always keep pointing the blame "elsewhere" tells you everything you need to know. Today business leaders take charge of their own mistakes. Blaming others does not inspire confidence.
But if they do turn the company around and work in a positive, energizing way, their reputation will improve with their success.
i am sorry, i just woke up and seem to missed out on "Bruce and his team" and all of his innovations..."
In the year 2000, istockphoto, a microstock image website, began which later impacted the stock photo industry by driving prices of royalty-free images down as low as $1 per image. It was done because of the recent availability of high-resolution digital cameras in the mass market and the ability for amateur photographers to upload their images and to the website.
true it's a success story for sure, but i don't see any "innovation" there.
you guys go on and on about bruce like he invented the wheel. he merely re-invented it but sold images for $1,
RF? nope that was also around too.
online stock photo agencies? done
now if you consider allowing anyone with a digital camera to submit images for 20% of $1, the yes your almighty Bruce is an industry leader, but an "innovator"?
the only problem with what you deem to be an "innovation" followed by copy cats a few years later in 2004, is the price of photos has dropped, or shall i say have been in complete free fall. and it has become now widely accepted that anyone with a digital camera is a real pro.
this has also been enabled technology and the internet of course.
i'd really like see your list of innovations by "bruce and his team" or does selling out the the devil for $50 million and dropping the "community" count as one.
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@bunhill,
it might seem like black and white to you. But don't worry, if SS messes up, we will let them know...
And if Getty did something sensible - abolish the RC system, add the option of exclusive images on istock, the way they have for getty, or simply just real time view for the coming sub sales...they will get my applause.
Getty had nothing to do with the microstock revolution. That was the work of Bruce and his team and then later all the other micro agencies. Getty just bought istock, the way they always try to buy innovation.
They have no track record of in house innovation. It is not part of their company culture.
They are buyers, not innovators. Nothing wrong with that if it is done well. But looking at istock and all the mess they have been creating in the last few years for themselves, they just don't seem to be organically connected to online business 2014. They always come across as still living in the eighties or nineties.
The fact they always keep pointing the blame "elsewhere" tells you everything you need to know. Today business leaders take charge of their own mistakes. Blaming others does not inspire confidence.
But if they do turn the company around and work in a positive, energizing way, their reputation will improve with their success.
i am sorry, i just woke up after a decade long slumber and seemed to have missed out on "Bruce and his team" and all of his innovations..."
In the year 2000, istockphoto, a microstock image website, began which later impacted the stock photo industry by driving prices of royalty-free images down as low as $1 per image. It was done because of the recent availability of high-resolution digital cameras in the mass market and the ability for amateur photographers to upload their images and to the website.
true it's a success story for sure, but i don't see any "innovation" there.
you guys go on and on about bruce like he invented the wheel. he merely re-invented it but sold images for $1,
RF? nope that was also around too.
online stock photo agencies? done
now if you consider allowing anyone with a digital camera to submit images for 20% of $1, the yes your almighty Bruce is an industry leader, but an "innovator"?
the only problem with what you deem to be an "innovation" followed by copy cats a few years later in 2004, is the price of photos has dropped, or shall i say have been in complete free fall. and it has become now widely accepted that anyone with a digital camera is a real pro.
this has also been enabled technology and the internet of course.
i'd really like see your list of innovations by "bruce and his team" or does selling out the the devil for $50 million and dropping the "community" count as one.
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What did Bruce ever do to you? Where your files selling for 500 dollars all the time before? And do you seriously believe that if your income went down it had something to do with him?
You could have taken advantage of the platform he and others created and made as much money as Lisegagne, Sean or Yuri if you had wanted to. Lots of smart photographers did, nobody stopped you from joining them. It still is a completely open platform, no need to buddy up to anyone to join. Just make great content and earn money.
But I suppose it is easier to blame others for the loss of income, when all you did was miss the amazing opportunity the internet brought us all.
I was referring to the following statement by Jonathan Klein in the BJP article:
"says Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images, in a prepared statement. “Innovation and disruption are the foundation of Getty Images"
I don´t consider giving the products away for free to combat the stealing of said product an innovation. My personal opinion of course.
But if they do find a way to bring in serious money with it for the artist, I´ll be happy to give them credit.
When Bruce was in charge of istock (until 2009) my income and that of most other artists was growing steadily. When he left they introduced the RC´s and many other changes and our income went down. They also focussed their energy on Thinkstock and actively encouraged istock customers to spend their money there. Was the internet or industry so different in 2009 than in 2012? No it wasn´t. The reason istock didn´t grow and revenue was falling was because Getty decided not to grow it the way Bruce did. Or they simply didn´t know how to grow it successfully the way Bruce and his team did. istock was the market leader in micro stock. Now it is Shutterstock. Who do you think is responsible for that?
Now Bruce and his team opened stocksy, and again I am making more money than I expected to make from the files that I have there. Somewhere along the line I got to connect Bruce with money. Others here connect Shutterstock and Jon Oringer with money because that is where they are seeing their biggest growth.
Money does´t happen by itself, it needs good entrepreneurial skills to harvest it.
And today I see Bruce and his team again set an example for the industry. stocksy is a total success, if anything they are over delivering of what I was expecting them to do.
If Bruce can start an agency that pays out 50% royalties and 100% of extended licenses and go from zero to the success and branding they have in one year - yes, for me that is innovative entrepreneurial work.
And it begs the question - all the smaller production houses with excellent content - what are they doing wrong?
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If Getty build 3 tier content supply with:
Getty -the most expensive
Istock - middle priced
Thinkstock - cheap sub model
Why they are making Getty's most expensive content free
And don't include Istock and Thinkstock content in this deal?
Just a thought.
What do you think?
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bruce has never done anything to me, quit being so hyper defensive and motherly. and yes, my files were selling for $500 more often than not before microstock - truth be told though the average sale was most likely around $250 or so for an RF image.
i don't think my income decline is solely due to him, rather the model of selling photos for $1 being the new norm, but yes, he is the founder of cheap. it is also due to the new generation of photographer that never were in the traditional industry of selling photos for real money. at the time, i doubt your references would have even qualified to become stock shooters, as it was determined by having real skill, proven skill, and being able to do more than just pass a stupid multiple choice question with three photos. that said, all three have gone a long way and would most likely qualify now, but in the beginning nope. just look at some of their earlier work, that would have never passed the quality test. sorry.
i am not blaming anyone for loss of income as you assume. it is not any one person that has screwed this industry up, rather a perfect combination of elements, a perfect storm if you will.
i beg to differ that stocksy and brucey are setting an example. now if he had done this and not sold out to getty, then yes it would have been an amazing example. it's funny how IS was founded on paying people only 20% then selling out that ideal to make $50 million and have the gumption to say anything less than 50% is wrong and photographers are fools to accept anything less. not sure about you honey, but this is pure hypocrisy in my books.
sure i like the ideal of stocksy, but i am also aware i need to make a living doing this, and unless i am really into the bed & breakfast of selling photos i am going to stick to where i know i can and do make real money.
thus far i think this whole getty handout is bad news for the industry in general, at least from a contributors point of view, but whether i agree with this move or not, i don't think getty does anything unless there is a reason. hate to say it, but for a group of people who thrive on acquisitions i also think they do put effort into the "innovation" front as you call it.
never in my 25+ years of shooting stock have i ever seen such a race to the bottom, by all agencies. each and every one of them seems to be doing desperate acts to monetize the sale of our images, and frankly, i don't think there is one agency out there with any of our (contributor's) best interests at hand, and i don't trust any of these agencies either, and that includes getty images. but i am way too established with their format at this point in time to throw all that away and gamble on starting again with new agencies of any sort.
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It takes more than a year to recover your income. I don´t understand why people always think there is a "magic button" to instantly move up into the best search positions on the other agencies. They would´t be earning what they do now if they came in new to istock/getty with their portfolios, even if everything was accepted and went live immediately.
Sean could be earning a lot more money now, if he had embraced Shutterstock. Yuri had 3000 - 4000 downloads a day. At around 70 cents to one dollar on average, you just need a fraction of that to pay your bills.
Instead Sean decided to join a total start up and otherwise focussed on ethical companies that were low earners. This year he is following a different approach.
Do you have any doubts, that he will be successful?? I don´t.
Robert Kneschke keeps posting his results, he is now at over 13 000 dollars of revenue a month as a single artist without employees and saw a YOY growth of 28% last year.
80% of his income is from Fotolia and Shutterstock, he hardly supplies the macros, because he makes easier money on the micros.
He stopped supplying istock in 2010.
Will I earn 13 000 dollars a month in one year, even if I had 12 000 files ready and sitting and uploaded them? No, because my files need to move up in the best match search positions. This takes time.
But if you work consistently and think about your content, I really don´t see a problem. I only have 600-700 files on average on the agencies because I took a whole year to understand the wider industry. And I have come to the conclusion I should have gone indie earlier.
There is absolutely no way I am going back, I love money.
And Getty is not even giving you any vision that there will be money in the future, all we keep reading is how it is all over, we have to accept that our work is worthless etc...
So why would my main focus be there?
I supply istock as a normal subs agency, like I supply Fotolia or Shutterstock. I might even see growth there when they add more subs customers.
But there is so much money out there, you just have to open your ideas and work smart.
The stock industry is a market with over 6 Billion dollars a year. Getty has a large piece with 870 million, but there is so much more.
But if you are looking for a perfect blueprint for someone to write it out for you so that you just follow in their footsteps without thinking for yourself...why would I do that? I share a lot, but not everything. ;)
Honestly you should spend some time talking to a few contributors who moved up into the best search positions on shutterstock over the years, only to see those positions killed in a matter of a day to make room for new images from IS defectors and other new contributors. Ask those contributors how they feel about the huge drops in earnings of 30% to 75% they have seen since last March and ask them how those drops have affected their families.
Snip
SS is a modern, technology focussed company that understands that both their customers as well as their suppliers are entrepreneurs. They see themselves as a service platform and put all their energy and considerable brain power of their staff to providing the best service in the industry.
Snip
SS has very smart leadership with now over 10 years of experience. And they have tons of money to spend on infrastructure and growth instead of billions in debt like Getty.
Please you have been with SS nano seconds. Take some time to look at the long term problems and to do a little sleuthing under Shutterstock's hood. Look at the bug forums, talk to contributors who have consistently have experienced missing images, keywords and ports over the last 7 years.
Shutterstock certainly does not spend tons of money on infrastructure or to kill bugs plaguing some but not all of its contributors. In fact they do not even update security patches to end of life server software.
Oct 30, 2010 502 proxy error Apache/1.3.41 Server at submit.shutterstock.com Port 80
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt93925.html (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt93925.html)
Quote: You are looking at the documentation for the 1.3 version of the Apache HTTP Server, which is no longer maintained, and has been declared "end of life". If you are in fact still using the 1.3 version, please consider upgrading. The current version of the server is 2.2.
Three years later the shutterstock site is still running on end of life "free" open source software that shutterstock could not even bother to update end of life server software with free security patches and enhanced server capabilities.
May 22, 2013 Still running on Apache 1.3.41 Released 2008-01-19
http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-down-again- (http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-down-again-)!/
1.3.x reached end of life status in Feb of 2010, the latest version is 2.2 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/ (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/)
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If Getty build 3 tier content supply with:
Getty -the most expensive
Istock - middle priced
Thinkstock - cheap sub model
Why they are making Getty's most expensive content free
And don't include Istock and Thinkstock content in this deal?
Just a thought.
What do you think?
i think the whole industry is in shambles is what i think - from a contributor's perspective.
problem is, they have our images and do whatever . they want to do with them, and we don't really have another outlet to place our work in.
the industry has changed and fast. not sure i like the direction of all of this.
before microstock came along i don't ever recall any stock agency giving away "free" image of the week even.
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"Instead Sean decided to join a total start up and otherwise focussed on ethical companies that were low earners. This year he is following a different approach."
i thought he was forced to join this start up, i don't recall any decision making in his process of joining. similarly he is now "experimenting" with SS, but i think that is simply sugar coated speak for forced to.
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@gbalex
I have no idea how the best match on SS works, but I would´t be surprised if contributors who come in with large portfolios and are uploading thousands of files in a few weeks will move up quickly in the search positions. But once they have uploaded their catalogue their ranking it will drop again, unless they really are a very high volume producer.
I only have 650 files on SS, I certainly don´t feel favoured. I still have many days with zero downloads and if I don´t upload for two weeks my downloads drop very strongly. It looks like their system, maybe more than other agencies, needs very consistent uploading. I also get a lot more rejections than on any other site I am contributing to. And many rejections I don´t understand, but I keep reading here this is normal.
You have been with them much longer than I have obviously, so I guess you would know more about them.
But all agencies that I am contributing too need very consistent uploads. On istock the people I know who are earning a lot of money are sometimes uploading over 200 files in one week.
Their success is even more astounding because new files hardly sell on istock, even for them. But apparently also the best match on istock is geared to favour the active producer.
With over 200 000 images a week, maybe this is a logical way to set up best match, I don´t know.
One thing is certain however: there will be many more exclusives leaving and bringing their portfolios to all the agencies. The msg report said this clearly. So everyone who is indie has to consider this, if they believe it will effect them.
As for Shutterstock families suffering from exclusives going indie - the exclusives would love to stay with istock. It is a great pity Gettyimages does´t want them and that the exclusive numbers are dropping.
But again: what does this all have to do with Getty deciding to give out files for free? Including RM content? And will their decisions encourage more exclusives to leave? Or will it attract new people who want to work only with them?
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If Bruce can start an agency that pays out 50% royalties and 100% of extended licenses and go from zero to the success and branding they have in one year - yes, for me that is innovative entrepreneurial work.
And it begs the question - all the smaller production houses with excellent content - what are they doing wrong?
This is where I completely agree with you, if Bruce can accomplish this in one years time, Shutterstock could certainly do the same. The fact is that they choose to pay their contributors 28% while keeping pricing stagnantly low to gain markets share.
I think the low ball pricing has contributed to Getty and Istocks recent moves and I think it has and will continue to hurt all of us.
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Well the equivalent to stocksy would be Offset, wouldn´t it? And Shutterstock is paying out 30% for non exclusive content. Isn´t that also revolutionary for a macro agency? I thought they all want exclusive content? I am not an expert in macro.
Offset has beautiful work and excellent prices up to 500 dollars. Simple pricing too.
But again, this probably belongs in a different thread.
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If Bruce can start an agency that pays out 50% royalties and 100% of extended licenses and go from zero to the success and branding they have in one year - yes, for me that is innovative entrepreneurial work.
And it begs the question - all the smaller production houses with excellent content - what are they doing wrong?
This is where I completely agree with you, if Bruce can accomplish this in one years time, Shutterstock could certainly do the same. The fact is that they choose to pay their contributors 28% while keeping pricing stagnantly low to gain markets share.
I think the low ball pricing has contributed to Getty and Istocks recent moves and I think it has and will continue to hurt all of us.
You hit the nail!
And in his recent interview Jon Oringer confirmed that all use is commercial you can ask yourself why companies that make a lot of money with our work can only spend a few Dollars for it. The truth is they could easily spend a lot more but it's all sacrificed for the greed of market-share.
The link to the interview is here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/)
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Well the new free for all viewer will certainly stop the growth of Shutterstock and return all customers to Getty...;) Because the low prices is all that makes Shutterstock successful...
Maybe I am beginning to see the logic in the boardroom that dreamed up this brilliant new move at Getty...how could I not see it before...
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Well the new free for all viewer will certainly stop the growth of Shuuerstock and return all customers to Getty...;) Because the low prices is all that makes Shutterstock successful...
Maybe I am beginning to see the logic in the boardroom that dreamed up this brilliant new move...
Again Jon Oringer confirmed that nearly all use is commercial see above! The myth that the extremely low prices at Microstock are necessary because of all this poor students, bloggers and churches that couldn't afford otherwise was always a lie and is now obvious.
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i don´t remember anyone ever claiming in micro stock that their prices were low to sponsor students?
Prices were low to take advantage of the internet and it´s wide distribution potential. Like the 99 cent apps in the app store for mobiles phones.
This is the reason I joined and uploaded. Plus all the fun.
If I want to give my files away for free I can do that anytime. But of course now Getty will be doing it for us all.
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i don´t remember anyone ever claiming in micro stock that their prices were low to sponsor students?
I do
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Well the new free for all viewer will certainly stop the growth of Shuuerstock and return all customers to Getty...;) Because the low prices is all that makes Shutterstock successful...
Maybe I am beginning to see the logic in the boardroom that dreamed up this brilliant new move...
Again Jon Oringer confirmed that nearly all use is commercial see above! The Myth the extremely low prices at Microstock are necessary because of all this poor students, bloggers and churches that couldn't afford otherwise was always a lie and is now obvious.
it's been excruciatingly obvious since it's inception, but for some reason the microstock crowd was so busy self applauding they somehow oversaw this. now you know what us 'dinosaur' 'trads' have been ranting and raving about :)
$75 for a web usage was normal pre Istock and at 40% to 50% royalty rates, and it all went up from there. then the "innovation team" came along and started selling for $1 at 20% royalty rates, but sold it as a community (same lie and now obvious).
Getty caught on pretty quick, and said, hey these contributors are idiots they have no clue about the industry, this is a complete gold mine, let's "acquire" them and tell them is "unsustainable".
to put this into perspective, the annual revenue in stock photography annually is estimated at 11 billion dollars per year, and SS only has 235 million dollars revenue last year. and here many of you thought they are a real player.
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i don´t remember anyone ever claiming in micro stock that their prices were low to sponsor students?
Prices were low to take advantage of the internet and it´s wide distribution potential. Like the 99 cent apps in the app store for mobiles phones.
This is the reason I joined and uploaded. Plus all the fun.
If I want to give my files away for free I can do that anytime. But of course now Getty will be doing it for us all.
i had no clue you were with getty as well
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to put this into perspective, the annual revenue in stock photography annually is estimated at 11 billion dollars per year, and SS only has 235 million dollars revenue last year. and here many of you thought they are a real player.
Or maybe it is $2.9bn - http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/ (http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/) - I suppose it depends where you go for your figures (and you haven't said where yours come from).
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to put this into perspective, the annual revenue in stock photography annually is estimated at 11 billion dollars per year, and SS only has 235 million dollars revenue last year. and here many of you thought they are a real player.
Or maybe it is $2.9bn - [url]http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/[/url] ([url]http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/[/url]) - I suppose it depends where you go for your figures (and you haven't said where yours come from).
from the horses mouth so to speak :)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/)
but i have also hear similar figures albeit those were hovering around 9 billion a few years ago.
either way man, it's definitely a lot of money.
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to put this into perspective, the annual revenue in stock photography annually is estimated at 11 billion dollars per year, and SS only has 235 million dollars revenue last year. and here many of you thought they are a real player.
Or maybe it is $2.9bn - [url]http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/[/url] ([url]http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/[/url]) - I suppose it depends where you go for your figures (and you haven't said where yours come from).
from the horses mouth so to speak :)
[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
but i have also hear similar figures albeit those were hovering around 9 billion a few years ago.
either way man, it's definitely a lot of money.
That's interesting. Only a couple of years ago I was arguing with an old-timer that microstock had helped the market to grow from the 2.2bn it was supposed to be at in 2002 and he insisted that data showed there had been no growth and microstock just devalued imagery and undermined the industry. Fourfold growth in just over a decade would seem to be a very healthy market indeed.
Anyway, that's completely off topic. Sorry.
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to put this into perspective, the annual revenue in stock photography annually is estimated at 11 billion dollars per year, and SS only has 235 million dollars revenue last year. and here many of you thought they are a real player.
