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09/04/2006 01:53:06 PM · #1 |
"Micropayment sites (which sell Royalty Free images for 1 to 3 dollars) take advantage of the naivety of amateur photographers.
The only people who benefit from these sites are:
The site owners, because they make money from the images and do not care about the damage they are doing to professional photographers' livelihoods.
The buyers, who cannot believe their luck at being able to get images for a few dollars, and being able to use them as often as they like, for as long as they like, wherever they like.
The people who lose out every time are the photographers. Almost every photographer I have spoken to on this issue has expressed regret at placing their images on micropayment sites. Initially they are excited at people taking an interest in their images and paying for them. Of course they like the fact they are making an income from their images, but here are the facts:
The average fee for an image licensed through Photographers Direct is about 200 dollars, of which the photographer will receive 160 dollars. This is usually for a single usage license, NOT a Royalty Free license. The same image can be licensed again and again for similar fees.
To make the same amount through a micropayment site you will have to sell anywhere between 200 and 800 images. These images can be used anywhere at any time and cannot realistically be traced. You are not 'selling' your images, you are not 'having success'; you are giving away your images, and the buyers cannot believe their luck.
Imagine the day when you see one of your images on a book or magazine cover. You will probably be very happy and proud, until you realise you earned one dollar from an image that is helping to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in publishing sales. Is this fair?
A lot of people will respond that this will not happen, that images off micropayment sites are only used by designers for layouts and by 'mom and pop' businesses who would never pay more for images. This is simply not true - a quote:
"SAA executive director Betsy Reid pointed out a discussion board on iStockPhoto where members were congratulating photographer Lise Gagne, who wrote that she had just seen one of her stock images on IBM's web site.
'Once you're done celebrating, is anyone going to stop and think that you got 20 cents for that image?' Reid asks."
Quote from Photo District News.
Can IBM afford to pay market rates for images? Of course! Would they pay 500 dollars for this same image if that was the price? The odds are they would. So why did they pay 1 dollar? Because that was the price it was offered for. The photographer has thrown away 499 dollars.
Surely photographers should have the right to market their images where they like?
Of course, but we also have the right to make conditions on who we will and will not represent, and we have a duty to protect the livelihoods of all our photographers who agree that micropayment sites are just downright bad. Here is an example from a micropayment newsgroup of the perils of playing 'boths sides of the fence':
"I signed up to Photographers Direct and was right on the point of selling 6 of my images at $120 each. I then received an email from the guy politely saying that he had found my images on Shutterstock and would I mind if he used them instead before he downloaded them. I politely declined and removed all of them [from Shutterstock] before he could use any, I was fuming at my own stupidity."
In this case the photographer was lucky that the buyer was honest enough to tell him he had found the same images on a micropayment site. The buyer could have just cancelled the sale through Photographers Direct and downloaded the same images from Shutterstock. Rather than (80% of) $720 (which the buyer was clearly happy to pay!) the photographer would then have earned 1 dollar and 50 cents for the use of his images.
Another peril of microstock is that you ruin the future sales value of your images. Because there will be dozens, if not hundreds of copies of your images floating around, you will be unable to realistically sell them in future. If any agency knows you have sold them through a micropayment site the chances are they will not want to touch them. How can they license an image at a normal fee if there are hundreds of copies floating around which were bought for a dollar?
You also will not be able to sell the images as Rights Managed. Imagine if a corporation approached you and wanted to use your image for an advertising campaign. They ask you where the image has been used before because, of course, they do not want to use an image that has been used by a competitor. What do you tell them? All you can tell them is that you have no idea where it has been used before.
Further damage is caused because any buyer who uses a micropayment site will begin to see it as the norm. Whenever they get a normal quote from a photographer for an image, their response will be 'but I can get images at microwhateverstockphoto for 1 dollar!' Where does this leave the photographer?
For these reasons Photographers Direct cannot represent photographers who have any images on micropayment sites. This is part of our Fair Trade policy.
"Micropayment sites sell your work for peanuts and give you the shells"
Quote from World of Stock.
Examples of micropayment sites are: istockphoto, canstockphoto, shutterstock, dreamstime, bigstockphoto, crestock."
I am not into stock photography yet, just looking around, but this sure made sense to me!!! |
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09/04/2006 01:57:53 PM · #2 |
If you search around a bit I'm sure you can find previous instances of this discussion.
