Author Topic: NoEquivalent Art - A new Art and Stock photography site (Read 17868 times)

Eugene B · « **on:** October 29, 2008, 21:09 »

We have started a new site, under the name NoEquivalent Art, which specializes in selling unique edition art and stock photography images. While we are not selling to consumers yet we have launched a preview version of our store to gather feedback on our business model as well as allow interested artists to join.

You can find us at artist.noequivalent.com [nofollow]. Feel free to let us know what aspects of our business model you like as well as the ones you find challenging. A quick preview of the advantages we offer artists would include features like:
- Selling to multiple industries through a single artist control panel
- A limited size collection that offers an artist significant long term financial earnings

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

stormchaser · « **Reply #1 on:** October 29, 2008, 21:25 »

Assign copyright to the buyer? You're kidding, right? Please tell me you are

bittersweet · « **Reply #2 on:** October 29, 2008, 22:03 »

Um. no way.

litifeta · « **Reply #3 on:** October 29, 2008, 22:36 »

Like, you're kidding aren't you.

What is your name, what is your experience? It costs us lots of money and time to set up new accounts. You use Corbis, Getty and Alamy as benchmarks against which artists can compare incomes! say what!

What is your marketing plan? How much capital do you have?

Are you willing to pay us to upload to a new site?

Who will your customers be? How will you get to them? What committment do they have to you?

stormchaser · « **Reply #4 on:** October 29, 2008, 22:43 »

Here's the domain info. I still can;t stop laughing

Registrant:
NoEquivalent Art Ltd.
5863 Leslie St. Suite 445
Toronto, Ontario M2H 1J8
Canada

Domain Name: NOEQUIVALENT.COM
Created on: 18-Sep-07
Expires on: 18-Sep-09
Last Updated on: 18-Sep-08

Administrative Contact:
Lai, Sean
NoEquivalent Art Ltd.
5863 Leslie St. Suite 445
Toronto, Ontario M2H 1J8
Canada
6472997326 Fax --

leaf · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2008, 01:51 »

Quote

Each image sells for somewhere between $500 and $800 with the artist receiving 40% of the image price

Selling an image for $500-$800 and giving away the copyright to the buyer (and deleting your own high res image) is extremely low. That is the price that Alamy sell a RF image for. A licensed image (with not exclusive rights) for a full page magzine page for a year is around $2300 and I can still sell the image again and again. And since generally is is a few images in a portfolio which earn all the $$ it probably WOULD sell several times...
so.....

No thanks.

Microbius · « **Reply #6 on:** October 30, 2008, 03:51 »

this is really crazy. If you think selling the exclusive use of an image at these prices is "selling at a premium" you have no understanding of this market.

vikavalter · « **Reply #7 on:** October 30, 2008, 04:08 »

hahahaha, oh my. Good luck with this new revolutionary business model, can't wait to see how it evolves.

grp_photo · « **Reply #8 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:14 »

I think the comments are a little bit arrogant. Sure you shouldn't give them pictures that really your heart hangs on but you all do Microstock and now you cite earnings possibilities from RM and traditional RF

. Come on to be honest with most pictures at Microstock you will never earn more than 500$ in a life-span (sure there are exceptions but they are really rare compared to the rest). Also with more and more pictures in the Microstock-Database the feasible life-span earning of a picture will sink drastically. You must be really naive if you think you can make a lot of money from the pictures you produce now in 10 years they will have no value at all in 10 years.
That said i don't think this concept will be a success either but i didn't like the comments on it. Maybe Eugene can comment why he thinks this will be a success that market research he did for this concept is there really a need from the buyers side for this concept etc.?

bittersweet · « **Reply #9 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:19 »

Quote from: grp_photo on October 30, 2008, 07:14

I think the comments are a little bit arrogant. Sure you shouldn't give them pictures that really your heart hangs on but you all do Microstock and now you cite earnings possibilities from RM and traditional RF . Come on to be honest with most pictures at Microstock you will never earn more than 500$ in a life-span (sure there are exceptions but they are really rare compared to the rest). Also with more and more pictures in the Microstock-Database the feasible life-span earning of a picture will sink drastically. You must be really naive if you think you can make a lot of money from the pictures you produce now in 10 years they will have no value at all in 10 years.
That said i don't think this concept will be a success either but i didn't like the comments on it. Maybe Eugene can comment why he thinks this will be a success that market research he did for this concept is there really a need from the buyers side for this concept etc.?