Or maybe it is $2.9bn - [url]http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/[/url] ([url]http://bespokevideoproduction.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/global-stock-image-market-survey-2012-report/[/url]) - I suppose it depends where you go for your figures (and you haven't said where yours come from).
from the horses mouth so to speak :)
[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
but i have also hear similar figures albeit those were hovering around 9 billion a few years ago.
either way man, it's definitely a lot of money.
That's interesting. Only a couple of years ago I was arguing with an old-timer that microstock had helped the market to grow from the 2.2bn it was supposed to be at in 2002 and he insisted that data showed there had been no growth and microstock just devalued imagery and undermined the industry. Fourfold growth in just over a decade would seem to be a very healthy market indeed.
Anyway, that's completely off topic. Sorry.
not really, it is actually on topic. the problem here is that the "agencies" have us all by the nuts (sorry ladies) and are using our copyrighted work to fight for their own growth by reducing the value of our work and/or in the instance of GI giving the images away. my gut tells me this move was not motivated by the contributor's interests, and that said, i am sure there will be income to be maid along the way. i personally think the market will continue to grow, especially as the world becomes more connected to the internet etc. but what i am most certainly afraid of is the reckless abandon that any images is pretty much accepted these days creating a huge oversupply of images for sale. this however will not affect the bottom line of any agency cause they get a cut of every sale "they" make. all it does is dilute our sales, and will continue to do so. and frankly speaking the agencies - none of them - give one flying fck about us, we are beyond expendable at this point in the game. all the agencies could be paying us a lot more, but they don't, and they won't. just the way things turned out man.
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If Getty build 3 tier content supply with:
Getty -the most expensive
Istock - middle priced
Thinkstock - cheap sub model
Why they are making Getty's most expensive content free
And don't include Istock and Thinkstock content in this deal?
Just a thought.
What do you think?
It's easier for non-exclusives at iStock to jump ship, which would ruin everything because those "free" embeds would now be big holes in someone's blog.
Also, if they're using embedding to pinpoint unauthorized usage, they can send much larger demands for payment with Getty than with iStock.
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i had no clue you were with getty as well
I had a Getty House contract for four years, but gave it up last year after the Getty Google Deal. But my files from Westend61 will probably be affected, because Getty is one of their many partners, especially if it is true that all their partners will soon be included. If you are active on the getty forums, you can probably still see my old posts in various discussions.
So unfortunately I probably can´t avoid the freebies. And if they are really interested in data mining and ad revenue, I guess it is just a matter of time until they will roll it out for all of istock as well.
My biggest concern is the effect on the public perception. The music industry made a huge effort to teach people that creative content should be paid for and Apple really showed everyone that people are perfectly willing to pay for music and support artist if you give them a good store and make it easy to by.
Getty is going the opposite direction and says - well, you were stealing it all anyway - here take it for free.
Like others have said, bloggers and students are not criminal by nature. If you give them a good solution, they will pay.
And there already are agencies that offer files free to students and schools, like colorbox. But of course they don´t get many interesting files, because the artists put their content where they can pay their bills.
35 million of excellent Vetta content and other files for free is just a crazy number and will just reinforce the stereotype that photos have no value at all.
I understand that the effect on SS and the agencies offering cheap files will be lower, because when you have the chance to pay 33 cents for a file in XXXL without adding an advertising channel, and you are anyway running a professional business, you will probably stick with SS or other micros. But the expensive content, the 500 dollar files, they will of course be the ones that people will embed. Getty knows that, so they made their exclusive content available first. It will give them the widest exposure in links.
But how will the artist benefit or how will it influence your production for the High end?
And why do it all without offering the people producing the expensive content an opt out? Roll it out in stages, prove you can deliver the money?
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If Getty build 3 tier content supply with:
Getty -the most expensive
Istock - middle priced
Thinkstock - cheap sub model
Why they are making Getty's most expensive content free
And don't include Istock and Thinkstock content in this deal?
Just a thought.
What do you think?
Vetta illustrations are already being included with the program. In the Atlantic article on this, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-getty-going-free-is-such-a-big-deal-explained-in-getty-images/284264/) a Vetta illustration from an istock artist is included. I am sure this will be expanding when Getty needs another "PR boost" and when they can confirm they can use the work of istock contributors without an "opt-in" contract. "So we can call it promotional use right?" via Hollywood accounting.
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Just a thought...Getty offers embedding and gives bloggers "sticker shock" when they see how much images cost, sends out a few demands for payment to scare people, then a few weeks later announces the new subs model at iStock, which will probably be priced lower than the competition since they're paying us lower royalties.
Conspiracy theory, yes, but it's an awfully odd coincidence they're offering subs a few weeks after embedding. One-two punch at the competition as well.
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Getty is gambling, and have put up a wager, consisting of property they dont own. This has the potential to go horribly wrong, I am not just sure yet for which party.
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If Getty build 3 tier content supply with:
Getty -the most expensive
Istock - middle priced
Thinkstock - cheap sub model
Why they are making Getty's most expensive content free
And don't include Istock and Thinkstock content in this deal?
Just a thought.
What do you think?
It's easier for non-exclusives at iStock to jump ship, which would ruin everything because those "free" embeds would now be big holes in someone's blog.
Also, if they're using embedding to pinpoint unauthorized usage, they can send much larger demands for payment with Getty than with iStock.
OTOH, entrapment doesn't go down well with courts here.
Also, if trying to get new buyers (and I don't think this is what this move is all about; it's to get money in other ways), it's ill-conceived.
Thieves will always steal.
But low-budget or no-budget image users won't become buyers with this. I know the prices are slightly different in different collections, but my smallest size in E+ is £15, and in Vetta is £25. Clearly, no matter how well-meaning, no no-budget or low-budget customer is going to be attracted by that. (There is really nowhere for them to buy, as subs aren't available to them either.)
OTOH, in a thread opened in Discussion but moved to where it can't be readily seen, I read, "A couple of months back I received a $0.05 payment for a G.I video sale. I contacted customer support - 3 weeks later they got back to me saying the $0.05 payment was correct but they could not disclose any more details because of confidentiality agreements."
Makes my 91c for a photo seem bounteous.
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Ah yes, the thread where people complained that their HD video files are getting downloads for 3 - 5 dollars over on getty, with one guy reporting 7 out 9 last month, has been moved.
That is a lot less for videos than on istock and just a fraction of what you get on SS or Pond5.
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Ah yes, the thread where people complained that their HD video files are getting downloads for 3 - 5 dollars over on getty, with one guy reporting 7 out 9 last month, has been moved.
That is a lot less for videos than on istock and just a fraction of what you get on SS or Pond5.
Yeah, I'm involved in that thread there. Got moved to Exclusive forum. Some of my videos have sold low at GI...but I have no way of telling what resolution sold...but even at the lowest resolution I should net a nice amount...however the GI prices seemed to just be a suggestion...seems like most don't pay those prices, but they will not disclose the prices...so again we have no idea what resolution is selling and can only guess the prices...and most seem to actually sell for less than iStock sells them for. And 5 cents commission for and HD video is beyond a disgrace and for them not to provide an explanation is insanity. They could provide details without giving away a specific buyer...it is all so sneaky...I can only be lead to believe that this is intentional and something dishonest is going on behind the scenes.
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Its the same on Alamy for that matter. I sold a Medium RF image, list price €180.00 for 1546 x 1058. My cut, $13.69
When I asked them about it they said:
Our price calculator lists the “shop front” pricing. Customers we actively go after, contact us about specific needs or key customers with large spends and image requirements may negotiate on price; which always starts with our shop front pricing.
The license details of the images sold are available in your summary of items sold page. We cannot provide you with any further information.
So they decided to discount the image from $250 to $27 but cant tell me anything about it.
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Its the same on Alamy for that matter. I sold a Medium RF image, list price €180.00 for 1546 x 1058. My cut, $13.69
When I asked them about it they said:
Our price calculator lists the “shop front” pricing. Customers we actively go after, contact us about specific needs or key customers with large spends and image requirements may negotiate on price; which always starts with our shop front pricing.
The license details of the images sold are available in your summary of items sold page. We cannot provide you with any further information.
So they decided to discount the image from $250 to $27 but cant tell me anything about it.
At least Alamy does tell you how much the image sold for and how much you get.
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@gbalex
I have no idea how the best match on SS works, but I would´t be surprised if contributors who come in with large portfolios and are uploading thousands of files in a few weeks will move up quickly in the search positions. But once they have uploaded their catalogue their ranking it will drop again, unless they really are a very high volume producer.
If that had been the case our files would have dropped gradually and not in the matter of one day. And those of us who upload large numbers would have been able to compete via numbers.
One day content that had earned it's way to the top of the searches was on the first pages and the next day those images were buried so far back, we quit looking for them after 50 pages. Shutterstock purposely killed our best earning files.
New comers seem to be fine with this, however at some point in the game your images will also become expensive collateral damage and you may also see the drops we have experienced. You may not be thrilled with shutterstock's business ethics at that point in the game.
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Its the same on Alamy for that matter. I sold a Medium RF image, list price €180.00 for 1546 x 1058. My cut, $13.69
When I asked them about it they said:
Our price calculator lists the “shop front” pricing. Customers we actively go after, contact us about specific needs or key customers with large spends and image requirements may negotiate on price; which always starts with our shop front pricing.
The license details of the images sold are available in your summary of items sold page. We cannot provide you with any further information.
So they decided to discount the image from $250 to $27 but cant tell me anything about it.
At least Alamy does tell you how much the image sold for and how much you get.
Yes and they own up to special pricing...we get nada from Getty...can't even get a resolutions or size that sold.
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If that had been the case our files would have dropped gradually and not in the matter of one day. And those of us who upload large numbers would have been able to compete via numbers.
One day content that had earned it's way to the top of the searches was on the first pages and the next day those images were buried so far back, we quit looking for them after 50 pages. Shutterstock purposely killed our best earning files.
Believe me, I am NOT fine with best match games. We had tons of those on istock.
But it is one more reason to go independent. Imagine you were exclusive to SS and something like this happened to you. This is exactly what many exclusives are experiencing.
So being indie is much safer, at least it is unlikely that all agencies will change their best match in one day.
It is also the reason why I am uploading my files slowly instead of dumping everything everywhere in 3 months. I´d rather have them spread out than give them all the same time stamp upon uploading.
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If Bruce can start an agency that pays out 50% royalties and 100% of extended licenses and go from zero to the success and branding they have in one year - yes, for me that is innovative entrepreneurial work.
And it begs the question - all the smaller production houses with excellent content - what are they doing wrong?
This is where I completely agree with you, if Bruce can accomplish this in one years time, Shutterstock could certainly do the same. The fact is that they choose to pay their contributors 28% while keeping pricing stagnantly low to gain markets share.
I think the low ball pricing has contributed to Getty and Istocks recent moves and I think it has and will continue to hurt all of us.
You hit the nail!
And in his recent interview Jon Oringer confirmed that all use is commercial you can ask yourself why companies that make a lot of money with our work can only spend a few Dollars for it. The truth is they could easily spend a lot more but it's all sacrificed for the greed of market-share.
The link to the interview is here:
[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
I am genuinely surprised that most people are completing missing or discounting this important contributing factor. When you mentioned it in threads they dismiss it with comments to get back on topic. The downward business pressures shutterstock is exerting via this long term move to grab market, share seems to have gone by virtually unnoticed.
But again: what does this all have to do with Getty deciding to give out files for free? Including RM content? And will their decisions encourage more exclusives to leave? Or will it attract new people who want to work only with them?
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If Bruce can start an agency that pays out 50% royalties and 100% of extended licenses and go from zero to the success and branding they have in one year - yes, for me that is innovative entrepreneurial work.
And it begs the question - all the smaller production houses with excellent content - what are they doing wrong?
This is where I completely agree with you, if Bruce can accomplish this in one years time, Shutterstock could certainly do the same. The fact is that they choose to pay their contributors 28% while keeping pricing stagnantly low to gain markets share.
I think the low ball pricing has contributed to Getty and Istocks recent moves and I think it has and will continue to hurt all of us.
You hit the nail!
And in his recent interview Jon Oringer confirmed that all use is commercial you can ask yourself why companies that make a lot of money with our work can only spend a few Dollars for it. The truth is they could easily spend a lot more but it's all sacrificed for the greed of market-share.
The link to the interview is here:
[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
I am genuinely surprised that most people are completing missing or discounting this important contributing factor. When you mentioned it in threads they dismiss it with comments to get back on topic. The downward business pressures shutterstock is exerting via this long term move to grab market, share seems to have gone by virtually unnoticed.
But again: what does this all have to do with Getty deciding to give out files for free? Including RM content? And will their decisions encourage more exclusives to leave? Or will it attract new people who want to work only with them?
iStock applied the original downward pressure by introducing microstock. Now they've really increased pressure by making millions of files "free." I think that's the more egregious approach of the two.
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If that had been the case our files would have dropped gradually and not in the matter of one day. And those of us who upload large numbers would have been able to compete via numbers.
One day content that had earned it's way to the top of the searches was on the first pages and the next day those images were buried so far back, we quit looking for them after 50 pages. Shutterstock purposely killed our best earning files.
Believe me, I am NOT fine with best match games. We had tons of those on istock.
But it is one more reason to go independent. Imagine you were exclusive to SS and something like this happened to you. This is exactly what many exclusives are experiencing.
So being indie is much safer, at least it is unlikely that all agencies will change their best match in one day.
It is also the reason why I am uploading my files slowly instead of dumping everything everywhere in 3 months. I´d rather have them spread out than give them all the same time stamp upon uploading.
I think that is a wise move, however I think shutterstock is also hitting us by port date and our new images are not selling.
I agree about being indie, as of last month I am now making more at DT, FT & 123 than I am on SS.
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I think the low ball pricing has contributed to Getty and Istocks recent moves and I think it has and will continue to hurt all of us.
You hit the nail!
And in his recent interview Jon Oringer confirmed that all use is commercial you can ask yourself why companies that make a lot of money with our work can only spend a few Dollars for it. The truth is they could easily spend a lot more but it's all sacrificed for the greed of market-share.
The link to the interview is here:
[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
I am genuinely surprised that most people are completing missing or discounting this important contributing factor. When you mentioned it in threads they dismiss it with comments to get back on topic. The downward business pressures shutterstock is exerting via this long term move to grab market, share seems to have gone by virtually unnoticed.
I've mentioned it several times, but it always gets voted down by the SS lovers.
I've been round the block enough times to see (outwith stock) that businesses (usually funded by a billionaire or two) who employ mass predatory tactics and force down prices to gain market share, making rivals bankrupt in the process trying to compete, shaft both suppliers and consumers once they have a virtual monopoly.
Example: a bus company decided to use predatory tactics hereabouts. They somehow acquired a huge fleet, cheap drivers and had busses every 5-10 minutes charging half the price on virtually every bus route in the area. When the other companies gave up, of course they hiked the fares up to higher than they'd been before - but even worse, cherry-picked routes and just cut the services which yielded little profit (meaning people in smaller communities in this largely rural area couldn't get to shops, hospitals etc.). And as they were the only game in town (for a while, things have changed since) the drivers could only work for them, and got lower wages.
I have plenty other examples, which I'm sure most people have in their own localities.
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If Bruce can start an agency that pays out 50% royalties and 100% of extended licenses and go from zero to the success and branding they have in one year - yes, for me that is innovative entrepreneurial work.
And it begs the question - all the smaller production houses with excellent content - what are they doing wrong?
This is where I completely agree with you, if Bruce can accomplish this in one years time, Shutterstock could certainly do the same. The fact is that they choose to pay their contributors 28% while keeping pricing stagnantly low to gain markets share.
I think the low ball pricing has contributed to Getty and Istocks recent moves and I think it has and will continue to hurt all of us.
You hit the nail!
And in his recent interview Jon Oringer confirmed that all use is commercial you can ask yourself why companies that make a lot of money with our work can only spend a few Dollars for it. The truth is they could easily spend a lot more but it's all sacrificed for the greed of market-share.
The link to the interview is here:
[url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url] ([url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2014/03/07/free-getty-images-no-threat-to-photo-market-says-shutterstock-ceo/[/url])
I am genuinely surprised that most people are completing missing or discounting this important contributing factor. When you mentioned it in threads they dismiss it with comments to get back on topic. The downward business pressures shutterstock is exerting via this long term move to grab market, share seems to have gone by virtually unnoticed.
But again: what does this all have to do with Getty deciding to give out files for free? Including RM content? And will their decisions encourage more exclusives to leave? Or will it attract new people who want to work only with them?
iStock applied the original downward pressure by introducing microstock. Now they've really increased pressure by making millions of files "free." I think that's the more egregious approach of the two.
I agree however according to Jon Oringer it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. Per Jon SS undercuts its main competition 2, 3 to 4 times in order of magnitude. If analyst can see this why do we dismiss it. After all we pay to produce the content they sell and we have the most to lose.
Snip
And your next question comes from the line of Brian Fitzgerald with Jefferies. Please proceed.
Brian Fitzgerald - Jefferies
When you guys think of the rev share agreements with contributors, there are competitors out there that have more generous revenue shares.
Can you -- would that tend to impact or take share from you guys over the course of time or can you talk about how that dynamic is panning out?
And then, it seems like guys have been driving down pricing among your major competitors. They're now trying to price match.
Have you seen any real impact from that thus far? Thanks.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2037843-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q4-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single (http://seekingalpha.com/article/2037843-shutterstocks-ceo-discusses-q4-2013-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single)
Snip
Duck Swartz
Talking about your present strategy longer term?
Timothy E. Bixby - CFO
We think we can raise the prices over the long term but we’re primary in the growth mode right now and we would like to continue to cover as much of the world as possible and take as much as growth in the business that we can before we play with the pricing level. We haven’t raised prices in many years and then been a great strategy so far to grow.
Snip
Jonathan Oringer - Founder, CEO & Chairman of the Board
It still multiples. So it's order of magnitude whether it's if you look at us compared to other stock marketplaces like an iStock or others, it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. If you look at the higher end sort of more traditional marketed might be 6 or 8 or 10 times more expensive.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1841072-shutterstocks-management-presents-at-the-goldman-sachs-us-emerging-smid-cap-growth-conference-transcript?page=2&p=qanda&l=last (http://seekingalpha.com/article/1841072-shutterstocks-management-presents-at-the-goldman-sachs-us-emerging-smid-cap-growth-conference-transcript?page=2&p=qanda&l=last)
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So Shutterstock killed old files and new files. What are they selling then? Medium old-new files?
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In my case they haven't been selling much of anything since Wednesday last week!!
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I agree however according to Jon Oringer it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. Per Jon SS undercuts its main competition 2, 3 to 4 times in order of magnitude. If analyst can see this why do we dismiss it. After all we pay to produce the content they sell and we have the most to lose.
I dismiss it because except for a few rare instances I make more per download at SS than at any other agency I'm with (or was with). Best of the worst maybe? I still need to sell. There is a glaring lack of better alternatives that can make up my income right now. I can't get into mid-stock yet since I have to up my game a bit more, so it's Shutterstock or quits for me right now.
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I agree however according to Jon Oringer it's two or three or four times more expensive to not use Shutterstock. Per Jon SS undercuts its main competition 2, 3 to 4 times in order of magnitude. If analyst can see this why do we dismiss it. After all we pay to produce the content they sell and we have the most to lose.
I dismiss it because except for a few rare instances I make more per download at SS than at any other agency I'm with (or was with). Best of the worst maybe? I still need to sell. There is a glaring lack of better alternatives that can make up my income right now. I can't get into mid-stock yet since I have to up my game a bit more, so it's Shutterstock or quits for me right now.
Are you sure there are no alternatives for you? Your subject matter looks specialized and it seems like you have access a lot of other people don't, that seems like a good fit for Macro work?