Just a note: Corbis or Getty or Alamy won't take images shot with my 2MP Olympus, while most of the other sites listed will. |
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09/04/2006 01:58:19 PM · #3 |
Ive seen the cut and paste before as well as original on the stock site that hosts it. I havent done any stock myself (micro or macro) but im not sure whats your point is.
Are you agreeing/disagreeing with it? Trying to open a discussion about it?
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09/04/2006 02:00:54 PM · #4 |
I see you are new. Welcome to dpc.
This has been an issue that has been discussed at length in these forums. Your arguments, though well put, are not new.
You can see some of the other discussions
Here
Here
Kinda Here
I believe this will touch on it
Another short one
other options discussed
this one
So, . . . .
edit -- kept screwing up the code
Message edited by author 2006-09-04 14:02:52. |
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09/04/2006 03:27:38 PM · #5 |
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09/04/2006 03:35:23 PM · #6 |
Does it seem like there are alot of these one time posters popping up lately?
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09/04/2006 03:37:41 PM · #7 |
I just want it stated for the record that if we ALL stopped submitting to those horrible, unscrupulous microstock sites they would go out of business. If you EVER plan on being a real professional, you should NEVER submit there. They flood the market with photos and make it impossible to really earn a living on stock. Let's get together and shut them down!
drake |
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09/04/2006 03:51:46 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by fstopopen:
I just want it stated for the record that if we ALL stopped submitting to those horrible, unscrupulous microstock sites they would go out of business. If you EVER plan on being a real professional, you should NEVER submit there. They flood the market with photos and make it impossible to really earn a living on stock. Let's get together and shut them down!
drake |
Unfortunately not all of us can afford a camera that will have an
accepted megapixel count that will meet the requirements of the non micro/macro sites. Some sites required 40MB+ files without interpolation. There not too many cameras under $1500 that can do that. Once again it comes back to "You have to have money to make money". Some folks like the larger companies because there is less competitions from other photographers, unlike the micro/macro where anybody can submit.
Basically micro/macro stock site is also taking money from the larger stock sites but not prominient stock sites. So they are jealous.
The prints I have for sale are marked up less then $1.00 and I have only 2 sales ever. If I marked them up at $100 would I even have those sales. I don't think so. |
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09/04/2006 03:56:55 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by fstopopen:
If you EVER plan on being a real professional, you should NEVER submit there. |
I strongly disagree... of course I make all my income as a professional photographer, but I also submit to Shutterstock and istock photo for the extra income...
Microstock is a completely different business model from macrostock. Don't attack what you don't understand.
Message edited by author 2006-09-05 00:32:59.
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09/04/2006 04:26:26 PM · #10 |
"SAA executive director Betsy Reid pointed out a discussion board on iStockPhoto where members were congratulating photographer Lise Gagne, who wrote that she had just seen one of her stock images on IBM's web site.
'Once you're done celebrating, is anyone going to stop and think that you got 20 cents for that image?' Reid asks."
Quote from Photo District News.
Lise Gagne makes FAR more money on istock than anyone on this site makes from photography. That may sound like a bold statement, but I don't think I'll be proven wrong. First, she makes more than 20 cents per download. Second, she has had almost 360,000 downloads (not a misprint). Don't believe me? Check out her istock page here.
Ask McDonalds if you can't make money from $1.00 cheeseburgers. Ask Apple if you can't make money from 99 cent downloads. Ask Frito Lay if you can't make money from $1.99 bags of chips. Anyone who attacks microstock either has no clue what stock photography is, or they are doing stock photography the old way, and can't roll with the changes. Any new business shift (in any industry) has the potential to take out the old guard. Ask Canon or Nikon how much profit they are seeing these days from their film cameras v.s. their digital cameras, to use this industry as an example (let alone the film companies). Those who built horse-drawn wagons 100 years ago thought cars were killing their industry. Are you really worried about that today? I didn't think so. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox for now. :o)
-Don |
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09/04/2006 04:30:38 PM · #11 |
I do microstock, exclusive on istock, and that pays the rent, utilities, food, car, car insurance, new equipment, travel, and all my other expenses. Actually right now istock is my only source of income so im technically living off microstock. I just started medical school so if everything goes as planned then in one to two years i should be able to pay for medical school without having to take a single loan.
edit - I have met Lise Gagne quite a few times and she is truly a remarkable person. She is def. one of my microstock idols :-)
Message edited by author 2006-09-04 16:33:12. |
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09/04/2006 04:32:50 PM · #12 |
Until I reach a point where I am deemed acceptable to macro sites, I will stick with micro. Hell, most micro sites won't even take me at the moment. Even micro is getting picky about what it will accept. I've been rejected by Shutterstock... iStock (twice!)... I forget by who else... finally got into one newish site (Lucky Oliver) and if you look at my portfolio it isn't exactly filled with crappy snapshots.
