The rate of growth may level off, but growth is a given. What's everyone doing to pivot?

Quote from: BrianM on March 26, 2014, 14:22

...Copyright makes sense for a limited time, but it shouldn't be a perpetual/in perpetuity source of income for an entire family line. 10 years, maybe 20, great. Whatever we have now is more than enough, it should be less.

If an artist wants to release their work as public domain they always have that option. But during an artist's lifetime to say that they no longer have ownership and control over their work seems completely crazy to me. No one would ever be able to sustain themselves making art if that were the case?

You could possibly argue about extension of copyright after the artist's death.

I suppose that was a little "incandescent" of me     ... I'll agree 10 years is too short. 20 still sounded reasonable until Jo Ann pointed out loosing control of your work in your lifetime.

However, there are several points. Public Domain does not mean (at least to my understanding) that Model Releases wouldn't still be needed for commercial use. The photographer still manages those and decides who to assign them to and what they want to charge for that.

I guess, long before I was a professional photographer, I came to really despise this creation of artificial scarcity. We're almost living in an age where people could have anything they need. (3d printing, open source software, open source 3d models, etc.) And as we approach that, it seems like we toss up more and more artificial barriers to create haves and have not's. Now that I earn money from photography, I have a vested interest in copyright. But I don't want to be entirely hypocritical or forget the other side of the coin.

Copyright (as with patents) ought to incentivize creation and, for a limited time, create a monopoly for the IP holder. However, there is a bargain to be struck for the right balance. I don't think anyone here is so genius that their work should provide for generations. Certainly not Lauren    (Hey buddy, it's Brian from Frederick, I highly admire your skill and am still glad you're making money on your National Geographic intro.)

An opposing factor to copyright is culture. When you create art, photography, music, and publish it, it becomes part of the culture if it is good. It was also built or derived from a mixture of art, culture, and context in the time it was created. It freaks me that culture could be owned so strictly in some senses. It's a give and take, and I think the pendulum has swung too far towards take.

And listen, this is not anti-photographer. The same extreme uses of the IP umbrella are the reasons we can't sell photos that include certain trademarked SHAPES. ie cars. It's gotten rediculous. I'm glad AA's stuff is entering public domain. I'd like Grim's fairey tails and the old Disney stories based on them to hit PD soon too. And great music. But if it will stop people calling me an "idiot" I'll say maybe lifetime (or 20 years, whichever happens to be longer) should be the outer limit for a copyright. 

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?

That's good news Brian. How many photos do you think you would need based on that RPI to match estimated iS earnings if you were still exclusive? I know it's tough to gauge.

Tough to gage Randy, because RPI is growing steadily from month to month, and I expect that trend to continue for quite some time as news of Stocksy spreads to more designers. The ones I meet love it when they see the photos and most haven't heard of it yet so I get the sense there is a big market and they're going to be loyal customers when they discover Stocksy.

Best estimate: I need to somewhere between double and quadruple my current Stocksy port to for it's income to exceed my best IS exclusive earnings. That would be 1/2 the size of my IS port at it's peak. That's very doable because Sean already has well more than that up.

For sheer income, in the short term, stay with IS if you are treated well or feel comfortable there. It was crushing my sole     so I made my choice early and I would guess in the medium term, let's say 3-9 months out, I should be earning more than I was as an exclusive. Best of all, it's not artist exclusive, so I can have additional revenue from SS or Symbio, etc. My battle for prioritizing time is always between local commercial, local clients, and stock. But within the stock category, hands down, and very easy decision, priority goes to Stocksy.

This is only one member's data, so take with a grain of salt. But here it is:

In the first week of September, my Stocksy earnings were much better than my iStock earnings. I wondered if the trend would hold true for whole month. We are only at the half way point, but I take my iStock earnings on the 16th and 1st day of the month. As I made my withdraw today, I checked my Stocksy stats: still besting iStock earnings handily.

I continue to be impressed by Stocksy's growth. Also feel this ought to be (although probably won't) a sign to other firms in this space. Not to try and imitate, but to mind the fundamentals -- fair royalties, care for suppliers, and honest dealing with buyers.

If newspapers are firing photographers for iPhones it's just a matter of time. The question is how big the impact will be and how best to make money from it.

When firms eliminate jobs, it doesn't mean there is a way to "make money from it." It simply means that the owners or shareholders of that business get to keep more money because there are fewer employees to pay. A few people that were already doing quite well make a bit extra and lots of people that needed regular jobs to make ends meet are in a tougher situation.

It was this way for bank tellers, check out cashiers, farm labor, and now some of the higher skilled positions such as staff photo journalists. In the latter case, you can bet the firms aren't anxious to compensate the crowd sourced replacement, they just want cheap or free labor that's "good enough."