I got into Alamy and never saw a single cent after a year, Mid-stock and RM don't seem interested either. Its tough because there are relatively few purely industrial RM sites (there are some but the best one is mid-merger and going away). So I stick with what pays. Now that it's been up a while, I can't see RM going after my images since they've been RF for quite some time. I'd have to do a huge revamp and re-shoot with new content.
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Here is a great analysis of the situation by Michael.
http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/why-getty-decided-to-offer-images-for-free/ (http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/why-getty-decided-to-offer-images-for-free/)
Short version:
Getty has debts of about two Billion dollars due in November 2015. More than double their revenue. Under traditional valuation as a media company, they can command a P/E of about 15-18 times profit. Rebrand as a technology company, they can get double the money, with a P/E around 30.
I guess that would be worth throwing out 35 million files to the internet. Especially if they don´t use their own content but that from crowd sourced contributors.
What do you think? Is the rebranding before Getty is sold the main motivation for this bizarre decision?
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Here is a great analysis of the situation by Michael.
[url]http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/why-getty-decided-to-offer-images-for-free/[/url] ([url]http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/why-getty-decided-to-offer-images-for-free/[/url])
Short version:
Getty has debts of about two Billion dollars due in November 2015. More than double their revenue. Under traditional valuation as a media company, they can command a P/E of about 15-18 times profit. Rebrand as a technology company, they can get double the money, with a P/E around 30.
I guess that would be worth throwing out 35 million files to the internet. Especially if they don´t use their own content but that from crowd sourced contributors.
What do you think? Is the rebranding before Getty is sold the main motivation for this bizarre decision?
Makes perfect sense.
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Here is a great analysis of the situation by Michael.
[url]http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/why-getty-decided-to-offer-images-for-free/[/url] ([url]http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/distribution-channels/why-getty-decided-to-offer-images-for-free/[/url])
Short version:
Getty has debts of about two Billion dollars due in November 2015. More than double their revenue. Under traditional valuation as a media company, they can command a P/E of about 15-18 times profit. Rebrand as a technology company, they can get double the money, with a P/E around 30.
I guess that would be worth throwing out 35 million files to the internet. Especially if they don´t use their own content but that from crowd sourced contributors.
What do you think? Is the rebranding before Getty is sold the main motivation for this bizarre decision?
Great article - thanks for sharing. And yes, I think it lays out the case very well.
In a nutshell, it is a simple change. Getty doesn't really want to be in the photo business - they want to be an internet "play" like Yahoo or Google or Facebook. Sure - they'll lose some (or a lot) of photographers over their decision to let online use of 35 million images become "free". But if the Carlyle Group can sell them for a billion or two more than they bought them - especially before their big loan payments are due - then they'll do so happily.
If you cannot compete in a game - one of the best ways to enable yourself to win is to change the rules - or change the game.
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Getty and Flickr are officially split now. Getty Flickr collection will now named as Moment.
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Getty and Flickr are officially split now. Getty Flickr collection will now named as Moment.
yes i heard rumors the contract expired and the photographers actually wanted to be paid for all usage of their images.
seems GI could not agree to the heavy demands of paying photographers for their work and also had issues accepting that the images were not theirs to give away freely for their own greedy motives.
this is all speculation of course and hypothetical :)
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Well, they have to make up for the exodus that must be happening now.
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In the end the market forces will handle it. High quality producers who need to make a living of their work will flock to stocksy and others that sell direct and cater to customers who prefer images that are not avialable for free to the whole internet.
Shutterstock and other micros will keep adding business clients who prefer to pay 30 cents for a XXXL file, plus SS and the micros are good at handling large volumes of smaller clients, as well as the entrepreneurial contributors who work for the high volume market.
Those who love "exposure" more than money will supply getty with wide eyes and happily add the "getty awards" icon to their website that tells the world they are a "gettyimages artist".
Getty can then happily rebrand as a technology business selling links,eyeballs and ad data and maybe one day get ad revenue, while they make one nice hefty payout during their IPO.
They will also have a much younger crowd of users. At least until someone else is "cool" has the better idea to attract user generated content and they become the next myspace.
But maybe they can keep buying them, always adding more eyeballs to their network.
It will also mean they can avoid a direct comparison with SS when they do reach the stockmarket.
SS sells image licenses, Getty sells eyeballs and links. A growth story that doesn't need to make a profit for years while they build their network.
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In the end the market forces will handle it.
No they won't.
That's the kind of woolly thinking that's got Western society into this mess where the rich are hundreds of times better off than everyone else.
This is one of the cases where governments need to produce legislation to enable producers to live off their work in the 21st Century and beyond.
It'll be howlingly unpopular with industry lobbyists and dumb consumers who think they want everything free, but it will be necessary in the end to prevent massive greedy players destroying everyone else and themselves in the long run.
Capitalism is the best system we've come up with so far, but business needs to be run for the benefit of society, rather than society run for the benefit of business - which is what the rich and foolish currently espouse.
Anyway, rant over. Back to the subject in hand...
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The government can step in to protect us all from theft. This should of course include protecting artist from corporate theft.
But it is simple: if there is no money in image production, the number of people who do it will drop.
High quality image production. And even with an iphone the high quality comes from producers with experience.
Or do you seriously believe people will take on additional jobs to pay for stock production?
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and frankly speaking the agencies - none of them - give one flying fck about us, we are beyond expendable at this point in the game. all the agencies could be paying us a lot more, but they don't, and they won't. just the way things turned out man.
YES, but i think you missed the latest developments in the e-commerce industry, even for giants like Amazon it's getting tougher to sell their sh-it online no matter all their discounts and free shipping promotions.
it's 2014, everyone and their dog is into e-commerce now and by domino effect the costs to acquire a customer have skyrocketed to the point that sooner or later it will be cheaper to buy or sell offline !
and if you think we're being ripped off take a look at how cheap some physical products are sold in bulk on Alibaba and what about the slave wages offered on oDesk and Elance ?
agencies like Alamy can offer us 50% of a sale but what's the point if they can't make enough sales since they don't spend much on marketing and advertising ?
SS is selling like hotcakes but they invest probably up to 50% of their earnings in advertising leaving little space for our fees and their running costs and their profits.
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I just realised today that when you open the Photos.com website (http://www.photos.com (http://www.photos.com)) you can see this:
"Welcome to Photos.com by Getty Images
Coming soon, we will offer our world-renowned imagery as framed art ready to hang on your walls. Sign up to be among the first to know when we launch the site.
Looking for royalty-free subscriptions or image packs? Please visit Thinkstock. Looking for access to other digital images? Please visit Getty Images."
Edited to correct link.
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I just realised today that when you open the Photos.com website you can see this: [url]http://www.photos.com/comingsoon:[/url] ([url]http://www.photos.com/comingsoon:[/url])
Looking for royalty-free subscriptions or image packs? Please visit Thinkstock.
Looking for access to other digital images? Please visit Getty Images."
And where is the invitation to visit iStock???
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New Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brh1LhD2Tik (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brh1LhD2Tik)
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I love that the only audience question included in the video is about non-commercial use...and...cut! No more questions. That's a wrap, folks.
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I just realised today that when you open the Photos.com website you can see this: [url]http://www.photos.com/comingsoon:[/url] ([url]http://www.photos.com/comingsoon:[/url])
Looking for royalty-free subscriptions or image packs? Please visit Thinkstock.
Looking for access to other digital images? Please visit Getty Images."
And where is the invitation to visit iStock???
A guess: all subs will be offered through Thinkstock and all non-subs through Getty. Once all images are absorbed into Getty, they'll be available for embedding.
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I just realised today that when you open the Photos.com website you can see this: [url]http://www.photos.com/comingsoon:[/url] ([url]http://www.photos.com/comingsoon:[/url])
Looking for royalty-free subscriptions or image packs? Please visit Thinkstock.
Looking for access to other digital images? Please visit Getty Images."
And where is the invitation to visit iStock???
A guess: all subs will be offered through Thinkstock and all non-subs through Getty. Once all images are absorbed into Getty, they'll be available for embedding.
Caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
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I am ingesting Getty SXSW video's and these people could care less about the artist! They only praise themselves as if they created the images. I have yet to hear a word about how they treat those photographers who create the content they rave about. I have heard several mentions on this new "Viewer" but no word on how to protect the copyright or how they will make money from it. Not impressed
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The more I think about it, the more I think this is about reducing Getty's advertising costs and possibly monetizing its embed platform, a shrewd move by them.
They appear to be in the process of consolidating and trimming waste, iS and Thinkstock merger is probably on the cards next and I'd be surprised to see the exclusivity program still in operation in the next couple of years, too much average work at too high a price.
Getty won't wait around to react thats for sure.
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Looks like Getty are still doing everything to kill iStock.
They forgot they bought it 8 years ago.
P.S. Thanks tickstock, 8 years ago.
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We refer to those good old days because istock was run by Bruce and the original istock founders and NOT Getty.
After Bruce left, istock went down the drain. And so did our income and Shutterstock, obviously worked very hard, but wasn't given much resitence from Getty, where they?
When istock had the management that started it, it was market leader. When the founders left, it started to die.
Happens to many businesses. People buy a company, but don't bother understanding why it worked the way it did.
But of course you know that...don't you? Or you would if you were there as an istock exclusive from 2008 until today...
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And what's the saying? If I had .0001 cent per time someone said Getty was going to kill off iStock I would be rich by now? Something like that.
And you'd end up having to pay it back.
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But of course you know that...don't you? Or you would if you were there as an istock exclusive from 2008 until today...
I've been there since before 2008 and last year was my best year, personally I'm not nostalgic for 2008 or Bruce.
With a new iStock sub. model there is a good chance everyone will be nostalgic for 2013. Even if it was not his best year.
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I am glad to hear it is working well for you. You obviously know how to work with Getty's system.
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We refer to those good old days because istock was run by Bruce and the original istock founders and NOT Getty.
My monthly income went from $2000 per month to over $5000 per month after Getty bought iStock and raised the prices. Those were the good old days in my book, saturation with no quality control is the real issue.
iS could still be a good earner if they weren't hell bent on accepting every cr%ppy photo that was ever taken.
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I am glad to hear it is working well for you. You obviously know how to work with Getty's system.
It's the same everywhere, work hard, that's it.
Well, then what is going wrong with the people that are working hard and seeing their income fall? One contributor reported recently adding 5000 new files and falling sales.
It was a good portfolio too.
What would you recommend?
I mean, that is the main reason people are giving up their exclusivity. No sales inspite of new uploads. Not even views on their new work.
How are you combating the lack of views? Do you promote you work heavily yourself, your own blog or something?
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member skynesher in the february sales thread.
black diamond
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=359552&messageid=6992002 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=359552&messageid=6992002)
How to deal with falling sales is a serious problem. So if you say you just upload and get good results, a full time income and you can pay for production, I am genuinly interested in what you do differently.
everyone I know is having a problem and people are approaching it in many different ways.
Uploading directly to getty instead of istock, sending rm to other macro houses, doing video etc...
Or they go partially indie, especially with video. I earned a lot more money fast with video when I dropped my video exclusivity. Within just 6 months I was already earning more than as an istock video exclusive.
Completly different situation to photos of course. Pond5 is the market leader for video.
So going indie with video is simple. You can also then start adding editorial video, but I didn't even do that.
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It should be HAS KILLED iStock, not going to kill.
And what's the saying? If I had .0001 cent per time someone said Getty was going to kill off iStock I would be rich by now? Something like that.
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Well, he didn't post his Getty earnings, it might help balance his overall income, but obviously if you are producing 5000 great images in a year and see falling sales, you are heading towards a problem.
I agree that it is necessary to position yourself for what you believe will be the place in the future.
But if someone with this kind of port is struggling, I think it is logical that many single artists, who simply cannot produce the volume, even if they have the same quality are looking into what they can do to stop falling sales.
And those with simpler portfolios, just look at skyneshers results and wonder what chance they have if even he cannot manage to increase his income.
The current situation is very complicated. I really didn't leave istock just because I am angry at the unpaid 1.3 million downloads from Microsoft.
I simply didn't understand what they were doing and saw falling sales in my future. But the Getty Google deal then prompted a drastic reaction because the way Getty handled the situation was from a business perspective extremely unprofessional IMO.
At that point it became clear (for me) that I must move now, before everyone else moves out.
The best and biggest portfolios will be the last ones to leave, because it is the most difficult for them.
But since it takes two years to establish good search positions on agencies with millions of good quality files, I want to be ahead of the game, not the last one there.
like I said before, I genuinly hope istock recovers. I'd love to see them be successful.
But what I keep seeing that they do, doesn't give me much hope.
Anyway, i wish you good luck with your port. Might be worth uploading to Getty as well, but if your income is growing in the overall combination, perhaps your content is really best positioned with them.
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Well, then what is going wrong with the people that are working hard and seeing their income fall? One contributor reported recently adding 5000 new files and falling sales.
because in the long term individual stockers can not compete with the image factories, our only chance is to specialize in a few niches.
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The more I think about it, the more I think this is about reducing Getty's advertising costs and possibly monetizing its embed platform, a shrewd move by them.
They appear to be in the process of consolidating and trimming waste, iS and Thinkstock merger is probably on the cards next and I'd be surprised to see the exclusivity program still in operation in the next couple of years, too much average work at too high a price.
Getty won't wait around to react thats for sure.
That's pretty much what I said three years ago:
Once that is accomplished, Istock will be completely redundant.
Or is istock becoming the triage station, sorting incoming material into accepted/unaccepted and then routing it into different channels?
Photos.com and TS don't want to invest on the infrastructure for assessing image submissions, but iStock has a trained pool of cheap (I presume) labour doing that job. The IS inspectors are now working for IS, TS,P.com and Getty but only getting paid the rate for working for Istock.
It's quite clever, really.
I haven't seen any reason to abandon that theory yet.
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Well, then what is going wrong with the people that are working hard and seeing their income fall? One contributor reported recently adding 5000 new files and falling sales.
because in the long term individual stockers can not compete with the image factories, our only chance is to specialize in a few niches.
Aren't the image factories eating themselves? I don't bother checking what they are doing but I am under the impression they have a formula and list of subjects that they keep doing over and over again in the hope of hogging the market - eventually, all that does is protect existing sales from rivals without generating new ones.
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I see myself doing stock for a very, very long time. So yes, I fully agree that first I need to regain my income level and then it will take several years to recoup the loss from the missing income from istock.
But how big would that loss be?
I was already seeing unexpected income swings. I cannot go and take for instance the average income from the last two exclusive years and presume i would keep earning that from istock if I just stay exclusive. I cannot even assume, oh I will maybe just earn 15% less a year.
I cannot model the future earnings, especially when I do not understand the business strategy of the partner I am working with.
This is what happens when you lose confidence in a partner. I've had very bad experiences from my old life before istock Things can go south very, very fast.
So when the red lights go on, I move much faster then others. It has worked for me in the past and I am still here.
My original plan was just to test the video market. When this was going well, I thought I would just be video indie and build a second stream and stay photo exclusive.
Maybe learn about illustrations once the video workflow is set (including the niche I want to target etc...again something that needs at least two years of market experience) and then turn my photos into illustrations...if possible, I have no idea if that is a good use of my time. Yet.
Everyone has to make their own decisions for their business. Some just do more assignment work, others take up part time jobs, some people change careers completly and drop photography down as a hobby.
And photographers like you feel confident in their income potential from getty and stay.
Nothing wrong with that. If it works for you, being exclusive is a good thing.
Perhaps my decision is wrong. Maybe if I had stayed exclusive, ignored anything I read and see and focussed all my energy just into shooting and uploading, maybe it would have been the best way for financial success.
Going indie is not for everyone, but I am very satisfied with my decision, especially with all the news coming from Getty these days.
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The answer seems to me to be a class action lawsuit. You can't just keep changing the terms of service. They are allowing news sites, which make money and are very much commercial, to use the (your) content for free. I don't think any of us signed up for that. I stopped contributing to iStock a long time ago, it just stopped being worth the hassle. The several hundred images that are there are old but still make a little bit of money, so I am not complaining. But I am certainly not going to give them any more images that they can give away.
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"Terms of Service" might as well be in a weekly email. The lawyers have assured the agencies they can do anything they want with "their" images, as long as they cover their behinds by amending the TOS at the same time.
This latest Getty thing is just the beginning. One by one, agencies will try to monetize that supposedly huge group of people who "will never pay for an image" by using free images to generate ad revenue. They've realized that if nothing is paid for the image, nothing has to be paid to the photographer. They've also realized that while contributors may not like these deals, they won't leave, because traditional sales continue. How much the free images cut into actual sales is impossible to predict.
IMHO, people who think SS won't get into this game are whistling in the dark.
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I am glad to hear it is working well for you. You obviously know how to work with Getty's system.
It's the same everywhere, work hard, that's it.
Well, then what is going wrong with the people that are working hard and seeing their income fall? One contributor reported recently adding 5000 new files and falling sales.
It was a good portfolio too.
What would you recommend?
I mean, that is the main reason people are giving up their exclusivity. No sales inspite of new uploads. Not even views on their new work.
How are you combating the lack of views? Do you promote you work heavily yourself, your own blog or something?
I can't comment on some anonymous person's work that I can't see and have no data on their sales. As far as I know this a purely hypothetical case.
I don't promote my work on a blog or social media, I don't think it's worth time, money, or effort.
Mammamaart is a Black Diamond with >230000 dls. >260 uploads this year (over 10% of her port).
In the February sales thread, she says:
"It is all a big fat mess, uploads going up and up, downloads and money going down and down."
"Seriously, I have no idea WHAT is going on. But something is utterly wrong. I have never ever seen it THIS bad."
and
"...But my head still can not get around what they are doing.
How come things change overnight, THIS badly. again and again. It is the lifes of people they are playing with. 3 days: ONE download.
Seriously? This is not a hobby people. But yeah, I have not complained out in the open a lot or at all recently. And I am not planning on doing a lot of it in the future either. It is not like I still have hope anybody is listening or caring."
Granted, the 'three days, one download' scenario probably includes a Sat and Sun; but still, is that what anyone would expect for a contributor of her experience and port?
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Well, he didn't post his Getty earnings, it might help balance his overall income, but obviously if you are producing 5000 great images in a year and see falling sales, you are heading towards a problem.
Indeed, especially with this stupid Getty free giveaway cr*p; and no way of knowing whether the recent slew of GI refunds is linked to that. Lobo has said that no email is going to be sent about it, and if you ask CR, they'll just confirm a GI refund and offer no further explanation.
Coincidence?
AFAICR, the refunds used to take place at the beginning of the GI payments coming in.
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"Terms of Service" might as well be in a weekly email. The lawyers have assured the agencies they can do anything they want with "their" images, as long as they cover their behinds by amending the TOS at the same time.
This latest Getty thing is just the beginning. One by one, agencies will try to monetize that supposedly huge group of people who "will never pay for an image" by using free images to generate ad revenue. They've realized that if nothing is paid for the image, nothing has to be paid to the photographer. They've also realized that while contributors may not like these deals, they won't leave, because traditional sales continue. How much the free images cut into actual sales is impossible to predict.
IMHO, people who think SS won't get into this game are whistling in the dark.
You reckon Getty is destroying the entire market, then?
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"Terms of Service" might as well be in a weekly email. The lawyers have assured the agencies they can do anything they want with "their" images, as long as they cover their behinds by amending the TOS at the same time.
This latest Getty thing is just the beginning. One by one, agencies will try to monetize that supposedly huge group of people who "will never pay for an image" by using free images to generate ad revenue. They've realized that if nothing is paid for the image, nothing has to be paid to the photographer. They've also realized that while contributors may not like these deals, they won't leave, because traditional sales continue. How much the free images cut into actual sales is impossible to predict.
IMHO, people who think SS won't get into this game are whistling in the dark.