My shock was based on the impression that the images which they will be selling are NOT the type of dime a dozen micro images that we sell every day. They are unique individual pieces of art, for which there are "no equivalents". I have no doubt that there will be artists who are fine with selling their unique one of a kind illustrations for a couple hundred bucks. I, however, am not one of them, and therefore my original reply of "no way" is exactly what is was intended to be.

leaf · « **Reply #10 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:24 »

Quote from: grp_photo on October 30, 2008, 07:14

I think the comments are a little bit arrogant. Sure you shouldn't give them pictures that really your heart hangs on but you all do Microstock and now you cite earnings possibilities from RM and traditional RF . Come on to be honest with most pictures at Microstock you will never earn more than 500$ in a life-span (sure there are exceptions but they are really rare compared to the rest). Also with more and more pictures in the Microstock-Database the feasible life-span earning of a picture will sink drastically. You must be really naive if you think you can make a lot of money from the pictures you produce now in 10 years they will have no value at all in 10 years.
That said i don't think this concept will be a success either but i didn't like the comments on it. Maybe Eugene can comment why he thinks this will be a success that market research he did for this concept is there really a need from the buyers side for this concept etc.?

The reason I compared this site to macro agencies is because on noequivalent website they compare themselves to getty, corbis and alamy.

The average image on microstock won't earn $320 (40% of $800) but the 10% of images in a portoflio that carries the weight will earn each earn well over that amount in their lifetime. On this site, the MAX your 'best seller's will ever earn are $320 because they will only be sold once.

grp_photo · « **Reply #11 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:34 »

Leaf from the pictures you have very early in the Database at some Microstocksites you may really have some good lifespan results. But I'm talking about now and with most pictures you produce now you won't have good lifespan results at all. And as time goes on it will go even worse. Think about it Fotolia now have over 4 Million pictures in its Database and they started only three years ago (if i remember right).
The world is vomiting pictures to make a living from stock you must have really an incredible amount of pictures in the future therefore an individual picture will have a really bad lifespan earning.

bittersweet · « **Reply #12 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:49 »

grp, are you connected to this new venture in some way?

leaf · « **Reply #13 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:51 »

Well I agree that what you say sounds right, but my graphs and numbers confirm otherwise.

If our images were earning less and less over time our RPI should slowly be going down. An image today should earn less per month than an equivalent image earned 2 years ago. The results however are quite opposite. In the last 4 years my RPI has only increased. I think this is due to improved quality of the images i submit, sites charging more, and more sites opening up.

I think perhaps it could be true to say there are more images getting 0 downloads, but on the other hand there is also more images getting a very large amount of downloads as microstock becomes more popular.

grp_photo · « **Reply #14 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:52 »

No why are you thinking? Do you really believe in good lifespan earnings for pictures you produce now or in the future? There may be some really really rare exceptions but in general you will have a rude awakening if you really believe this.

edited this answer was a response to whatalife.

leaf · « **Reply #15 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:56 »

Yes I do believe in at least decent lifespan. If per image sales were declining the numbers would show it. I could agree that it might happen in the future, but it isn't happening yet. I think however, before it happens microstock agencies will get stricter and cull poor shots. If I didn't believe that this was a viable business I wouldn't be doing microstock full time.

I think poor shots will die quickly and have a harder time selling but good shots will sell better than ever.

bittersweet · « **Reply #16 on:** October 30, 2008, 07:58 »

Quote from: grp_photo on October 30, 2008, 07:52

No why are you thinking? Do you really believe in good lifespan earnings for pictures you produce now or in the future? There may be some really really rare exceptions but in general you will have a rude awakening if you really believe this.

edited this answer was a response to whatalife.

I was just curious.

I do commissioned illustrations for clients who get a RM agreement. The illos are mine, not theirs. I make $4-600 on their license. When their terms are up, I am free to do what I want with the image. If I ever chose to outright sell an image, I would never give an agent 60% of the selling price.

I do not expect to make hundreds on every image I create for microstock, though I have some which have made that and more. But we are not talking microstock, are we?

grp_photo · « **Reply #17 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:03 »

Quote from: leaf on October 30, 2008, 07:51

Well I agree that what you say sounds right, but my graphs and numbers confirm otherwise.

If our images were earning less and less over time our RPI should slowly be going down. An image today should earn less per month than an equivalent image earned 2 years ago. The results however are quite opposite. In the last 4 years my RPI has only increased. I think this is due to improved quality of the images i submit, sites charging more, and more sites opening up.

I think perhaps it could be true to say there are more images getting 0 downloads, but on the other hand there is also more images getting a very large amount of downloads as microstock becomes more popular.