Perhaps veering too far off course, but I think the bigger issue of the economy and lack of jobs is just playing out again in our field with tighter budgets and lower ratio of demand vs supply for stock images. I have skilled friends that have been out of work for 6 months or longer, they had nothing to do with microstock, but it's an anecdotal warning to me that the answer to shrinking micro revenues may not be a different career or an "adaptation."

I used to scoff along with many others at buggy whip maker vs automobile manufacturer arguments, but it appears we are approaching a structural change in economies with robotics and automation that is finally limiting the need for labor. It is one explanation for the giant productivity gains since the 70s that pair with flat inflation adjusted wages. So, at the point where labor is simply in lower demand, how do whole populations make a living? How do you spread the wealth that goes to those with infrastructure capital? My Utopian wish (naive, kid view) was that we'd own robots that went to work for us. Presently, it looks like a very small group will own all the capital and receive all the spoils.

Here is a thought experiment in a sci-fi short story form --
  http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Sean called this video propaganda, but considering low demand for jobs and declining purchase power, it's pretty obvious economic activity would be a lot stronger if things weren't so lopsided.
 

Wealth Inequality in America

Have to agree with a lot of what JPSDK says.

While I don't know much about Sym, I've been hopeful about it's potential since I saw the early threads popping up. It absolutely needs some standardization (doesn't have to be centrally enforced, but perhaps by agreement for people that join a certain hub, and probably that hub with good pricing and licencing and checkout would become the dominant fork). Standard pricing and license would be a huge benefit to buyers. All stock sites need to think about the customer. I've been talking with many designers lately and they hate the pricing complexity at many sites. Some who haven't heard of P5 yet loose all enthusiasm when I tell them photographers set their own price. They don't want to find pics only to find they aren't in budget.

I'm also a huge fan of Open Source software! Implementing Linux and other F/LOSS was a big part of my first profession. Believe me, Linus Torvalds (father of Linux) has completely shredded people working on his projects and there have been some very ugly debates. In the end, criticism and hashing things out made the software more reliable and they absolutely worked towards standards too. Any complaints about Sym should be welcomed and considered. They may be dismissed after good thought/discussion but just saying something is open and new and waving away criticism won't lead to a strong product.

Best of luck to the Symbiostock idea and development! I am very glad people are trying to push it forward!

First I sent pictures that were rejected a few months ago. All were accepted without any problem.
Then I pushed a bit and I sent pictures whose quality was questionable. All accepted.
I pushed the envelope further, I sent blurry pictures, moved, noisy, with artifacts, etc.. All accepted
I did it again with others of the same kind ... All accepted .........

My conclusion is that now iStock accepts everything and anything ...
This is not good news I think

This is great fodder for my upcoming talk to designers which includes a slide about the different aesthetics of various RF agencies.

The other thing it has me wondering is where Getty stands on Inspectors. They are paid, so they are a cost center to be reduced. I have friends who are Inspectors and I don't want to see that happen! If it did, I think you would see more of iStock's best moving on from exclusivity.

Getty must consider, if inspection standards at iStock become virtually nil, no reason to pay skilled people to evaluate images and you can outsource checking model releases. Inspectors on the other hand might be inspecting so quickly now because with lower standards, possibly make up for lost sales by rapid clicking tons of new content in. If they are instructed to lower standards that naturally speeds up their pace.

Quote from: davidgoh on April 23, 2013, 09:59

Quote from: luissantos84 on April 23, 2013, 09:37

http://www.istockphoto.com/stats

Total files 13184228
Waiting approval 88946

Thank you! What a strange, barren page...

That link just goes to their homepage. Did they just get rid of the page?

It's just a status page, not intended for general consumption, kind of nice that regular contributors can see the queue length. You have to be logged in or you get redirected to the home page.

Quote from: sjlocke on April 11, 2013, 18:35

Oh, and IS gets to keep more of the sales price, yeah!

I'll work extra hard to get up to 40% by the end of the year so that doesn't happen.

Better work harder than that. I'm pretty sure Sean was one of number of people you could literally count on one hand that were making 45%.

Was the bigger commission actually bigger then the $$ cut he would have gotten at IS?

Bigger cut, and about the same income, in dollars, for the contributor, and only 1/3 the price for the buyer! That's assuming it's a non-ex contributor, which is the majority of iStock's content. What do most indy's make? 17% or so? At GL they make 52%!

On top of all that, GL makes 48% which seems pretty well sustainable in the absence of share holders screaming for ever growing quarterly profits.

Thank you!