You reckon Getty is destroying the entire market, then?
No, I don't think it's that simple. They'll certainly damage it, by devaluing the entire concept. And I suspect the actual ad revenue won't begin to live up to the predictions. I think it's a bad move, in time it may be seen as a dumb one as well. But the effects are unpredictable.
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Has anyone run across any embedding anywhere other than the original stories about embedding? I've checked a bunch of blogs, even ones that ran the story and said they were planning to use embedding, and I haven't seen one instance of it so far.
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Well, he didn't post his Getty earnings, it might help balance his overall income, but obviously if you are producing 5000 great images in a year and see falling sales, you are heading towards a problem.
I agree that it is necessary to position yourself for what you believe will be the place in the future.
But if someone with this kind of port is struggling, I think it is logical that many single artists, who simply cannot produce the volume, even if they have the same quality are looking into what they can do to stop falling sales...
I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
I feel like I'm seeing a trend lately, with people complaining about dropping earnings while they're only producing work that competes with their old work.
We talk about quality and quantity and which is better to focus on. Or what sort of balance between the two is best. But we often forget that both are worthless if you ignore the need for diversity.
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I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
That is the stuff that sells the best.
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This latest Getty thing is just the beginning. One by one, agencies will try to monetize that supposedly huge group of people who "will never pay for an image" by using free images to generate ad revenue. They've realized that if nothing is paid for the image, nothing has to be paid to the photographer. They've also realized that while contributors may not like these deals, they won't leave, because traditional sales continue. How much the free images cut into actual sales is impossible to predict.
IMHO, people who think SS won't get into this game are whistling in the dark.
at the moment is very hard to predict what will happen in the next 2-3 years.
if we look at music, streaming sites like Pandora and similars where expected to be the "next big thing" but it turned out to be just the usual smoke and mirrors and lots of artists are quite vocal against them as they pay a pittance.
if we look at printed newspapers and magazine there's no doubt they suffered a lot from the tons of free news available on the web.
TV is also losing a lot of viewers as people is now hooked into Youtube etc
so, what's going to happen with Free images supplied by Getty ? i don't think it's a big deal, i'm more worried about what could come next actually ... and by the way monetizing images with ads and links is not new, there are dozens of companies who tried years ago and mostly unsuccessfully or they barely break even.
after all if we talk about piracy the money has always been about pirate FTPs and now about the so called "cyberlockers", no one ever made big bucks selling pirated photos alone.
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Well, he didn't post his Getty earnings, it might help balance his overall income, but obviously if you are producing 5000 great images in a year and see falling sales, you are heading towards a problem.
I agree that it is necessary to position yourself for what you believe will be the place in the future.
But if someone with this kind of port is struggling, I think it is logical that many single artists, who simply cannot produce the volume, even if they have the same quality are looking into what they can do to stop falling sales...
I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
I feel like I'm seeing a trend lately, with people complaining about dropping earnings while they're only producing work that competes with their old work.
We talk about quality and quantity and which is better to focus on. Or what sort of balance between the two is best. But we often forget that both are worthless if you ignore the need for diversity.
I haven't seen the portfolio in question, but in general, how much more diversity can be brought to the market? Nearly every subject on the planet has been covered to death. The only remaining option seems to be small niche areas, which may get some sales but won't likely provide a living wage, or keep treading the same over covered ground of popular subjects. Even balancing between the two is not enough to keep earnings up forever.
For the past two years my annual stats have reflected gains in overall downloads and 20% drops in earnings. With all the royalty decreases, migrations of sales from od to subs, free image giveaway schemes, search order shenanigans, etc that have been thrown at contributors, it is mind blowing that anyone would seriously suggest that falling incomes are the result of contributors failing to update their concepts.
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I think someone like skynesher, who shoots on this kind of level, he or his team are fully aware of market trends. You don´t reach black diamond level if you are not aware of them.
Of course you can draw the conclusion that the content he is uploading is simply not trendy enough.
But with 5000 images, which is more than my whole portfolio, I draw a different conclusion: istock has simply lost a huge amount of buyers.
Either they were sent to Thinkstock or Getty, or the unstable site, constantly changing prices (even done abruptly mid season) has chased them away.
And if you are supplying an agency with a shrinking customer pool, you simply cannot win. The oversupply of images can be handled by being very good in your chosen niche, but if the agency sends the customers elsewhere within their own network of webshops and isn´t very good at attracting new ones...you have a very serious problem.
So, obviously if your sales are falling you analyse your own portfolio and first you blame yourself. But it is also important to look at the big picture - is my partner the best I can find, is the company totally committed to building a bigger customer base for all the webshops they represent?
Imagine ebay or amazon sending customers to a second auction house or webshops they own, while at the same time they keep raising their fees in an unpredictable manner. Having site outages unannounced and the communication with business partners is very unsatisfactory. Also their accounting is full of errors and every month you get unpredictable refunds for sales that happened months earlier. And sometimes they claw back money totally out of the blue, like it happened to many exclusives today.
Would you keep your webshop exclusively with them?
At what point will you draw the conclusion to spread your risk by having several shops on different sites?
Obviously webshop success, and this is what our portfolios are, is a mix of factors that I can control and others which the partner controls.
But please don´t only blame yourself, if the customer base grows, so will everyones income.
istock was the market leader in micro, how on earth can you lose such a position?
And coming back to the recent viewer and Getty announcements including subs - does the business vision they offer to us sound like we will be making more money?
Free and promotional use, don´t pay our studios.
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Well, then what is going wrong with the people that are working hard and seeing their income fall? One contributor reported recently adding 5000 new files and falling sales.
because in the long term individual stockers can not compete with the image factories, our only chance is to specialize in a few niches.
iStock has knocked even that on its head with the subs scheme.
Subs only work if your images have potential to sell many times at sub prices, so unless you can find an unmined niche that the buyers have been secretly clamouring for, don't think of micro for niche work.
It worked to some extent on iS for a while, especially when people could 'promote' their own images, but the first blow was demoting low-selling files to Main prices (no more sales but for much less) and now subs makes it as pointless to submit low-supply, low-demand images there as to any other sub site.
Less choice for the buyer, but of course they care for the buyers only marginally more than than they care about the suppliers.
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...it is mind blowing that anyone would seriously suggest that falling incomes are the result of contributors failing to update their concepts.
Come on, Lisa. Do you really think that "smiling business guy holding blank business card" is still a concept worth shooting? There aren't enough of those images out there already? At iStock I get 2,500 search results for a person holding a blank business card.
I stand by my previous statement. If that's the kind of stuff someone is shooting today, they can't seriously be scratching their head wondering where the sales are.
I'm not saying that's the issue for everyone. But in the specific portfolio that was mentioned, I think the theory has a leg or two to stand on.
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to get off topic. I think it is pretty clear that SS changed the search order last year. If your images were previously in a good search position it hurt you, potentially a lot. I don't think that SS has sold less images since that search change, so presumably someone else is getting those sales. We can speculate on what exactly changed in the search and why that was done. Those drastic changes should be put over the overall trend of image numbers going up faster than sales numbers.
I think that the search change dropped images that had been at the top of the search order for years. It certainly hurt my best selling image sales. Since my sales there are mostly of older images still, I presume that this search change would hurt people who started before I did and had even more older long running best selling images. I also saw a jump up in my $ from SS near the end of 2011 (mostly due to more higher $ sales I think).
One other change that potentially will have hit individual contributors differently is where you are located. I recently changed my address on file from the east to the west in the US and I have noticed that I tend to get a larger percent of my sales later in the day now. If they are pushing "local" images in the search that could really hurt you if you aren't local enough to places that buy lots of images of the type in your port. I don't know when they started doing this, but that could also account for some ports suddenly performing a lot worse than they had in the past.
I think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that SS did this purposefully to move lower paying images to the front (although they might have seen that as an added bonus of more recent images selling). I certainly don't think they have a method where they push images from the top tier down lower in search (although if they do, I'd love to see proof of it). As for the new contributor boost - I'd like to see some concrete info on that too, but I certainly don't expect to get any.
I would hate to have SS start to do the abrupt and massive switches to search that IS is famous for. It seemed like each time they did that my sales plummeted and only recovered after I uploaded large numbers of new images.
-edited because of a typo that changed the meaning of a sentence.
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I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
That is the stuff that sells the best.
I'm sure it sells, but from portfolios that already have the image, have the search placement, have the popularity. A new image among the 2,500 existing similar images will have a really hard time selling, no matter how good the image is.
I really don't see how doing that kind of stuff can be expected to generate sales.
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I think someone like skynesher, who shoots on this kind of level, he or his team are fully aware of market trends. You don´t reach black diamond level if you are not aware of them.
Of course you can draw the conclusion that the content he is uploading is simply not trendy enough.
But with 5000 images, which is more than my whole portfolio, I draw a different conclusion: istock has simply lost a huge amount of buyers.
Don't ignore that Skynesher never included GI earnings which for me would more than make up the shortfall but I'm curious what you think when lisafx says:
"Sorry to say, Gbalex's suggestion matches my numbers pretty well. My monthly take on SS the past several months has been less than half what it was a couple of years ago. For a number of years I did not earn less than three digits on a (nonholiday) weekday. Now I am typically getting in the mid double digits. "
Do you draw the same conclusions?
I need to make my own experiences. I have numbers from other contributors who have been steadily increasing their earnings on SS. YOY growth since over 5 years. Over 1200 uploads a year on average, depending on portfolio.
Maybe it is a local effect? German contributors are being shown more in Germany or Europe and for SS this is still a growth market? While Lisa is in the US and maybe the growth there is slowing and her portfolio is maybe not shown as strongly over here?
In any case I am not shifting from istock to Shutterstock, I am shifting from istock to over 7 different agencies and I supply different types of content - high value, high volume, video, smartphone images...
I sincerely hope that no single agency will ever dominate my income again. I´ll do all I can to avoid that.
So if I should be getting maybe 50 dollars on average a day from SS like Lisa, one or two video downloads a day, a few macro sales a month, income from other sites. Looks good to me.
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to get off topic. I think it is pretty clear that SS changed the search order last year. If your images were previously in a good search position it hurt you, potentially a lot. I don't think that SS has sold less images since that search change, so presumably someone else is getting those sales. We can speculate on what exactly changed in the search and why that was done.
Those drastic changes should be put over the overall trend of image numbers going up faster than sales numbers.
I think that the search change dropped images that had been at the top of the search order for years. It certainly hurt my best selling image sales. Since my sales there are mostly of older images still, I presume that this search change would hurt people who started before I did and had even more older long running best selling images. I also saw a jump up in my $ from SS near the end of 2011 (mostly due to more higher $ sales I think).
One other change that potentially will have hit individual contributors differently is where you are located. I recently changed my address on file from the east to the west in the US and I have noticed that I tend to get a larger percent of my sales later in the day now. If they are pushing "local" images in the search that could really hurt you if you aren't local enough to places that buy lots of images of the type in your port. I don't know when they started doing this, but that could also account for some ports suddenly performing a lot worse than they had in the past.
I think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that SS did this purposefully to move lower paying images to the front (although they might have seen that as an added bonus of more recent images selling). I certainly don't think they have a method where they push images from the top tier down lower in search (although if they do, I'd love to see proof of it). As for the new contributor boost - I'd like to see some concrete info on that too, but I certainly don't expect to get any.
I would hate to have SS start to do the abrupt and massive switches to search that IS is famous for. It seemed like each time they did that my sales plummeted and only recovered after I uploaded large numbers of new images.
-edited because of a typo that changed the meaning of a sentence.
I agree with many of your points, I do see the changes in regional sales patterns you mentioned, thou nothing is set in stone and patterns seems to be changing over time.
Shutterstock has given new contributors a boost since the very beginning. I used to have bookmarks to Jon and other shutterstock admin discussing this in the shutterstock forums. I lost those links and can not find them today, maybe someone else can dig them up as I have a project to do this morning. In the beginning it was a few months (2004 - 2006). Anecdotally it seems to be longer now.
I joined shutterstock in 2004 and based on my sales, it does seem that my port (new images and old) has been downgraded in the searches as sales dropped drastically and overnight. Up until March of last year my downloads were like clock work and very consistent. Now they are as erratic as gust in a squall.
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Maybe we should really open a new thread. Best strategies to diversify on the micros and macros? How not to be dependent on just one agency? Best mix of photos/video and illustration?
Would anyone like to start that?
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Well, he didn't post his Getty earnings, it might help balance his overall income, but obviously if you are producing 5000 great images in a year and see falling sales, you are heading towards a problem.
I agree that it is necessary to position yourself for what you believe will be the place in the future.
But if someone with this kind of port is struggling, I think it is logical that many single artists, who simply cannot produce the volume, even if they have the same quality are looking into what they can do to stop falling sales...
I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
I feel like I'm seeing a trend lately, with people complaining about dropping earnings while they're only producing work that competes with their old work.
We talk about quality and quantity and which is better to focus on. Or what sort of balance between the two is best. But we often forget that both are worthless if you ignore the need for diversity.
I haven't seen the portfolio in question, but in general, how much more diversity can be brought to the market? Nearly every subject on the planet has been covered to death. The only remaining option seems to be small niche areas, which may get some sales but won't likely provide a living wage, or keep treading the same over covered ground of popular subjects. Even balancing between the two is not enough to keep earnings up forever.
For the past two years my annual stats have reflected gains in overall downloads and 20% drops in earnings.
With all the royalty decreases, migrations of sales from od to subs, free image giveaway schemes, search order shenanigans, etc that have been thrown at contributors, it is mind blowing that anyone would seriously suggest that falling incomes are the result of contributors failing to update their concepts.
It is called DENIAL Lisa, if you can throw blame on the animal, then you can bury your head in the sand to convince yourself it will not happen to your own sweat and tears. Hard work and careful planing will save the day! We watched it for years on IS and now on shutterstock.
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Imagine ebay or amazon sending customers to a second auction house or webshops they own, while at the same time they keep raising their fees in an unpredictable manner. Having site outages unannounced and the communication with business partners is very unsatisfactory. Also their accounting is full of errors and every month you get unpredictable refunds for sales that happened months earlier. And sometimes they claw back money totally out of the blue, like it happened to many exclusives today.
actually ebay did just that -- they bought half.com which underpriced BOTH ebay & amazon, but the stronger brands won out and half.com sales are abysmal
neither of these sites is very seller oriented - bending over not to offend buyers, resulting in chargebacks for trivial or even non-existent excuses
yet both prosper
in eBay's case they've recently been running special promotions such that a careful seller can eliminate most of the ebay listing costs -- my fees have dropped by 50% or more over the last 6 mo while sales have held steady. (I have 2 niche markets in which I can actually BUY product on ebay to resell on ebay & amazon). but, like stock, you have to plan for the long term
if we could be half as successful with microagencies as one can be w ebay & amazon, we'd all be a lot better off
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The Getty Google deal made many people leave istock or getty. others stopped uploading there.
What do you think will happen this time round? I´ve heard of two people who cancelled their Getty contracts, good portfolios.
Anybody here supplying Photographer´s Choice? If you need to pay to play, will people still submit images if they can be shared for free?
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Well, that must be a relief. But many people payed thousands of dollars to have images placed there.
In general, what do you think will happen? Will it be the Getty artist that now stop uploading, like many micro artists did after the getty Google deal?
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How do they feel about the sharing? Will they continue to supply that collection? or will they prefer to put their content where there is no free sharing?
getty producers are just image/series exclusive, they can do what they want.
Basically I am wondering if there will be a migration within the macros. people sending more content to other macros instead of getty.
Similar to what happened on the micros last year.
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I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
That is the stuff that sells the best.
I'm sure it sells, but from portfolios that already have the image, have the search placement, have the popularity. A new image among the 2,500 existing similar images will have a really hard time selling, no matter how good the image is.
I really don't see how doing that kind of stuff can be expected to generate sales.
I take your point, but it would have a lot more legs if the sales falloff was only happening to portfolios filled with nothing but cliches. FWIW, I have experienced the same and don't believe I have ever uploaded a business guy holding out a business card. If I did, it would have been 2007 or so and never repeated. I revisit concepts, however, and I think most of us do.
The phenomenon of falling revenues for successful portfolios cuts across all subject matters. The many other factors I mentioned are real, they are having a profound affect, and really can't be ignored, at least not to those whose livelihoods are affected.
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I've read every post in this thread (I know, I have no life) and must say that I don't think I've ever seen this much negativity thrown around about the current and future state of stock. Unfortunately, I tend to agree.
If I'm going to go down in flames I'm going to do it on my own terms, though. Time to get back to self marketing, perhaps Symbiostock, and the few agencies that pay well enough to justify my time.
It's been interesting reading the Getty forums as it relates to MSG and the microstockers. Some real disdain for those of us who participate including comments from at least one who is also involved in micro. And yet, they fail to recognize the impact their own agency is having on this freefalling industry....hypocrisy at its finest.
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I always had the impression that the disdain for people from micro over at getty was rooted in the pain that they didn't take advantage of the opportunities the internet brought. They could have made an incredible amount of money.
They always come with this argument that we somehow do not deserve the money we made because we didn't strive to get accepted by the macros first, As if we somehow needed their blessing to create sellable content. They never talk about the customers and what they need.
That they now don't recognize what is happening, is not surprising. Getty has for years always tried to blame the internet, SS or whoever they can pin it on for their own demise.
But the artists can choose what to do and who to supply. With the internet you can sell direct and if you look at symbiostock and stocksy you would again think the Getty producers with good content would recognize the advantages of selling direct and cutting out the middle man.
Both have only been around for a few months or a year but those that put the work into it see good results.
In the end the difference might be that the microartist often have strong entrepreneurial backgrounds which gives them an advantage.
Once you learn how to fish, you don't go hungry. Even if you rely on someone doing the fishing for you for a while, you can always get back in your boat and sail out to sea.
Personally i believe that the agencies that can harvest the entepreneurial spirit in the stock community will grow best and survive longest. They will need to invest in the technology and the tools we need for our webshops, but then the community is self organizing and will take responsibility for their own shops. The agency can then focus on overall marketing of their plattform.
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iStock has knocked even that on its head with the subs scheme.
Subs only work if your images have potential to sell many times at sub prices, so unless you can find an unmined niche that the buyers have been secretly clamouring for, don't think of micro for niche work.
It worked to some extent on iS for a while, especially when people could 'promote' their own images, but the first blow was demoting low-selling files to Main prices (no more sales but for much less) and now subs makes it as pointless to submit low-supply, low-demand images there as to any other sub site.
Less choice for the buyer, but of course they care for the buyers only marginally more than than they care about the suppliers.
agree, but we should know a bit more about subs, for instance i've no idea how many buyers are really into subs, it could be a tiny minority for all we know.
obscure niches never did well on micros for obvious reasons but as far as i can see they're not doing great even on Alamy.
the problem is, stock is first and foremost about mainstream subjects, anything else is more suited to assignments or specialized agencies.
the publishing industry has not recovered at all in the last years, it's still a dead man walking and i can't see any reason for it to recover anytime soon, now everyone and their dog has a smartphone and access to free news and ebooks and this is the new normal, there's no going back.
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Maybe we should really open a new thread. Best strategies to diversify on the micros and macros? How not to be dependent on just one agency? Best mix of photos/video and illustration?
Would anyone like to start that?
that's right, but it would mean we're accepting that we can no longer survive with our core business alone (photos).
it's unreasonable to expect any stocker can quickly recycle himself into a good illustrator or a good videomaker or both.
and then again, what's next ? doing short movies ? doing documentaries ? writing e-books ? teaching phoography classes ? workshops ? renting gear ? selling used lens on ebay ? selling merchandising on street markets ? t-shirts ? stickers ? business cards ?
when will it ever stop ?
if this is the future they're right about switching to iphones and instagram, that's the only sort of quality they could expect if they pay a pittance and if it will become impossible to survive on photos alone.
and yet it still doesn't look profitable to me, who's going to pay the gas to go on location and all ?
sure, billions of people now have iphones and FB/Twitter but all they're doing is posting selfies, dogs, cats, and holiday snaps.