Well i agree this is true for the past that was the reason i'm talking about now and the future. I agree there is still some growing potential for Microstock and even Stock in general i also agree that i expect the prices to still go up in Microstock and down for tradtitional. But the increase of demand doesn't match the increase of pictures anymore there is already a gap between demand and supply and this gap will increase a lot in the not so far away future.

grp_photo · « **Reply #18 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:09 »

Quote from: leaf on October 30, 2008, 07:56

Yes I do believe in at least decent lifespan. If per image sales were declining the numbers would show it. I could agree that it might happen in the future, but it isn't happening yet. I think however, before it happens microstock agencies will get stricter and cull poor shots. If I didn't believe that this was a viable business I wouldn't be doing microstock full time.

I think poor shots will die quickly and have a harder time selling but good shots will sell better than ever.

I agree that it will be harder to get images accepted at Micros (we all know this is happening right now

). I agree that it will be possible to make the a living in the future of Stock (but it will be harder). But RPI and lifespan earnings will be go down in general. Maybe we should check this thread and our numbers in 1,2,5 and 10 years

leaf · « **Reply #19 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:11 »

HA,..

I was thinking about my reply from your previous post and thought, perhaps I should suggest we check this thread in a few years ... but you just said that yourself

Even though several million images sounds like a lot, there is an awful lot of crummy images on microstock and still quite a few holes. I think there could still be a couple years of hole plugging to go. Anyhow, I guess we will see in a couple years!

The future is very unkown tho, microstock is still very young and things are changing almost monthly.

grp_photo · « **Reply #20 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:21 »

lol

stormchaser · « **Reply #21 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:25 »

Keep laughing. Assigning copyright to the buyer, who will likely be an unknown recipient is just wrong, and anyone experienced in the industry knows this.

Bateleur · « **Reply #22 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:41 »

Hey Eugene, where do you get your data for those optimistic graphs on the 'Reward' page from?

The top graph shows your company earning from $50 million to $250 million. How do you arrive at those figures? When do you plan on achieving them? End of the year? Next year? 10 years time? Next century?

The bottom graph makes no sense. What does it mean?

But the graphs look impressive, I'll grant you, with your contributors appearing to earn handsome sums.

Only thing is, are they based on any sort of reality?

stormchaser · « **Reply #23 on:** October 30, 2008, 08:55 »

I had a boss once who loved pie charts. You could feed him any nonsense in a report as long as you generated a pie chart. That's what graphs are worth.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #24 on:** October 30, 2008, 10:50 »

Quote from: stormchaser on October 29, 2008, 21:25

Assign copyright to the buyer? You're kidding, right? Please tell me you are

I think that this is a deal killer, unless there's some reason why someone should pay $200 (40% of $500) and own exclusive rights to someones photo? I understand the theory and the basics of the contract. No similar shots, all copies destroyed. I think their intention is that a buyer has a true exclusive.

Licensed images get a year, why would someone want to buy all the rights to a photo for life? Why would an artist give up all rights forever?

About the question of earnings from one photo over it's lifetime. Here are some IS numbers (http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/) that I roughed out.

Of the ten Black Diamonds, which I think everyone will agree are the cream of the crop, Ave. DL per file is 80. I understand there are more sites, but they don't produce as many sales or the higher commission. Very rough calculations say that over ten years one of these photos, on IS from one of these top sellers, will earn $280. I don't know if the Ave. DLs will drop or stay the same or increase, so I based that on DLs staying the same.

Ave. DL per photo, entire site IS. 16

Ave DL per file middle users 11 times.

What grp and most others are saying is true. In the life of a single Micro photo, it will probably never equal one exclusive sale. But these aren't going to be stock shots from the impression I get of the site. They will be unique shots.

The agent taking 60% and the lifetime copyright are just a bit much. I'd still have to see why a buyer would want this type of photo, for what use? How much of a demand is there? If the shot is that unique, why would I want to give it up? Microstock there are many "not so unique" photos, so I can't say that comparing them is fair.

If someone wants to buy a "unique" one of a kind photo, highest quality, for lifetime exclusive, I'd think they would be willing to pay more than a microstock price for it.

If Eugene ever comes back after his one post, maybe he can explain the market and the intentions better. I'm trying to understand where the demand is for this type of contract and this type of artwork? It seems unusual that there's something beyond Licensed Exclusive that some buyer needs to have?

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Author Topic: NoEquivalent Art - A new Art and Stock photography site (Read 17868 times)

Eugene B

stormchaser

bittersweet

litifeta

stormchaser

leaf

Microbius

vikavalter

grp_photo

bittersweet

leaf

grp_photo

bittersweet

leaf

grp_photo

leaf

bittersweet

grp_photo

grp_photo

leaf

grp_photo

stormchaser

Bateleur

stormchaser

RacePhoto

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