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09/04/2006 04:33:35 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by nico_blue:
I do microstock, exclusive on istock, and that pays the rent, utilities, food, car, car insurance, new equipment, travel, and all my other expenses. Actually right now istock is my only source of income so im technically living off microstock. I just started medical school so if everything goes as planned then in one to two years i should be able to pay for medical school without having to take a single loan.
edit - I have met Lise Gagne quite a few times and she is truly a remarkable person. She is def. one of my microstock idols :-) |
That ROCKS!
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09/04/2006 04:36:34 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by nico_blue:
I do microstock, exclusive on istock, and that pays the rent, utilities, food, car, car insurance, new equipment, travel, and all my other expenses. Actually right now istock is my only source of income so im technically living off microstock. I just started medical school so if everything goes as planned then in one to two years i should be able to pay for medical school without having to take a single loan. |
Your istock portfolio is excellent. I remember a very short time ago you celebrating your gold cannister, and now you're diamond. I guess the next step is black diamond, but that might take awhile LOL! |
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09/04/2006 11:44:37 PM · #15 |
I made that statement because most macro stock companies will not accept people who also have a profile on a micro stock. I've known more than one great photographer who was turned down by a "respectable" company because they had their stuff on a microstock site. I am serious you guys. We are killing the industry of stock by being involved in this. There are MANY other ways to sell your stuff besides watering down the market. I for one don't want to be the McDonalds of photography. Also, with your math, the ONE person you point out has made $72,000 in photography. 1. I assume that is not in one year. 2. That isn't THAT much. I've made that much and more without selling my soul.
I beseach you people to think hard about selling your hard work for so little. Sweat shop labor is not acceptable in the US.
drake
edit to say: I don't EVER take a real stand on forums but this is something I feel very passionate. You sell yourself short if you accept such low wages.
Message edited by author 2006-09-04 23:48:25. |
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09/04/2006 11:48:47 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by fstopopen:
Sweat shop labor is not acceptable in the US.
drake |
The US has no problem with Sweat Shop labor- look at any big retailer, we buy sweat shop products by the ton.
We now return you to your regular discussion
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09/04/2006 11:50:05 PM · #17 |
yes, but we generally frown upon our own citizens recieving such wages. And there is no excuse for these companies to rape us like this.
drake |
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09/05/2006 12:05:51 AM · #18 |
Errrmm... Enough blood had been spilled..
Just wanna say that in the case of an open economy where there are now a lot of willing sellers... This has no doubt an impact on the way the photography business is run..
Buyers do have the options. But at times, they'll still need those custom shots or exclusive shots to be taken. there are still a large market in that aspect...
We cannot deny the impact that micro had on the overall business.. but we shouldn't stop it as well, it's how the industry are changing...
Ohh well... we can argue till the cow comes home and not reach an agreement...
I'm going back to commenting photos..
Cheers.. and Good day.. |
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09/05/2006 12:12:06 AM · #19 |
this is true. You won't change my mind, and I'll probably not change yours. But a market is driven by supply and deman. If we cut off the supply of super cheap photos, the demand will rise for great photos.
I'm not admonishing anyone, just begging you to think hard about your decision. It seems like fun, and an easy way to make money but it is hurting people. I'm okay because I do fine art stuff and sell for MUCH more than even macro stock would offer, but I still feel it is immoral for these companies to do this to people and the only way to stop it is for photographers to band together and have a little more self respect.
drake |
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09/05/2006 12:25:07 AM · #20 |
Originally posted by fstopopen:
If we cut off the supply of super cheap photos, the demand will rise for great photos. |
"WE" don't control the supply. Fairly high end DSLRs are within reach of any semi-serious amateur, so there will always be somebody willing to supply microstock sites. The ONLY hope for macro IMO is superior content. |
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09/05/2006 12:28:09 AM · #21 |
Even if us pros get out of the microstock market, every half-decent amateur with a P&S camera is still gonna submit microstock. Yes, we are selling photos for pennies a download, but I want those pennies and I want to be ready when traditional stock just doesn't work anymore.