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Maybe we should really open a new thread. Best strategies to diversify on the micros and macros? How not to be dependent on just one agency? Best mix of photos/video and illustration?
Would anyone like to start that?
that's right, but it would mean we're accepting that we can no longer survive with our core business (photos)
and yet it still doesn't look profitable to me, who's going to pay the gas to go on location and all ?
The people here on the micros having been doing a mix of media and a mix of different stores for years.
Where have you been all this time?
Some people also write apps, work for game developpers, write articles etccc.
msg is the domain of the digital media artist and internet entrepreneur.
How many people here also run ebay shops amd amazon stores?
Online business is our core business, photos is just one of the products we sell.
And of course when you have a portfolio you always look for additional ways to make money with it, many people have developped excellent combinations of photo stock and print products.
But opening a thread specifically dedicated to collect the current opportunities beyond stock agencies might be a good idea.
Eta: for instance the obvious trend for 2014 is smartphone photography. So what would be the best way to benefit? Which agency has the best offer, the best opportunity to make money.
But it really deserves a new thread.
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Well, he didn't post his Getty earnings, it might help balance his overall income, but obviously if you are producing 5000 great images in a year and see falling sales, you are heading towards a problem.
I agree that it is necessary to position yourself for what you believe will be the place in the future.
But if someone with this kind of port is struggling, I think it is logical that many single artists, who simply cannot produce the volume, even if they have the same quality are looking into what they can do to stop falling sales...
I'm not a photographer, but in looking at that portfolio I'm not entirely surprised there is no growth. The new images look just like the old ones. Same subjects, same shots. Smiling families in brightly colored shirts, generic business people, guy holding blank business card, etc. With that kind of stuff, does anyone really expect to make more money?
Sure they're beautifully shot images. Better done than a lot of folks could do. But it's just more generic stock.
I feel like I'm seeing a trend lately, with people complaining about dropping earnings while they're only producing work that competes with their old work.
We talk about quality and quantity and which is better to focus on. Or what sort of balance between the two is best. But we often forget that both are worthless if you ignore the need for diversity.
I'm sure he is still doing very well it is a perfect stockportfolio, but as Fotovoyager said this is still the stuff that sells best! If you want produce different stuff successfully you need higher prices as sales for non-generic stuff will always be a lot lower. So I would say he is doing everything right but the agencies with their stupid moves to drive prices lower and lower (with subscriptions, Dollarphotoclub etc) are the ones to blame.
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he is doing everything right but the agencies with their stupid moves to drive prices lower and lower (with subscriptions, Dollarphotoclub etc) are the ones to blame.
actually many agencies started slashing prices even before microstock, it's simply supply and demand, and it all started with the * RF and RF Photodiscs.
but the root of all evils is that buyers lowered a lot their expectations so that now they're more than happy with iphone quality, this would have been unacceptable just a few years ago and there's a worrying trend also in assignments and prints.
my impression is everybody is going cheap nowadays, not just for photos but for everything, food, clothes, cars, nightlife, and lots of shops have closed and lots of friends of mine are struggling to pay the bills, we're definitely in dire straits since 2008 and even before it wasn't going well.
i mean nobody complain about the assignment rates but they're no more shy about telling you they can't afford it and this is a very bad sign of the times.
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The people here on the micros having been doing a mix of media and a mix of different stores for years.
Where have you been all this time?
Some people also write apps, work for game developpers, write articles etccc.
msg is the domain of the digital media artist and internet entrepreneur.
How many people here also run ebay shops amd amazon stores?
Online business is our core business, photos is just one of the products we sell.
And of course when you have a portfolio you always look for additional ways to make money with it, many people have developped excellent combinations of photo stock and print products.
But opening a thread specifically dedicated to collect the current opportunities beyond stock agencies might be a good idea.
Eta: for instance the obvious trend for 2014 is smartphone photography. So what would be the best way to benefit? Which agency has the best offer, the best opportunity to make money.
But it really deserves a new thread.
i've nothing against diversification but i've always been keen on specialization, i don't want to go the "jack of all trades" route and i know many guys who did exactly that just to find themselves flipping burgers at the end of the story which they also see proudly as a proof of their "versatility", well who am i to judge but to each his own.
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he is doing everything right but the agencies with their stupid moves to drive prices lower and lower (with subscriptions, Dollarphotoclub etc) are the ones to blame.
actually many agencies started slashing prices even before microstock, it's simply supply and demand, and it all started with the * RF and RF Photodiscs.
but the root of all evils is that buyers lowered a lot their expectations so that now they're more than happy with iphone quality, this would have been unacceptable just a few years ago and there's a worrying trend also in assignments and prints.
my impression is everybody is going cheap nowadays, not just for photos but for everything, food, clothes, cars, nightlife, and lots of shops have closed and lots of friends of mine are struggling to pay the bills, we're definitely in dire straits since 2008 and even before it wasn't going well.
i mean nobody complain about the assignment rates but they're no more shy about telling you they can't afford it and this is a very bad sign of the times.
I'm guessing you don't have an Iphone?. The quality of my previous mobile phone sucked. Bad. Horrible. The Iphone5 is surprisingly good. Almost as good as a DSLR from a few years ago maybe like my old D50. I also have the 41MP Nokia 1020 that shoots DNG. Of course the quality isn't as good as my D800. But it's also not that far behind either. It's only a short matter of time before phones catch up to modern DSLRs. Especially when the DSLR manufacturers are only doing their standard incremental improvements while phones are improving massively every year.
Pretty soon most people will be carrying DSLR quality phones in their pockets. I've seen some pretty impressive photos from ordinary people using phones. Buyers have openly said they want fresh unstaged photos. Contributors that produce nice clean smiling happy lifestyle images are saying their sales are tanking. Have buyers dried up? Or have their buying habits changed?
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The market reflects what the public feels comfortable with. Not long ago we were cutting and pasting little line drawings into adverts (1980s) and the customers were very pleased. Then computers and scanners made it possible to create cheap colour separations and decent photography became the order of the day (late 90s) because suddenly advertisers could afford stuff they hadn't been able to afford before. Then microstock came along, and the sort of quality that had only been available to the top corporations became available to everyone, so everyone wanted top-notch images in their ads. Now that is old hat, but advertisers can connect with "yoof" by using the same sort of images that they swap with each other.
It's not about "image quality", it's about what's "in".
A mobile phone will probably never have the capabilities and quality of a DSLR, but it may create the sort of image that is fashionable and good for promoting someone's business.
Unfortunately, that strikes at the very heart of a photographer's self-belief, which is built primarily on a foundation of gear-envy.
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The market reflects what the public feels comfortable with. Not long ago we were cutting and pasting little line drawings into adverts (1980s) and the customers were very pleased. Then computers and scanners made it possible to create cheap colour separations and decent photography became the order of the day (late 90s) because suddenly advertisers could afford stuff they hadn't been able to afford before. Then microstock came along, and the sort of quality that had only been available to the top corporations became available to everyone, so everyone wanted top-notch images in their ads. Now that is old hat, but advertisers can connect with "yoof" by using the same sort of images that they swap with each other.
It's not about "image quality", it's about what's "in".
A mobile phone will probably never have the capabilities and quality of a DSLR, but it may create the sort of image that is fashionable and good for promoting someone's business.
Unfortunately, that strikes at the very heart of a photographer's self-belief, which is built primarily on a foundation of gear-envy.
I'd agree with all of that especially the gear envy. I love all of my gear but may no longer need most of it. I shoot mostly landscape and cityscape stuff and would take my 5DMII and lenses everywhere. Bulky and heavy. Then I picked up an NEX-7 and have barely touched the 5DMII. With the NEX-7 I can carry a small light bag with a couple of lenses. Then I recently took the phones and did some cityscape shots. Turned out great. So prices may be headed down but maybe at some point I'll only need a $99 phone instead $10,000 in camera equipment.
And, who really uses high resolution for commercial work anymore? Print magazines? Will there be any magazines in five years? Everything is web. Does web advertising need anything bigger or better than a phone can produce?
Scary, but can we ignore this is where things are headed?
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the publishing industry has not recovered at all in the last years, it's still a dead man walking and i can't see any reason for it to recover anytime soon, now everyone and their dog has a smartphone and access to free news and ebooks and this is the new normal, there's no going back.
Publishing industry (and I mean books, not magazines) had been killed by Amazon and Indigo-Chapters (in Canada). First they drove all independent bookstores out of business and then hundreds of publishers followed. They employed the same predatory tactics as Getty.
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They employed the same predatory tactics as Getty.
Could you elaborate on the predatory tactics of Getty? I know a lot of people believe that microstock has been the real driver of predatory pricing.
Not sure if he and I see the same thing , but Getty planned to lock up distribution as a way to control the market. So they bought up agency after agency, then cut royalties and changed contracts. People fled to other agencies to avoid them but ended up with Getty in the end after a buyout. Now they use their dominance to squeeze suppliers and charge buyers high prices
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Thank you Jo Ann,
you summed it better than I could have.
Predatory pricing or behaving in other predatory ways - it always hurts the suppliers and the customers.
The book distribution and publishing analogy is not that farfetched. I don't know if you still know of any independent bookstores in your area, but in Canada pretty much all privately owned bookstores disappeared over the last ten years, the only private stores here are now small shabby shops selling used books. Before, I was selling consistently books through the independent stores (always more copies than through Indigo), but now with only one player remaining they keep new books on their shelves only for a year or two and basically cut you off from any potential buyers.
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Nice try ^^. Les refered to "predatory tactics", not "predatory pricing". JoAnn's summation of predatory practices used by Getty sounds pretty on the nose to me.
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I asked the question because I don't think Getty is known as the company who used predatory pricing to gain market share...snip
Read what you just wrote....if they weren't known before as a company who used predatory pricing to gain market share they sure are now....free is pretty cheap, don't ya think? And, it is being done to gain market share.
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Pretty soon most people will be carrying DSLR quality phones in their pockets. I've seen some pretty impressive photos from ordinary people using phones. Buyers have openly said they want fresh unstaged photos. Contributors that produce nice clean smiling happy lifestyle images are saying their sales are tanking. Have buyers dried up? Or have their buying habits changed?
Their buying habits have changed. Clearly, if these large agencies are willing to take phone uploads and sell them. I had a few images rejected by istock because they "looked like snapshots (but were really fresh, unstaged photos)." Now, they WANT those snapshots!
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I asked the question because I don't think Getty is known as the company who used predatory pricing to gain market share...snip
Read what you just wrote....if they weren't known before as a company who used predatory pricing to gain market share they sure are now....free is pretty cheap, don't ya think? And, it is being done to gain market share.
It's not really free
They're charging people now?
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Some links to "history of Getty Images" articles, some of which have quotes or comments that look interesting now.
http://www.mactribe.com/news/features/feature50.php (http://www.mactribe.com/news/features/feature50.php)
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/getty-images-inc-history/ (http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/getty-images-inc-history/)
http://ethix.org/2003/06/01/under-gettys-images-brand-values-and-leadership-principles (http://ethix.org/2003/06/01/under-gettys-images-brand-values-and-leadership-principles)
http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2009/10/getty-images-business-fantasy-update.html (http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2009/10/getty-images-business-fantasy-update.html)
From the last one above, some comments from Jonathan Klein on the importance of subscriptions (and Getty has clearly failed, thus far, to build the industry leading subscription business)
"2. Build the market-leading subscription business
Subscription is a fast growing part of the market, and an area where we have had a long-standing gap in our product portfolio. Jupiterimages Unlimited brings a very good base from which to start, but we will create an entirely new subscription business that builds upon it. This new subscription product will be a major initiative, with significant marketing support. It also represents a major collaboration between Getty Images and iStockphoto. We may not be number one in subscription – YET – but we know how to get there and will get there."
There's also a mind-boggling quote from the ethix.org article about trust - not that I disagree with what's written, but I have a hard time squaring that with the behavior of the company:
"This brings up an interesting point about ethics. Our unusual industry is based on trust. For example, a photographer comes and signs a contract with us. We take the photographer’s images that we want and contract to market them, agreeing to pay part of what we will get if someone uses the image. We send the photographer a monthly report which says how the image was used and what money was paid. But the photographer relies entirely on us. They don’t really know if People Magazine paid us eighty bucks or eight hundred for their image. It is based on trust."
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I asked the question because I don't think Getty is known as the company who used predatory pricing to gain market share...snip
Read what you just wrote....if they weren't known before as a company who used predatory pricing to gain market share they sure are now....free is pretty cheap, don't ya think? And, it is being done to gain market share.
It's not really free
They're charging people now?
It's not free in the same way that sites offer a free image of the week for example. There are lots of restrictions attached to the images. Most importantly they have to be used in the embed player but they can't be used for commercial purposes, they can have ads placed over top of them or maybe even in place of them, they aren't guaranteed to be there the next day. It's a very restrictive 'free' use. I'm sure you can see the difference between this program and what most agencies say free images. One place that comes to mind is dreamstime's free offering [url]http://www.stockfreeimages.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.stockfreeimages.com/[/url])
They're not charging people to use them. Therefor they're free. All agencies place restrictions...that's what licensing is. But they charge money for the usage, so they're not free.
And of course, iStock gives away free images as well. Odd that you'd use Dreamstime as your reference.
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BTW the 4th result on google for 'predatory tactics' comes up with this
[url]http://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-retail-predatory-pricing-bully-tactics-squeezing-competition-retailers-small-business[/url] ([url]http://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncom-retail-predatory-pricing-bully-tactics-squeezing-competition-retailers-small-business[/url])
an article about Amazon and predatory pricing.
Thanks for posting that link. Good read, quite eye-opening. Should be mandatory reading in all schools.
In the near future, we might be reading a similar story about such bully practices in another industry.
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[url]http://ethix.org/2003/06/01/under-gettys-images-brand-values-and-leadership-principles[/url] ([url]http://ethix.org/2003/06/01/under-gettys-images-brand-values-and-leadership-principles[/url])
There's also a mind-boggling quote from the ethix.org article about trust - not that I disagree with what's written, but I have a hard time squaring that with the behavior of the company:
"This brings up an interesting point about ethics. Our unusual industry is based on trust. For example, a photographer comes and signs a contract with us. We take the photographer’s images that we want and contract to market them, agreeing to pay part of what we will get if someone uses the image. We send the photographer a monthly report which says how the image was used and what money was paid. But the photographer relies entirely on us. They don’t really know if People Magazine paid us eighty bucks or eight hundred for their image. It is based on trust."
I have a very similar text about trust on my website where I present my approach to working with stock agencies.
Trust is the real currency of business, money is just a reflection of that trust.
But in 2003 they were in a different position and definetly had licensing images as their main product, not eyeballs and links.
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Jo Ann those are interesting even the ranting one at the end but I'm not sure what you are trying to show with them. Serious question.
Having described Getty as predatory, I thought I'd try to provide some specifics to back that up (for anyone who hadn't really looked at the origins of the company and its path from there to here.
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Most of the art directors I know consider Getty a bully and a quasi-monopoly and wish they had more competition. They don't have a very good reputation among their customer base.
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I'm not saying iStock isn't giving free images away (one per week and given by the contributor), the reason I chose Dreamstime is that there are almost no restrictions when compared to the normal RF license and these images are large size too. There is a real fundamental difference between this kind of free use and the Embed free use. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the Getty program but this is different.
How can I use your images?
Once you download our images, you are granted a Royalty Free license to use them. This is a single-seat license. This license allows you to use the images downloaded on web sites, magazines, newspapers, books or booklets, for book covers, flyers, application software programs (apps), to make fine art prints or any other advertising and promotional material, in either printed or electronic media, as long as the item in which the image appears does not contradict any of the restrictions below. The list is not exhaustive and if you have any uncertainty regarding the use of the images in a correct way please contact support
DT contributors choose to offer images free, it's totally up to them and they know what the terms are. Dumb choice, but it's up to the individual.
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It's an option on upload, something like "if this image is not accepted do you want to send it to the free section?" There was some confusion as to the default, send or not to send but that was because the uploaders didn't read the info by the click box. You can set the default to go or not go and they don't take even everything that isn't accepted. There aren't that many images there. It's a way of sending viewers to the paid site and they have similar paid images displayed under the free images that click through to the main site.
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Most of the art directors I know consider Getty a bully and a quasi-monopoly and wish they had more competition. They don't have a very good reputation among their customer base.
Don't people usually mean lower prices when they say more competition?
No. Advertising art directors don't pay for images; their clients do. They don't care about the price, really, as long as it works in the budget.
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I see 480 pages of 20 images = 9600 free images, where do you get 1 million? Actually a few less, the last page only has 4 images.
http://www.dreamstime.com/free-images_pg480 (http://www.dreamstime.com/free-images_pg480)
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Hmmm, different than the direct link from their site at http://www.dreamstime.com/free-photos (http://www.dreamstime.com/free-photos) Two different DT sites.
Now I remember, it's a "freemium site. Announced in April, 2013 -
Stockfreeimages brings a significant exposure to Dreamstime's contributors and a very large part of the designers using SFI become Dreamstime customers too. A vast majority of them are new to stock photography and are customers who wouldn't purchase otherwise. By giving them a free product we also educate them about what stock photography represents and move them away of unsafe sources, where they may be facing legal risks and contributors are not compensated.
Given the large collection available and being committed to provide an equitable deal, we launch today a subscription pilot program where SFI becomes a freemium platform. After an initial free startup (10 free downloads), the web resolution will remain free for all visitors, while high resolution files will be available subscription-based only. Members opting for paid access will also benefit from attractive discounts on Dreamstime packages, the discount depending on the plan selected. The licenses granted for the images are Limited Royalty Free RF-LL for all images downloaded free of any charge (web resolution) and standard Royalty Free for paid images. The major difference between the two is related to the number of copies allowed: 10,000 for RF-LL and 500,000 for RF.
Plans begin at $15 (1 week & 10 downloads/day) and the royalties are $0.10 (non exclusives) and $0.12 (exclusive images or exclusive contributors). Of course, these royalties refer only to images available on SFI and do not interfere with Dreamstime's royalties.
The project will remain separate of Dreamstime but all sales will be reported in contributors' accounts on Dreamstime. For now you will see them on your earnings page along with DT sales but as of next week, we will add a separate earnings page to list all sales made via Stockfreeimages. Participation will be possible only through Dreamstime's initial screening (meaning you can't upload directly there). Contributors can either submit images after 4 years of no sales or donate images if they fail current submission but meet some minimum requirements. There is no minimum-online limit, anyone who wants to remove an image can do so from their Dreamstime account at any time (removal is permanent though).
We're hoping this will bring extra revenue, increased volume and will strengthen Dreamstime's position as an innovative leader in stock photography. Image donations still matter for enhanced exposure and traffic-wise and with this change, we're hoping they'll count even more. You made it happen, thank you for believing in the free section. Donations do pay off.
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I think that "enhanced exposure" means that there is a credit line for each free image that directs a buyer to the port of that photographer (or illustrator) on the main site. Supposedly if one likes a style they can click through to the paid site to see what else that contributor has to offer that is not free. Go to any image there and you will see that it shows additional non-free images for each free image from the photog and offers numerous click-thrus to direct them to become a real buyer.
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It's an option on upload, something like "if this image is not accepted do you want to send it to the free section?" There was some confusion as to the default, send or not to send but that was because the uploaders didn't read the info by the click box. You can set the default to go or not go and they don't take even everything that isn't accepted. There aren't that many images there. It's a way of sending viewers to the paid site and they have similar paid images displayed under the free images that click through to the main site.
Where do you set the default?
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http://www.dreamstime.com/oldfiles.php (http://www.dreamstime.com/oldfiles.php)
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Thanks! I remembered setting it to disable awhile ago, but for some reason I couldn't find it now.
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I asked the question because I don't think Getty is known as the company who used predatory pricing to gain market share...snip
Read what you just wrote....if they weren't known before as a company who used predatory pricing to gain market share they sure are now....free is pretty cheap, don't ya think? And, it is being done to gain market share.
It's not really free
They're charging people now?
It's not free in the same way that sites offer a free image of the week for example. There are lots of restrictions attached to the images. Most importantly they have to be used in the embed player but they can't be used for commercial purposes, they can have ads placed over top of them or maybe even in place of them, they aren't guaranteed to be there the next day. It's a very restrictive 'free' use. I'm sure you can see the difference between this program and what most agencies say free images. One place that comes to mind is dreamstime's free offering [url]http://www.stockfreeimages.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.stockfreeimages.com/[/url])
They're not charging people to use them. Therefor they're free. All agencies place restrictions...that's what licensing is. But they charge money for the usage, so they're not free.
And of course, iStock gives away free images as well. Odd that you'd use Dreamstime as your reference.
I'm not saying iStock isn't giving free images away (one per week and given by the contributor), the reason I chose Dreamstime is that there are almost no restrictions when compared to the normal RF license and these images are large size too. There is a real fundamental difference between this kind of free use and the Embed free use. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the Getty program but this is different.
How can I use your images?
Once you download our images, you are granted a Royalty Free license to use them. This is a single-seat license. This license allows you to use the images downloaded on web sites, magazines, newspapers, books or booklets, for book covers, flyers, application software programs (apps), to make fine art prints or any other advertising and promotional material, in either printed or electronic media, as long as the item in which the image appears does not contradict any of the restrictions below. The list is not exhaustive and if you have any uncertainty regarding the use of the images in a correct way please contact support
This may have been covered in some of the verbiage above, but bears emphasis - a significant difference with the Dreamstime free image program is that contributors have a choice whether or not to participate, and can do so on a per image basis.
I have put images that don't sell anywhere into the free program. I can disable them from it at any time. I don't know if I have benefited from extra exposure or not, but AFAIK it never seemed to have a detrimental effect on my sales.
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This may have been covered in some of the verbiage above, but bears emphasis - a significant difference with the Dreamstime free image program is that contributors have a choice whether or not to participate, and can do so on a per image basis.
I have put images that don't sell anywhere into the free program. I can disable them from it at any time. I don't know if I have benefited from extra exposure or not, but AFAIK it never seemed to have a detrimental effect on my sales.
I understand, this got a bit off topic but the point I was trying to make was that there is a huge difference between the free images from the Embed program and what most people think of when they think free images (like the Dreamstime program or free images of the week, etc..) that grant nearly full RF rights.
About the Dreamstime program I thought people were getting images put in there because they were automatically opted in: [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/what-is-the-default-action/msg328016/#msg328016[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/what-is-the-default-action/msg328016/#msg328016[/url]) but it really is a little off topic.
For a long time, Getty has claimed to be the "leading source of free images" http://www.sxc.hu/ (http://www.sxc.hu/) (Yes, that's sxc "from Getty").
At least it is trying to promote iStock (and it looks as if it hasn't been updated for years). I suspect DT copied that since early on, when StockXpert was in business, Serban was dead against giving away content.
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I asked the question because I don't think Getty is known as the company who used predatory pricing to gain market share...snip
Read what you just wrote....if they weren't known before as a company who used predatory pricing to gain market share they sure are now....free is pretty cheap, don't ya think? And, it is being done to gain market share.
It's not really free
They're charging people now?
It's not free in the same way that sites offer a free image of the week for example. There are lots of restrictions attached to the images. Most importantly they have to be used in the embed player but they can't be used for commercial purposes, they can have ads placed over top of them or maybe even in place of them, they aren't guaranteed to be there the next day. It's a very restrictive 'free' use. I'm sure you can see the difference between this program and what most agencies say are free images. One place that comes to mind is dreamstime's free offering [url]http://www.stockfreeimages.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.stockfreeimages.com/[/url])
Free is free, Getty calls it free. Restricted use for free, is still free. No matter how you twist it.
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And you are now discussing DT and FT because tickstock steers the discussion off topic when its about IS or Getty
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There's also a mind-boggling quote from the ethix.org article about trust - not that I disagree with what's written, but I have a hard time squaring that with the behavior of the company:
"This brings up an interesting point about ethics. Our unusual industry is based on trust. For example, a photographer comes and signs a contract with us. We take the photographer’s images that we want and contract to market them, agreeing to pay part of what we will get if someone uses the image. We send the photographer a monthly report which says how the image was used and what money was paid. But the photographer relies entirely on us. They don’t really know if People Magazine paid us eighty bucks or eight hundred for their image. It is based on trust."
With endless refund of purchases, PP "over" payments, bugs in RC calculations, non real time reports.
I have no reason to trust Getty.
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There's also a mind-boggling quote from the ethix.org article about trust - not that I disagree with what's written, but I have a hard time squaring that with the behavior of the company:
"This brings up an interesting point about ethics. Our unusual industry is based on trust. For example, a photographer comes and signs a contract with us. We take the photographer’s images that we want and contract to market them, agreeing to pay part of what we will get if someone uses the image. We send the photographer a monthly report which says how the image was used and what money was paid. But the photographer relies entirely on us. They don’t really know if People Magazine paid us eighty bucks or eight hundred for their image. It is based on trust."
With endless refund of purchases, PP "over" payments, bugs in RC calculations, non real time reports.
I have no reason to trust Getty.
"It's a new kind of trust"
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Now that the initial excitement has worn off, writers are starting to consider the implications of embedding:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/getty-images-allows-free-embedding-cost-privacy (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/getty-images-allows-free-embedding-cost-privacy)
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Now that the initial excitement has worn off, writers are starting to consider the implications of embedding:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/getty-images-allows-free-embedding-cost-privacy (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/getty-images-allows-free-embedding-cost-privacy)
That word needs to get out as quickly as possible, so that privacy-conscious readers will ask sites not to do it.
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Free is free, Getty calls it free. Restricted use for free, is still free. No matter how you twist it.
You don't really believe that do you? Getty has had all it's images available for a long time for free, as in free comp images. If you think free is free no matter what then this new program hasn't changed anything has it?
Where you allowed to publish free comprehensive images on a website?
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You are the master of twisting and turning words. I'll leave it at that*.
*Note to self: stop replying to tickstock's comments
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That's my point 'free' doesn't always mean the same thing just like using a small image inside the embed viewer is very different than getting a free image with an RF license.
From photographer point of view it is free as he will get nothing, not even single cent from this.
While the buyer will use his photo and safe his money,
Getty will sell advertisement via the embed viewer,
the advertiser will pay Getty to distribute his marketing messages over internet.
Everybody will get what they want but photographer will get nothing.
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I see it as LOST sales , and as soon as it comes to IS I am out! I've have made a lot of $$ selling my art to non profit for very reasonable prices!
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Getty loves to "donate" other people's assets! Example those .15 image sales that should of been 400.00
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I here you tickstock, my portfolio has a lot of spiritual stuff that faith backed folks like, for me it may be 50%
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Getty loves to "donate" other people's assets! Example those .15 image sales that should of been 400.00
For me, that is the major sticking point. I should have the option to say yes or no to some materially new type of distribution. My copyright, my choice
Getty treats contributors badly by refusing to give an opt out. They absolutely could - technically - but they refuse
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They seem to have hidden it very well.
I just went to gettyimages. Was switched to gettyimages.co.uk, which I'd never noticed happening before, and I can't 'easily' get onto gettyimages.com (like google).
No word of the free giveaway anywhere on the front page.
Clicked on a random editorial image and couldn't see how to do the 'free embed thing' on anywhere on the file page .
(maybe my point about how 'free', but 'not free' in the small print, is illegal in the UK was acted on ;) . I'd like to think so but suspect I just wasn't seeing it.)
Can someone do a screenshot of how to do it on the .com site and I'll check again.
Or someone show me how to do it from the .co.uk site.
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I agree Jo Ann , I just don't view Getty as a perk anymore. This keeps up we will need donations! ;)
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To be fair, some have done very wel and I've never had a lot of images on Getty, and have non on there now.
Very interesting ShadySue
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Free is free, Getty calls it free. Restricted use for free, is still free. No matter how you twist it.
You don't really believe that do you? Getty has had all it's images available for a long time for free, as in free comp images. If you think free is free no matter what then this new program hasn't changed anything has it?
You and I know those are two completely different things. Comp images are for internal use only, to present to clients. They're not shared with anyone else and don't appear on the internet. Only large, established companies have access to them, and then only a small portion of their employees are granted access. If the concept isn't bought the images are discarded. If the client does go with the images they pay high RM rates. So with free comps you're letting potentially high-paying clients see how your image would look in a campaign. With embedding it's the opposite. Anyone can do it, the images can be shared, and people looking for free images are not looking for expensive RM licenses.
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Thats basically what I said, apples and oranges, but then I saw the note to self and deleted my comment. :)
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Can someone do a screenshot of how to do it on the .com site and I'll check again.
I just went to www.gettyimages.co.uk (http://www.gettyimages.co.uk) and selected "FC Barcelona v Manchester City" from "Sports of the week". When you hover over a single photo and the popup appears, you can select the embed function. You are right, I didn't see it advertised anywhere...
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Getty loves to "donate" other people's assets! Example those .15 image sales that should of been 400.00
For me, that is the major sticking point. I should have the option to say yes or no to some materially new type of distribution. My copyright, my choice
Getty treats contributors badly by refusing to give an opt out. They absolutely could - technically - but they refuse
Well said.
I personally get the feeling that Getty/Carlyle would rather not have to deal with the photographic community. Even though we are their suppliers, they treat us like they are doing us a favor by giving us 20%.
Their narrative - voiced over and over by their spokespeople - is that this "is going to be good for the photographers". And the implied message is "trust us on this one".
Trust is earned - and as for me, when you burn me repeatedly with these free giveaways of my images as "promotional/marketing efforts by Getty", you've violated my trust.
The only thing I trust about Getty is that they'll do whatever they think is best for themselves - with no regard for their suppliers/contributors/photographers.
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That's my point 'free' doesn't always mean the same thing just like using a small image inside the embed viewer is very different than getting a free image with an RF license.
From photographer point of view it is free as he will get nothing, not even single cent from this.
While the buyer will use his photo and safe his money,
Getty will sell advertisement via the embed viewer,
the advertiser will pay Getty to distribute his marketing messages over internet.
Everybody will get what they want but photographer will get nothing.
That's not true at all.
Well, what do you mean "not true at all"?
Looks like you know much more then we do.
Please enlighten us.
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The only giveaway I was ever interested in is "image of the week" it put you on the front page of the site!
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Quote is Craig Peters from Getty: ...the company has "certainly thought about" monetizing usage data, but has no specific plans.
There's the 20% per click plan. Imagined but not visible on the Getty radar.
(Craig Peters - Senior Vice President, Business Development, Content and Marketing at Getty Images. Not someone on a web forum or some anonymous source claimed to be knowing something, by an anonymous post here.)
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Comp images are available for everyone though and could easily wind up all over the internet, people can will do whatever they want with them whether it's against the rules or not.
And you don't think that the facts that (a) this would be illegal and (b) Getty has quite a reputation for defending their image rights might dissuade a few people from doing so?
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Comp images are available for everyone though and could easily wind up all over the internet, people can will do whatever they want with them whether it's against the rules or not.
And you don't think that the facts that (a) this would be illegal and (b) Getty has quite a reputation for defending their image rights might dissuade a few people from doing so?
I think it probably does and it hopefully it will with the embed program.
But with the embed program it is legal and encouraged to use the image "for free" instead of buying it (as long as you use the viewer)?
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Free is free, Getty calls it free. Restricted use for free, is still free. No matter how you twist it.
You don't really believe that do you? Getty has had all it's images available for a long time for free, as in free comp images. If you think free is free no matter what then this new program hasn't changed anything has it?
You and I know those are two completely different things. Comp images are for internal use only, to present to clients. They're not shared with anyone else and don't appear on the internet. Only large, established companies have access to them, and then only a small portion of their employees are granted access. If the concept isn't bought the images are discarded. If the client does go with the images they pay high RM rates. So with free comps you're letting potentially high-paying clients see how your image would look in a campaign. With embedding it's the opposite. Anyone can do it, the images can be shared, and people looking for free images are not looking for expensive RM licenses.
That's my point, they are different things but both are 'free'. Comp images are available for everyone though and could easily wind up all over the internet, people can will do whatever they want with them whether it's against the rules or not. I don't think those free images (comp images) are a bad thing, people can go to the internet already and get tons of free images from Getty, Shutterstock, or iStock. Again those 'free' images are different than the embed free images or a free image with an RF license.
Please define what you mean by "comp images." I think we're talking about two different things.
And I was really surprised by this sentence:
"It's noteworthy that embed codes are available for all the sizes and resolutions offered."
In this article:
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2333358/Free-Getty-Images-What-is-Getty-Giving-Getting-in-Return (http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2333358/Free-Getty-Images-What-is-Getty-Giving-Getting-in-Return)
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Can someone do a screenshot of how to do it on the .com site and I'll check again.
I just went to [url=http://www.gettyimages.co.uk]www.gettyimages.co.uk[/url] ([url]http://www.gettyimages.co.uk[/url]) and selected "FC Barcelona v Manchester City" from "Sports of the week". When you hover over a single photo and the popup appears, you can select the embed function. You are right, I didn't see it advertised anywhere...
Thanks, you're right.
Let's hope, if they're not advertising it, people in the UK won't notice it, which would protect much of my Getty content. :)
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It is advertised on the front page of the U.S. site, however. Takes up the whole page above the fold.
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All sizes! Wow I didn't realise that.
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A lot of back and forth here over what is essentially Semantics. Whereas the "s" word that comes to mind whenever I contemplate this affair is Shafted*
* Ripped off, cheated, treated with contempt or unfairly, made a mug of, sold a rotten kipper etc
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Please define what you mean by "comp images." I think we're talking about two different things.
And I was really surprised by this sentence:
"It's noteworthy that embed codes are available for all the sizes and resolutions offered."
In this article:
[url]http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2333358/Free-Getty-Images-What-is-Getty-Giving-Getting-in-Return[/url] ([url]http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2333358/Free-Getty-Images-What-is-Getty-Giving-Getting-in-Return[/url])
I'm talking about when you go to a Getty image and click on download a comp. The images aren't available at all sizes, I'm pretty sure that article is wrong.
I was talking about full-resolution images that are provided to ad agencies and publishers to use in their comps.
I wasn't aware that Getty was giving away what I would consider XS versions of their images for free all these years. Just tried it and downloaded one. So glad I'm not with Getty.
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It is advertised on the front page of the U.S. site, however. Takes up the whole page above the fold.
That appears to be legal in the US, but not here.
This is the UK front page, with Embed - with no explanation - right at the very, very bottom of the page (I circled it in red)
(http://www.lizworld.com/GettyUK.jpg)
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All sizes! Wow I didn't realise that.
That's not true as far as I can tell the article is wrong.
[url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_32[/url] ([url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_32[/url])
Getty Images has taken a major step towards addressing unauthorized image use by allowing low-resolution (~0.17MP - and if that's hard to visualize check out the picture in this story) embedding of images
I've posted a question to the author to ask him to confirm. I can only get low-res embedding, so perhaps this feature is only available to certain people or he got his facts wrong.
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Thanks tickstock for clearing that up.still lost sales.
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Was wondering if exclusives are still uploading to iStock as usual or, like myself, are stopping completely to see how all this pans out. Once our images are released into the ether for free the damage is done and I'm reluctant to risk wasting my time creating stuff that will never see a return due to this free giveaway.
Also, if we drop exclusivity will this automatically remove, eventually, our images from Getty and their availability for embedding?
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Interesting article here from the Motley Fool (sorry if it's been posted before) http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/10/why-gettys-new-image-sharing-doesnt-threaten-shutt.aspx (http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/10/why-gettys-new-image-sharing-doesnt-threaten-shutt.aspx) regarding Getty vs Shutterstock. This quote stood out: "Getty's new policy does allow media companies to use free images, but Getty retains the right to place ads on the images or use them to collect user data, making companies unlikely to use them for free. The plan could even backfire as the decision has upset photographers who don't want their images used free for only Getty's benefit, and that could drive more of them to develop relationships with other buyers such as Shutterstock."
Maybe the media is starting to take notice of the photographer's side in all this.
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Was wondering if exclusives are still uploading to iStock as usual or, like myself, are stopping completely to see how all this pans out. Once our images are released into the ether for free the damage is done and I'm reluctant to risk wasting my time creating stuff that will never see a return due to this free giveaway.
Also, if we drop exclusivity will this automatically remove, eventually, our images from Getty and their availability for embedding?
I haven't been making images specially for stock ever since it became obvious that new files were falling in the best match and weren't selling (in general). Then they started accepting what appeared to be hard drives full of images with little image QA and no keyword checking at all, so it was clear they had an Evil Plan (the very words I often used, though I didn't for a second imagine they were going to force ALL files into cheap subs, or the free giveaway (embedded) schemes). Then when they reduced indie files so that ours could be 5x or even 7x the cost, our fate was sealed, except for those with impossible to access (but still in demand) niches.
My upload rate in 2013 was way below all previous years, and I've only uploaded a few 'markers' this year. Looks like that's all I'll be doing in the foreseeable future.
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I wonder if (when) Getty starts trying to monetize this with ads in the embeds if they will be put on the adblocker lists - and thus make the images disappear too. Certainly not what the bloggers would want to have happen. My guess is that Getty will try to make it unobtrusive until they have enough penetration and Carlyle can sell and then it will be up to someone else to try to squeeze some money out of it.
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All sizes! Wow I didn't realise that.
That's not true as far as I can tell the article is wrong.
[url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_32[/url] ([url]http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/06/getty-to-allow-embedding-for-non-commercial-use-of-images?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_32[/url])
Getty Images has taken a major step towards addressing unauthorized image use by allowing low-resolution (~0.17MP - and if that's hard to visualize check out the picture in this story) embedding of images
I've posted a question to the author to ask him to confirm. I can only get low-res embedding, so perhaps this feature is only available to certain people or he got his facts wrong.
I've seen it listed in a few official places that the size is only about .17 mp.
I guess it would be fair to say that it is confusing if even some journalists get it wrong. I can only imagine it'll get thoroughly misunderstood by everyday users as well.
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A lot of the confusion is coming from people reading the headlines and not looking just a tiny bit deeper.
Kinda sums up the internet. :)
edit: also makes the point for one of the reasons behind the embed platform, people don't understand copyright and licensing and (some) "believe" if an image is online its free to use.
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I guess it would be fair to say that it is confusing if even some journalists get it wrong. I can only imagine it'll get thoroughly misunderstood by everyday users as well.
That part doesn't seem confusing at all (AFAIK that's the only person who claims the images can be full size) and even if someone was confused they can't make the images larger because of it. A lot of the confusion is coming from people reading the headlines and not looking just a tiny bit deeper.
But that's the problem...most people do only read the headlines and don't look much deeper.
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Well, whatever is happening at iStock, it seems to be juicing Shutterstock's sales quite nicely. I'm well on my way to a BME in March.
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Well, whatever is happening at iStock, it seems to be juicing Shutterstock's sales quite nicely. I'm well on my way to a BME in March.