The net has changed a lot of things. Brick and mortar stores are losing customers to Amazon and B&H. I IM my friends for quick conversations instead of telephoning them.
And, like it or not, traditional stock agencies are losing business to microstock web sites.
My only regret is that I didn't buy stock in E-bay when it was a little trading post for Beanie Babies.
Message edited by author 2006-09-05 00:28:54.
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09/05/2006 12:42:05 AM · #22 |
| I've wondered a lot about this issue. I don't have anything on micro or macro but have been contacted by some smaller micro sights for some of my work. After doing an internship at a long time pro and seeing how much he charged his work, it seems ridiculous to sell images for so cheap. At the same time though, I just don't see many people paying a significant amount for my images(has only happened a couple times). Didn't know if it would be worth uploading to either type of site but just one download from a macro is worth what, 500 downloads from a micro. Would be interesting to see which has more success. |
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09/05/2006 01:07:11 AM · #23 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Even if us pros get out of the microstock market, every half-decent amateur with a P&S camera is still gonna submit microstock. Yes, we are selling photos for pennies a download, but I want those pennies and I want to be ready when traditional stock just doesn't work anymore.
The net has changed a lot of things. Brick and mortar stores are losing customers to Amazon and B&H. I IM my friends for quick conversations instead of telephoning them.
And, like it or not, traditional stock agencies are losing business to microstock web sites.
My only regret is that I didn't buy stock in E-bay when it was a little trading post for Beanie Babies. |
okay, I'm thinking about this now. Are you saying that microstock agencies are the wave of the future. They are a democratic way to distribute photos to parties who want these photos? They are the new paradigm of stock and we should be rooting for the elitists at Getty to shut down and give the power back to the people as soon as possible, then the cream will rise to the top at the micro agencies and you will still gain a large sum for the work you do because it is better than the other stuff on that site? Understand there is no sarcasm here. seriously. I am just trying to understand your point of view.
drake |
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09/05/2006 01:18:06 AM · #24 |
Originally posted by fstopopen:
okay, I'm thinking about this now. Are you saying that microstock agencies are the wave of the future. They are a democratic way to distribute photos to parties who want these photos? They are the new paradigm of stock and we should be rooting for the elitists at Getty to shut down and give the power back to the people as soon as possible, then the cream will rise to the top at the micro agencies and you will still gain a large sum for the work you do because it is better than the other stuff on that site? Understand there is no sarcasm here. seriously. I am just trying to understand your point of view.
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Yes, I do believe they are the wave of the future. I'm sure Getty and others will adapt, but not in a way that they traditionally have.
I'm not even sure microstock is giving power to the people. I don't think I'd go that far. The man is still gona make the majority of the money.
But, even companies like AT&T are having to compete with VOIP services such as Vonage and Skype. And major TV networks are uploading their own video to YouTube. It's just that times are changing.
If you stand and fight microstock, chances are you will be left behind with the traditional stock agencies.
The payouts from the micorstock agencies will have to increase as competition gets more feirce, so we will benefit more. Remember, they have to pay out more, while charging their customers less, so the man loses some of his bottom line.
I can't predict the future, but history serves to prove this is the way we are going.
*still slapping myself over the e-bay thing :-)*
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09/05/2006 01:25:20 AM · #25 |
Supply and demand, it's a buyers market right now. Quit now and see if anyone even notices.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble but photos just aren't worth much anymore. With the death of film and the rise of technology everyone can have a great camera and take great pictures for cheap. Resolution and quality doesn't even really matter that much anymore because most advertising is done online - tiny images rule.
The market is now flooded with photos of virtually anything imaginable. If I want a picture of a dog next to a roll of toilet paper the question is no longer can I find one, it's how do I choose just one.
Unless digital cameras start making people sterile then people will still use them and photos will still flood the market.
Photos just aren't special anymore. Welcome to the real world. Wishing it were different won't make it so.
Message edited by author 2006-09-05 01:27:17. |
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