That's good. There's an alliance of anonymous people here who try to change every thread into something bad about SS or divert attention to somebody other. They are probably paid agents of IS trying to bring down SS. Read their posts over and over the same turned off search attacks or changing the subject to something wrong at SS.
http://www.examiner.com/article/snowden-government-infiltrates-websites-uses-social-media-to-deceive-destroy (http://www.examiner.com/article/snowden-government-infiltrates-websites-uses-social-media-to-deceive-destroy)
The operation of injecting all sorts of false material onto the internet to target individuals or companies. These same anonymous people have one goal, attack SS and cause confusion. Reputation-destruction, infiltrate online communities, and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse.
When IS came up with this plan or subs they defended it and kept attacking claiming SS caused that all. Covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites.
There's no other reson why a small anonymous group would be so set against SS and trying to divert attention and blame from IS over and over.
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Paranoid aren't we? Or maybe just ignoring the posts about how great Shutterstock is in the Getty thread? I guess your post was aimed at advancing the discussion on the Getty embed program?
I think when one person in particular tries to switch every iS discussion to SS we're far from being paranoid.
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I'm not part of any group, there are things I really like about SS, but the .25 per download is not one of them ;)
There are good and not so good about both.
I think we all need to stick together as a community of creatives.
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com
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I'm not part of any group, there are things I really like about SS, but the .25 per download is not one of them ;)
Kim, to paraphrase the immortal words of some long-gone philosopher or other: The 25¢ download too shall pass.
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Attorneys are not thrilled with Getty embedding:
http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/ (http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/)
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Attorneys are not thrilled with Getty embedding:
[url]http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/[/url] ([url]http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/[/url])
So, that blogger is currently buying iS images, but would like to move to free images, but being a bit smarter than many, doesn't like a lot of the jots and tittles.
"The cynical side of me says that the reason for this is because Getty really wants to keep its paying customers in that category,"
I should coco. (expletive deleted)
I wonder how many actual buyers will move over. Everyone would prefer 'free' to 'pay'. The sort of person who doesn't care if there are Google Ads on their blog likely won't care much about this either (except that they don't get the money from the ads).
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Interesting article here from the Motley Fool (sorry if it's been posted before) [url]http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/10/why-gettys-new-image-sharing-doesnt-threaten-shutt.aspx[/url] ([url]http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/10/why-gettys-new-image-sharing-doesnt-threaten-shutt.aspx[/url]) regarding Getty vs Shutterstock. This quote stood out: "Getty's new policy does allow media companies to use free images, but Getty retains the right to place ads on the images or use them to collect user data, making companies unlikely to use them for free. The plan could even backfire as the decision has upset photographers who don't want their images used free for only Getty's benefit, and that could drive more of them to develop relationships with other buyers such as Shutterstock."
Maybe the media is starting to take notice of the photographer's side in all this.
No, they won't. They have almost 100K Flickr photographers who willing to do anything just to be be able to post Getty Artist badge on their Flickr page. There are good bunch that have huge RM ports. The embed program will not affect this group too much because they are not interested in small sales, and this campaign might give them the right exposure as their photos stand out and there is potential that buyers could be coming back to them. However, the majority are amateur with mediocre and replicable portfolios, have no where to go.
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Attorneys are not thrilled with Getty embedding:
[url]http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/[/url] ([url]http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2014/03/articles/social-media/gettys-new-embedding-feature-dont-get-excited-yet/[/url])
So, that blogger is currently buying iS images, but would like to move to free images, but being a bit smarter than many, doesn't like a lot of the jots and tittles.
"The cynical side of me says that the reason for this is because Getty really wants to keep its paying customers in that category,"
I should coco. (expletive deleted)
I wonder how many actual buyers will move over. Everyone would prefer 'free' to 'pay'. The sort of person who doesn't care if there are Google Ads on their blog likely won't care much about this either (except that they don't get the money from the ads).
This is what worries everyone, I'm sure. I've seen my images on blogs, but now people who bought those images can embed for free. And people reading blogs aren't shopping for images, so it's not like they're going to click and buy. I think this is primarily to start running advertising, which will bring Getty money but nothing or next to nothing for contributors.
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...This is what worries everyone, I'm sure. I've seen my images on blogs, but now people who bought those images can embed for free...
This is what I don't get. It's obvious that people buy images for blogs. You've seen it, I've seen it, we all have. Just look at any of the sites that allow image purchases in different sizes and see how many small sizes are licensed. Those smalls are pretty much only good for web use, so it's fair to assume that a good number of them are going straight into blogs.
My point being that there is no doubt that bloggers buy images, so Getty throwing in the towel on bloggers as customers is ridiculous.
There is a market for that usage. They just think there isn't because no one wants to pay $55 for a blog size image. They think they're pricing blog sizes at a reasonable $20 but that's for a 200px wide image. How many blogs still support such a tiny size? So really the jump-off point for blog images at Getty is $55 and up.
I think it's fair to attribute some of the thinking behind this embedded viewer to creating some sort of alternative revenue stream through ads and such, but really I also think part of this is just plain old ignorance regarding what the market will bear. A 200px image is useless, of course no one is buying those, and no one wants to pay $55 for a blog image at a usable size. So instead of accepting the fact that their blog size offerings are undersized and overpriced, they just throw their hands up in the air and give up on capturing any of the blogger market directly, opting for this embedded viewer instead.
Brilliant.
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Do you really think many bloggers will choose to put the embed viewer on their website?...
No, I don't. But it seems to be what Getty is hoping many bloggers will do.
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Do you really think many bloggers will choose to put the embed viewer on their website?...
No, I don't. But it seems to be what Getty is hoping many bloggers will do.
To me it seems as if some might rather than many will. And that is how I see this whole thing in general: ie very much in terms of it being an interesting experiment - test the technology and the effect, see where it goes etc. And sometimes one idea comes out of another - we have all experienced that as creatives and it is also definitely true in business.
I still cannot understand what seems like an over-reaction here and on a few blogs. This is about non commercial use and not about bloggers per se.
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The biggest damage was inflicted by using the word FREE.
We understand the non-commercial and embedding rules, but many users will notice only the "free" part, and with free they will do anything they like.
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Do you really think many bloggers will choose to put the embed viewer on their website?...
No, I don't. But it seems to be what Getty is hoping many bloggers will do.
To me it seems as if some might rather than many will. And that is how I see this whole thing in general: ie very much in terms of it being an interesting experiment - test the technology and the effect, see where it goes etc. And sometimes one idea comes out of another - we have all experienced that as creatives and it is also definitely true in business.
I still cannot understand what seems like an over-reaction here and on a few blogs. This is about non commercial use and not about bloggers per se.
Experimenting with property they dont own. And you seem to happily defend it.
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I have full right to over-react because it's my photos.
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No, they won't. They have almost 100K Flickr photographers who willing to do anything just to be be able to post Getty Artist badge on their Flickr page. There are good bunch that have huge RM ports. The embed program will not affect this group too much because they are not interested in small sales, and this campaign might give them the right exposure as their photos stand out and there is potential that buyers could be coming back to them. However, the majority are amateur with mediocre and replicable portfolios, have no where to go.
I remember the "istock charts" that had over 30 000 names of contributors entered and where we were ranked by sales. I was in the top 300, number 272, until I stopped uploading for a while and others overtook me.
I really don't think of myself as a top level artists, just good nice useful solid stock production.
So if I can make it into the top 1% of that list, I really don't think the masses of 100 000 flickr producers worries me.
The number of people who produce useful stock on a regular basis is very small, even if a huge flood of files enters the sites every week.
It is the top 5000 artists from all media types, those that regularly produce sellable content, that the agencies need to keep happy.
Maybe that is still enough "mass" for them to ignore us and treat us like idiots, but I believe the agency that can tap into the talent pool will have a distinct advantage. Especially those agencies that treat us as independent web shop owners and give us the tools we need to work.
All we need is a good plattform, the market is self organizing.
And how many shop owners want to have their products used for free by the world, even if their name is below and there is a backlink?
The loss of control is the biggest problem. Like we have established before - if this move was really about advertising and increasing sales, it would have been easy to offer an opt in.
You only force people into something if you know they don't want it and when they can benefit immensely from having everything available at once.
In this case a new business of data collection and ad space, built on the back of 500 dollar files.
The correct way to do this would have been to pay the artists for every embedded file. If they want to offer it free to the bloggers, then Getty should be the one paying, at least a sub level royalty for every embed.
To say "the files would have been stolen anyway so you don't deserve any money" is wrong because the value of the blogs and articles is increased by the embedded image.
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I guess it would be fair to say that it is confusing if even some journalists get it wrong.
You've obviously met a different set of journalists from those I knew during my 20 years as a newspaper editor ;D
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No, they won't. They have almost 100K Flickr photographers who willing to do anything just to be be able to post Getty Artist badge on their Flickr page. There are good bunch that have huge RM ports. The embed program will not affect this group too much because they are not interested in small sales, and this campaign might give them the right exposure as their photos stand out and there is potential that buyers could be coming back to them. However, the majority are amateur with mediocre and replicable portfolios, have no where to go.
I remember the "istock charts" that had over 30 000 names of contributors entered and where we were ranked by sales. I was in the top 300, numer 272, until I stopped uploading for a while and others overtook me.
I really don't think of myself as a top level artists, just good nice useful sold stock production.
So if I can make it into the top 1% of that list, I really don't think the masses of 100 000 flickr producers worries me.
The number of people who produce useful stock on a regular basis is very small, even if a huge flood of files enters the sites every week.
It is the top 5000 artists from all media types, those that regularly produce sellable content, that the agencies need to keep happy.
Maybe that is still enough "mass" for them to ignore us and treat us like idiots, but I believe the agency that can tap into the talent pool will have a distinct advantage. Especially those agencies that treat us as independent web shop owners and give us the tools we need to work.
All we need is a good plattform, the market is self organizing.
And how many shop owners want to have their products used for free by the world, even if their name is below and there is a backlink?
The loss of control is the biggest problem. Like we have established before - if this move was really about advertising and increasing sales, it would have been easy to offer an opt in.
You only force people into something if you know they don't want it and when they can benefit immensely from having everything available at once.
In this case a new business of data collection and ad space, built on the back of 500 dollar files.
The correct way to do this would have been to pay the artists for every embedded file. If they want to offer it free to the bloggers, then Getty should be the one paying, at least a sub level royalty for every embed.
To say "the files would have been stolen anyway so you don't deserve any money" is wrong because the value of the blogs and articles is increased by the embedded image.
I'm with you.
A few years ago, I was over the moon to be with Getty. Now I have nothing but hatred for them.
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It doesn't matter what bloggers do or anyone else for that matter now that Getty has effectively devalued not just stock photography but photography as a profession overnight.
That word "Free" is what sticks in the mind of the dunderheads out there and plays right into the hands of the cheapskates who couldn't give sweet FA about the embed service, other than seeing it as a victory - "If we just keep on stealing stuff, eventually it will all be free so who cares - awesome."
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I don't think many bloggers would want to give up control of cropping, sizing, editing, stability (the images may not be there 2 seconds after they embed them), their data, advertising, etc..
Is anyone here considering using the embed program for most images on their blog? I can't think of a circumstance that I would.
I would never use it because you can't create thumbnails out of embedded photos, and i'm reading the same negative comments on many webmaster forums, embedding images only makes sense inside articles or galleries but it's not usable for anything else.
data and analytics, i don't think it's an issue at all, every blog is already giving away analytic data to google and many others.
stability : big problem, getty could pretty much disable this service in the future or even asking you money so in both cases you'll be trapped and at their mercy.
i mean, nothing new, same issues encountered in the past by FotoMoto and other similar startups.
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Getty has effectively devalued not just stock photography but photography as a profession overnight.
yes and no.
if we really valued our photos we would only sell prints in art galleries and we would use the web only as a platform for portfolio to invite clients to exhibitions and to be contacted for assignments.
if we look at the top photographers in pretty much any field none of them sell stock and they only use their blogs or FB/twitter pages for promotion ... they use low res images with no watermarks and they don't give a sh-it if it gets stolen by random bloggers or if it's shared on pinterest or flickr .. i mean they don't even see digital as a business to be monetized, they make big bucks with galleries, prints, assignments, museums, exhibitions, etc, that's where the serious money is $$$.
they must be disgusted at the idea of selling stock, i can't blame them, stock is the rock bottom of photography no matter how we paint it, stockers are all in denial about this.
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^^ Sorry but that is an overblown piece of snobbery and seems to have missed out the last thirty years of the business. It's like saying anyone who doesn't make Gucci or Prada and knocks out tee shirts in a crappy basement has no value. Well value is relative. I'm no great shakes as a photographer but I haven't just picked up a camera and suddenly made a chunk of change out of stock photography. It has cost me my most valuable asset - time.
I'm not anticipating ever seeing my work at MoMa - but it does have a value over and above zero whether it hangs on a wall in New York or appears in a brochure for a cleaning company in downtown Nairobi.
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stock is the rock bottom of photography no matter how we paint it, stockers are all in denial about this.
Sorry, I really value my work. To create something that is actually useful to help people with their projects, school books and businesses...I find that has a lot more merit than creating wall decor for rich people.
There is real art, but that is rare. And I don´t value art by dollars paid for it.
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I guess it would be fair to say that it is confusing if even some journalists get it wrong.
You've obviously met a different set of journalists from those I knew during my 20 years as a newspaper editor ;D
Ha! I completely agree, 20 years ago there wasn't any spellcheck. Now if they could please re-introduce rules of grammar to print and tv journalists.... :)
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It doesn't matter what bloggers do or anyone else for that matter now that Getty has effectively devalued not just stock photography but photography as a profession overnight.
That word "Free" is what sticks in the mind of the dunderheads out there and plays right into the hands of the cheapskates who couldn't give sweet FA about the embed service, other than seeing it as a victory - "If we just keep on stealing stuff, eventually it will all be free so who cares - awesome."
It does matter what bloggers do and it doesn't matter what thieves think about the Getty plan. Bloggers are were paying money to license our images and thieves have already made up their minds about this, who cares what incorrect justification they use when stealing images. It's still stealing.
Fixed it for ya.
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I still cannot understand what seems like an over-reaction here and on a few blogs. This is about non commercial use and not about bloggers per se.
That seems like an entirely selfish stance.
You may know that few, if any, of your images are use editorially or non-commercially.
That doesn't make it right for anyone, especially those of us who know that's how the majority of our images are used.
I'm mightily relieved that they've had to obey UK law, so the new getty uk site makes the facility almost invisible, as many of my images have a UK interest (I wonder how many UK punters, seeing all the 'free' hoo-ha then getting to the site and not being able to easily find out more have contacted them or blogged that it's all a load of tosh).
However, my relief doesn't stop me from believing that the whole shenanigans is ill-conceived and wrong. If it had to be done at all - and I wish it hadn't, as the loud and clear message is 'web images are free' (with some tiny small print),- - it should be done with wholly-owned content and people like yourself opting in.
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We'll put shadysue.
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com
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I still cannot understand what seems like an over-reaction here and on a few blogs. This is about non commercial use and not about bloggers per se.
That seems like an entirely selfish stance.
You may know that few, if any, of your images are use editorially or non-commercially.
That doesn't make it right for anyone, especially those of us who know that's how the majority of our images are used.
... and when did we decide it was ok for "non-commercial" users to get free use of anything?
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It doesn't matter what bloggers do or anyone else for that matter now that Getty has effectively devalued not just stock photography but photography as a profession overnight.
That word "Free" is what sticks in the mind of the dunderheads out there and plays right into the hands of the cheapskates who couldn't give sweet FA about the embed service, other than seeing it as a victory - "If we just keep on stealing stuff, eventually it will all be free so who cares - awesome."
It does matter what bloggers do and it doesn't matter what thieves think about the Getty plan. Bloggers are were paying money to license our images and thieves have already made up their minds about this, who cares what incorrect justification they use when stealing images. It's still stealing.
Fixed it for ya.
I agree that it would be an issue if paying bloggers decided to go with the embed program rather than buying images. I've said it a few times now and so has Sean, Jon Oringer and countless blogs that there seems to be little chance of that happening because of the control a blogger would give up in terms of editing, cropping, ads, making sure the images are there for as long as the blog is, data mining etc.. I'll ask the question again if you are a blogger would you or anyone you know switch to the embed program and give up that control of your blog?
So you're predicting the program will fail?
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I agree that it would be an issue if paying bloggers decided to go with the embed program rather than buying images. I've said it a few times now and so has Sean, Jon Oringer and countless blogs that there seems to be little chance of that happening because of the control a blogger would give up in terms of editing, cropping, ads, making sure the images are there for as long as the blog is, data mining etc.. I'll ask the question again if you are a blogger would you or anyone you know switch to the embed program and give up that control of your blog?
In that case, why have they spent so much time and marketing resources on what you consider to be a pointless promotion, whose visible message is 'images are free'?
I'd have been happier with a system whereby non-profits and charities could get small images for e.g. $5, but even then it should be opt-in, as I'm sure there are many who wouldn't be happy with that. $5 is less than some of their big buyers are paying (I've had a few Getty sales netting me under $1 at 20%). I would far rather a charity bought my image cheaply than big business. (I do understand the concept of bulk-buying, before anyone says.)
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ShadySue, that sounds like bulk charities
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com
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I wonder if there is a way for a contributor to know how menu images or times an image has been "imbedded" from their portfolio?
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com
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Not necessarily. I think this program isn't meant to replace paying bloggers at all, which seems to be the major contention here. I think for Getty the success is getting a few people who weren't paying for images to use the program and the free advertising the announcement has given them. I don't see many or any blogs that aim to make money, even 'non-commercially' switching over. It would seem like a bad business decision to do it.
How could you possibly think this? I'm just curious. Why would people who were just right-clicking bother with the trouble of registering at Getty and searching there and having to find the images that have the little embed icon and pasting and copying html code, knowing they would then be tracked and advertising would appear later? The only people I foresee using this are honest bloggers who've been either paying to license images or using public domain images. They're the ones who are excited that Getty's library is now open for "free" use.
The part about the free advertising I definitely agree with. It got them a lot of press for two days and is still getting them negative press now, though things are dying down quickly.
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If an honest blogger was using public domain images then I think it's better for me that they use the embed program, don't you?
So that you can earn a few cents from a nasty ad-switch, datamining scheme?
Fair enough, your call.
I wish it was mine not to risk partaking in that.
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You don't have to register with Getty. If an honest blogger was using public domain images then I think it's better for me that they use the embed program, don't you? Like I said though I don't see bloggers that pay for images switching because of the control over their website that they would lose. You posted that article by the legal blogger who made the point about not having control over what ads were placed on someone's legal blog, if a competitor has ads placed on there it wouldn't be good and I'm sure that goes for a lot of 'non-commercial' blogs. You seem to believe a lot of paying bloggers will give up control of their images, what makes you think it's worth saving a few dollars to do so? Would you do it? Would anyone here do it?
Yes, the article was written by a legal blogger. Obviously the first thing a lawyer will do is take a look at the fine print and legal implications. It's not the first thing an average blogger will do, unfortunately. But posting here and tweeting will help get that legal opinion out.
I work in an industry that pays for large licenses, where I'm used to dealing with image prices in the hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. So Getty has no sticker shock for me. But, like attorneys, I'm an exception to the rule.
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^^ Sorry but that is an overblown piece of snobbery and seems to have missed out the last thirty years of the business. It's like saying anyone who doesn't make Gucci or Prada and knocks out tee shirts in a crappy basement has no value. Well value is relative. I'm no great shakes as a photographer but I haven't just picked up a camera and suddenly made a chunk of change out of stock photography. It has cost me my most valuable asset - time.
I'm not anticipating ever seeing my work at MoMa - but it does have a value over and above zero whether it hangs on a wall in New York or appears in a brochure for a cleaning company in downtown Nairobi.
snobbery ?
maybe, or maybe not ... i'm just being realistic actually.
i'm not talking about technical quality, that's never been the issue, i'm talking about what the buyers are willing to pay.
i mean, it would be the same sh-it if suddenly there was a flood of random guys shooting on assignment for a pittance, and same for weddings and pretty much anything else.
i'm not saying stock is the rock bottom because it's inherently bad, but it became so bad due to many factors we've already discussed to death here and there's nothing we can do now, as an industry it's a dead man walking unless you've a huge portfolio or you're an image factory.
and talking about money, the more you devote time to stock the less time you have for more serious photography or assignments or whatever, i mean even weddings are paying a lot better than stock and it's a funny job after all, you go on location, meet people, laugh, eat, drink, and if you're lucky you find nice girls too, not to mention the many networking opportunities about assignments or prints or anything in between.
i would not think twice about switching to weddings if the stock industry tanks overnight.
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Sorry, I really value my work. To create something that is actually useful to help people with their projects, school books and businesses...I find that has a lot more merit than creating wall decor for rich people.
There is real art, but that is rare. And I don´t value art by dollars paid for it.
nobody is saying stock is not useful, but the buyers aren't willing to pay a decent price for it.
by the way, rich people don't care about art, they just buy it as an investment in order to diversify their assets.
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You don't have to register with Getty. If an honest blogger was using public domain images then I think it's better for me that they use the embed program, don't you? Like I said though I don't see bloggers that pay for images switching because of the control over their website that they would lose. You posted that article by the legal blogger who made the point about not having control over what ads were placed on someone's legal blog, if a competitor has ads placed on there it wouldn't be good and I'm sure that goes for a lot of 'non-commercial' blogs. You seem to believe a lot of paying bloggers will give up control of their images, what makes you think it's worth saving a few dollars to do so? Would you do it? Would anyone here do it?
Yes, the article was written by a legal blogger. Obviously the first thing a lawyer will do is take a look at the fine print and legal implications. It's not the first thing an average blogger will do, unfortunately. But posting here and tweeting will help get that legal opinion out.
I work in an industry that pays for large licenses, where I'm used to dealing with image prices in the hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. So Getty has no sticker shock for me. But, like attorneys, I'm an exception to the rule.
Sorry, I'm not sure what your point is?
But we all know what yours is. ;)
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Sorry, I really value my work. To create something that is actually useful to help people with their projects, school books and businesses...I find that has a lot more merit than creating wall decor for rich people.
There is real art, but that is rare. And I don´t value art by dollars paid for it.
nobody is saying stock is not useful, but the buyers aren't willing to pay a decent price for it.
by the way, rich people don't care about art, they just buy it as an investment in order to diversify their assets.
Which people aren't willing to pay a decent price?
Maybe some shady internet folks who think it's OK to steal images. But for legit publishers and ad agencies, stock is a bigger market than ever. Our clients are always pressuring us to use stock in order to save money (to them, a $2,000 image is a bargain). I actually see the market for shoot assignments shrinking while stock grows.
That's borne out by the increase in SODs at Shutterstock. Art directors are happy to have an alternative to Getty.
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While Getty is busy trying to corner the market on non-paying bloggers, I just sold several extended licenses at Stocksy which pay out 100% to the artist. :)
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by the way, rich people don't care about art, they just buy it as an investment in order to diversify their assets.
I know, which is why a lot images you see in the "art world" is just a different form of stock.
The artist are producing for the investment market, it is just as much production and assignment work as we do.
Building up the "persona of an artist" marketing the artist and his or her story...etc...
Unless you are very professional and customer targeted in your approach you won't make those big dollars.
eta: as for customers paying the right price for stock...you of course need to manage production costs with returns, like any business. And find a partner who puts energy into selling your work...like stocksy...
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While Getty is busy trying to corner the market on non-paying bloggers, I just sold several extended licenses at Stocksy which pay out 100% to the artist. :)
Congrats, it's good to see that you are making a lot more money now that you aren't with iStock/Getty.
And that gives you the chance to pick up all his sales tickstock. Let us know when you earn more than him on istock. :)
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While Getty is busy trying to corner the market on non-paying bloggers, I just sold several extended licenses at Stocksy which pay out 100% to the artist. :)
Congrats, it's good to see that you are making a lot more money now that you aren't with iStock/Getty.
And you don't have to worry about clawbacks or embedded for free images. I still haven't seen anything definitive about paying the contributors for use except some feel good statements here and there.
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Obtuse and nasty are the words that come to mind (but congrats, tickstock, you managed to win a couple of very rare minuses from me).
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While Getty is busy trying to corner the market on non-paying bloggers, I just sold several extended licenses at Stocksy which pay out 100% to the artist. :)
Congrats, it's good to see that you are making a lot more money now that you aren't with iStock/Getty.
And you don't have to worry about clawbacks or embedded for free images. I still haven't seen anything definitive about paying the contributors for use except some feel good statements here and there.
Good for you. Nothing I've found made me feel remotely good.
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And that gives you the chance to pick up all his sales tickstock. Let us know when you earn more than him on istock. :)
I'm already earning more than him at iStock, remember he's not there anymore.
I'd be amazed if you were earning more than him now, never mind when he was at iStock.
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And that gives you the chance to pick up all his sales tickstock. Let us know when you earn more than him on istock. :)
I'm already earning more than him at iStock, remember he's not there anymore.
I'd be amazed if you were earning more than him now, never mind when he was at iStock.
Me too in all honesty.
Ha!
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I still haven't seen anything definitive about paying the contributors for use except some feel good statements here and there.
PDN: If you generate ad revenues from this initiative, will you share that revenue with contributors?
CP: The answer is yes. This is their content, and if we generate any revenue from that content, we not only have the obligation, but we have every intent to share that revenue.
[url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url] ([url]http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2014/03/gettys-greg-peters-on-why-free-images-are-good-for-photographers-and-for-the-photo-industry.html[/url])
Yep, probably ad revenue to put the quote into context (and you think subs are low?). As I said, nothing definitive. Yes they will share, how much? When will they generate ads? How does it work? You'd think they would have thought it out enough to say, yes, we will share X% of ad-based revenue with contributors or something similar.
Edit: re-reading, the question was about ad revenue, the answer was about contributor content. It is completely possible that they won't see a cent from ad revenue.
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Yes they will share, how much? When will they generate ads? How does it work? You'd think they would have thought it out enough to say, yes, we will share X% of ad-based revenue with contributors or something similar.
The next question after the one I posted in the same article:
PDN: How might that be divvied up with contributors?
CP: We have contractual obligations back to our contributors that require us to pay certain royalty amounts to our contributors.
Check what your contract says, seems clear doesn't it?
Clear how? Royalty amounts based on sales of licences, isn't it? Does the contract specifically say ad revenue? As it is, I do not have a contract with Getty nor would I want one. And I haven't seen anything specific (and positive) from hardly anyone who does and is willing to put their name behind their opinion here. Anonymous opinions on the internet don't really carry a lot of weight. Just sayin.
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Have you ever seen a contract that was clear to anyone but a lawyer?
Just look at all these new definitions of "promotional use". Don´t see anything in the contract that allows to embed files millions of times for free across the internet.
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If you are on iStock you have a contract relating to this. That's not anonymous opinion and neither is posting quotes from Getty officials. If you want to ignore those things that's fine it's your choice.
That would be a totally obfuscatory, internally contradictory and ambiguous contract that they can interpret in whatever way they want to their own benefit.
No matter how often I asked for it to be drafted in Plain English, they deliberately chose not to do it.
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"Getty will get its pound of flesh one way or another," photography journalist Daniela Bowker told the BBC News website. "It has not gone into this blithely. It has got a plan."
She added many of her contacts were unhappy about the move.
"My Twitter feed has exploded with very angry photographers going 'I don't want Getty giving away my images for free'," she said.
"For some of them, it might mean their images are never used commercially and they'll never make a penny.
"They feel very strongly about that because photographers don't work for free and they don't work for exposure. They say: 'Exposure won't feed my children'. So a lot of people are very, very angry, and I sympathise with them.
"But at the same time, the genie is out of the bottle. There are so many images that are being shared and liked and tweeted and clicked on."
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886 (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26463886)
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Yes they will share, how much? When will they generate ads? How does it work? You'd think they would have thought it out enough to say, yes, we will share X% of ad-based revenue with contributors or something similar.
The next question after the one I posted in the same article:
PDN: How might that be divvied up with contributors?
CP: We have contractual obligations back to our contributors that require us to pay certain royalty amounts to our contributors.
Check what your contract says, seems clear doesn't it?
Dear tickstock, you are making so much efforts to praise Getty no matter what they do.
Why?
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Yes they will share, how much? When will they generate ads? How does it work? You'd think they would have thought it out enough to say, yes, we will share X% of ad-based revenue with contributors or something similar.
The next question after the one I posted in the same article:
PDN: How might that be divvied up with contributors?
CP: We have contractual obligations back to our contributors that require us to pay certain royalty amounts to our contributors.
Check what your contract says, seems clear doesn't it?
Clear how? Royalty amounts based on sales of licences, isn't it? Does the contract specifically say ad revenue? As it is, I do not have a contract with Getty nor would I want one. And I haven't seen anything specific (and positive) from hardly anyone who does and is willing to put their name behind their opinion here. Anonymous opinions on the internet don't really carry a lot of weight. Just sayin.
If you are on iStock you have a contract relating to this. That's not anonymous opinion (it's not opinion) and neither is posting quotes from Getty officials. If you want to ignore those things that's fine it's your choice.
I'm not on iStock anymore (because they don't inspire any trust in me). If you actually read my comment you'd see that I said opinions on this forum (bolded for ya above). And as far as posting GI quotes goes, he didn't specifically say how anyone except Getty would make any money from this. And the way he said it leaves room for it to be interpreted a myriad of ways, including leaving the contributor out of ad based revenue.
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And the way he said it leaves room for it to be interpreted a myriad of ways, including leaving the contributor out of ad based revenue.
Sorry I don't see that at all, care to explain?
PDN: If you generate ad revenues from this initiative, will you share that revenue with contributors?
CP: The answer is yes. This is their content, and if we generate any revenue from that content, we not only have the obligation, but we have every intent to share that revenue.
This is the part that stood out for me:
This is their content, and if we generate any revenue from that content, we not only have the obligation, but we have every intent to share that revenue.
Content to me does not equal ads. So he's said two things, and even if they do share ad revenue, when? How much? under what circumstances? Pretty easy questions I would think....
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And the way he said it leaves room for it to be interpreted a myriad of ways, including leaving the contributor out of ad based revenue.
Sorry I don't see that at all, care to explain?
PDN: If you generate ad revenues from this initiative, will you share that revenue with contributors?
CP: The answer is yes. This is their content, and if we generate any revenue from that content, we not only have the obligation, but we have every intent to share that revenue.
I found it odd that he didn't just say yes, without qualifying the answer.
Why say 'we have the obligation', as if he wished they didn't?
Why say, 'we have every intent to share ..."? I have lots of 'good intentions' that I don't always live up to :-[.
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And that gives you the chance to pick up all his sales tickstock. Let us know when you earn more than him on istock. :)
I'm already earning more than him at iStock, remember he's not there anymore.
I got it. Ba dum bump.
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Photographers and illustrators tend to have above average IQ levels - give us some credit for realizing 39 pages ago this is a deliberate strategy by Getty to undermine the market, spin more money from our imagery whilst paying as little as possible (if anything) to the creators and an attempt to add false value through becoming a data mining and push marketing business to patch up their leaky finances.
Everything else is a sham.
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According to Bruce, in an interview, Stocksy is giving an RPI of about 1,4 $/month (60.000 files, 85.000 dollars payed to contributors in February). Although sometime I got more than that at IS, now I don't reach this mark. On the other hand, however, it doesn't appear easy to get a significant number of files through the Stocksy inspection process, because they are looking for a very specific type of file.
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Those things were answered in the interview. Will you share ad revenue from the embed program with contributors? Yes. How much? The amount that is agreed to in their contracts. When? When ad revenue is made. That's the basic summary.
I did not know there was a specific part of the Getty contract about ad-revenue sharing from embedded images. Can anyone with an actual with an account confirm this? Sorry Tickstock, you sound knowledgeable and quite clever, but you could be anyone at GI, Istock, contributor, Lobo?, some random person who likes to argue, etc, etc...)....
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This is interesting:
On Robert´s German Blog where he writes about Getty embed, there is a comment by an admin from Zoonar. He says that Getty wrote to them per mail if they want to be part of the Getty embed program, but they declined. So getty does ask partner agencies, but refuses to offer an opt in or opt out for their own artists.
The sad news is that when Zoonar talks about sending files to Getty, they mean Thinkstock. I guess this means the free files are also coming to thinkstock and probably istock.
Then we will all be part of the click data stream...:(
To all those who think this Getty experiment is such brilliant news - why are partners like Blendimages, Zoonar etc...all refusing to take part?? Why are they not "excited"?
And why don´t the regular artists, those with direct contracts with getty, get an opt out like them??
Zoonar is treated with a lot more respect and professionalism than the Getty House contributors and the istock exclusives (but they don´t have much value anyway or there files would still be moving to Getty).
http://www.alltageinesfotoproduzenten.de/2014/03/10/getty-images-verschenkt-millionen-bilder-mit-kostenlosen-streaming-service-embed/#comments (http://www.alltageinesfotoproduzenten.de/2014/03/10/getty-images-verschenkt-millionen-bilder-mit-kostenlosen-streaming-service-embed/#comments)
"Michael Krabs
11. März 2014 at 16:45
Liebe Fotografen,
da wir heute aufgrund des Beitrags einige Mails erhalten haben, weil wir Getty innerhalb der Zoonar-Distributorenverwaltung anbieten (genauer gesagt: Thinkstock) möchte ich darauf hinweisen, dass wir dem Vertrieb über den neuen Streaming-Service Embed nicht zugestimmt. Wir wurden vorher per Mail gefragt, ob wir teilnehmen möchten. Das bedeutet im Klartext: Ihre über Zoonar an Getty Images gelieferten Fotos dürfen nicht dabei sein.
Wir haben die neue Belieferung von Bildern an Getty Ende 2013 eingestellt, weil das Keyword-Verfahren (Getty Keyword Guidelines) zu kompliziert war und sich für uns nicht rechnete. Neu eingereichte Fotos sind daher sowieso nicht betroffen, auch dann nicht, wenn Sie diese für Getty bereits freigeschaltet haben.
Dies nur als Info, bevor Panik ausbricht ;-)
Viele Grüße,
Michael Krabs"
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Dear tickstock, you are making so much efforts to praise Getty no matter what they do.
Why?
Gullibility, codependency with the devil, or simply a delusion.
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Interesting timeline up to the Getty freebies from Pickerell.
http://www.selling-stock.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JMP6130 (http://www.selling-stock.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JMP6130)
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I saw that - a Facebook friend posted a link. Not a happy picture.
And these links are to very funny jabs at Getty, about the giveaway
http://newcameranews.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-giving-away-old-crap-that-nobody-wants/ (http://newcameranews.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-giving-away-old-crap-that-nobody-wants/)
and also about the accounting problem with the partner program
http://newcameranews.com/2014/03/02/getty-deems-itself-not-evil-enough-tries-harder/ (http://newcameranews.com/2014/03/02/getty-deems-itself-not-evil-enough-tries-harder/)
And looking at Getty's alexa rankings over the last 10 days (lower is better) ...
Global Mar 4 / Mar 9 / Mar 14
3,003 / 2,858 / 2,665
USA Mar 4 / Mar 9 / Mar 14
1,107 / 932 / 768
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While Getty is busy trying to corner the market on non-paying bloggers, I just sold several extended licenses at Stocksy which pay out 100% to the artist. :)
Congrats, it's good to see that you are making a lot more money now that you aren't with iStock/Getty.
Get turned down by Stocksy, did you? (I did, BTW.... ;))
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after ten years in this industry, the only thing I know for sure is that it's never as clean as just heroes and villains. the industry winners are those working with contributors, listening to them and cultivating them. promoting new models, growing new ideas, involving and encouraging active members. there's no place for bottomline greed at the expense of artists, nor for blinding egotism and only a handful of agencies today seem to get that. sometimes the grass is greener where we least expect it to be.
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no idea if this was posted already here but here it goes
http://www.ishootshows.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-free-embeddable-photographer-credit-easily-cropped/ (http://www.ishootshows.com/2014/03/06/getty-images-free-embeddable-photographer-credit-easily-cropped/)
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They must have made some changes how the embedded images are displayed.
Looking at the above article, I see the Getty notice underneath each image, the only difference being that the second image is smaller in both dimensions.
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I did not know there was a specific part of the Getty contract about ad-revenue sharing from embedded images. Can anyone with an actual with an account confirm this?
I didn't sign the Getty contract when offered; my contract with them covering my images on Getty is my iStock contract, which will be the same for a proportion of iStockers.
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They must have made some changes how the embedded images are displayed.
Looking at the above article, I see the Getty notice underneath each image, the only difference being that the second image is smaller in both dimensions.
yeah but the credit line is still outside the picture
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They must have made some changes how the embedded images are displayed.
Looking at the above article, I see the Getty notice underneath each image, the only difference being that the second image is smaller in both dimensions.
Getty changed things in response to this article, but someone else figured out how to circumvent things again: http://checkyourexposure.com/p/184/getty-free-images-attribution-still-susceptible-to-circumvention (http://checkyourexposure.com/p/184/getty-free-images-attribution-still-susceptible-to-circumvention)
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To be honest: The longer I look at it, the more sense the whole thing makes. And quite frankly, the less I'm scared about the impact this might have on paid licenses.
When I go through the Embed Homepage on the Getty site, I now get almost 33 million search results of images that are embeddable. Of those, only 2.8 million (less than 10%) are from the Creative section. Most embeddable pictures are newsworthy stuff, sports, prominent people. This also makes sense in the context: There are much more posts about Obama or the Oscar's than those on business topics needing a gold fish image. At least in the non-commercial sector.
And I doubt there is as much harm to the photographer community overall. My guess is that most photographers shooting sports, red carpets, news event are hired pro. Either on payroll or on contract. They won't suffer if Getty decides not to charge for the use of those images.
Yes, I still believe that Getty should ask their contributors before makings such decisions: An opt-in solution. Plus feed back the data they gathered with my images. Then I wouldn't see any reason to complain at all.
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Most embeddable pictures are newsworthy stuff, sports, prominent people.
Yes, I still believe that Getty should ask their contributors before makings such decisions: An opt-in solution. Plus feed back the data they gathered with my images. Then I wouldn't see any reason to complain at all.
I certainly agree with your last paragraph. But I will wait and see how much impact this has on my portfolio. I have only a few hundred files at Getty, all of which are embeddable, many of which make sense only in an editorial context (even though they are not editorial files themselves). They add about 10% - 20% to my IS income, so not a huge deal by itself but with IS sales dropping like they have been, every bit helps. If my GI sales disappear, it will hurt.
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When I go through the Embed Homepage on the Getty site, I now get almost 33 million search results of images that are embeddable. Of those, only 2.8 million (less than 10%) are from the Creative section. Most embeddable pictures are newsworthy stuff, sports, prominent people.
Surprising, as the original announcement (which hasn't been amended) specifically says
"What content is included?
Comp-sized creative and editorial stills files on gettyimages.com (excluding certain restricted collections such as Premium Archive, Contour and Reportage) are available for embed, as well as exclusive iStock photos and vectors on gettyimages.com."
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APA stands against Getty embedding:
http://www.prleap.com/pr/220442/ (http://www.prleap.com/pr/220442/)
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Nice atypical and true.
My Very Best :)
KimsCreativeHub.com