Getty Creative to retire RM completely

[geogphotos]

Getty Creative will stop accepting RM material today 6th November 2019, all RM images will be removed from new single licensing by the end of January 2020. Premium Access customers will be able to access RM images until  November 6, 2020.

 

 

[Travelshots]

They have not been showing the RM images on the website for ages unless you click lots of buttons. RM contributors sales have plummeted,

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, Travelshots said:

They have not been showing the RM images on the website for ages unless you click lots of buttons. RM contributors sales have plummeted,

 

 

Self-fulfilling isn't it? Hide RM images and then claim that buyers prefer RF.

 

Could be something to do with Getty only paying 20% on RF sales?? ( rather than 35% or 40% for RM). 

 

No doubt buyers do prefer RF - why wouldn't they. Pay once and use forever.

 

Can't see how it helps photographers. 

 

I've requested removal of all mine. ( in Getty Creative)

 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by geogphotos

[geogphotos]

Could be a lot of previously exclusive RM Creative images heading towards Alamy from very many p**sed off Getty photographers. 

[Rico]

4 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Could be a lot of previously exclusive RM Creative images heading towards Alamy from very many p**sed off Getty photographers. 

Could be? More likely will be.

I'll be one of the first in line

[Gina Kelly]

Do you think that could happen here? I recently noticed in AIM that when choosing between RM and RF,  it says after RF "(Recommended)". I'd never noticed that before, and don't really understand why RF would be recommended. 

[Colblimp]

33 minutes ago, Gina Kelly said:

Do you think that could happen here? I recently noticed in AIM that when choosing between RM and RF,  it says after RF "(Recommended)". I'd never noticed that before, and don't really understand why RF would be recommended. 

That's been there for a couple of years now.  Still, all my pics are RM.

[geebee]

It was a great way to start the day wasn't it. That will be another 3000+ of my images heading to Alamy very soon.

At least I will feel like I have a clean conscience breaking away from the Devil and their desire to drag the business to the bottom.

Like many others I arrived at Getty via my other agents being bought out and never really felt happy to be involved with them. The way their sales have been dropping of late it isn't going to be that hard to say good by and good riddance to tham.

 

Graham

[riccarbi]

Just another good opportunity for Alamy, if they'll be able to grasp it. 

[Radim]

I'm afraid it might inspire Alamy

[geogphotos]

15 minutes ago, Radim said:

I'm afraid it might inspire Alamy

 

I hope that  it inspires Alamy to promote RM images for commercial use  that its  major competitors won't have.

Edited November 6, 2019 by geogphotos

[Bill Brooks]

Getty was the first agency to restrict photographer submissions to digital files. Photographers could no longer submit film.

 

Getty was the industry leader, so within 6 months all major agencies had followed Getty's digital only lead. Photographers with a never digital, only film business plan were very disappointed.

 

Getty is the industry leader and has been working with major RM suppliers on this RM to RF changeover for several years. Getty recently sold their PicRights copyright enforcement division, another sign of diminished expectations for RM.

 

As many of you have pointed out, Alamy has been selling RM images with RF terms. Why not call it what it is?

 

Sign of the times. Like it or not, for stock sales RM is on life support industry wide.

 

I am talking about stock photography above, not news photography.

[geogphotos]

One of my  Getty Creative images has been licensed a couple of times by two different major French perfume companies -  each time for a couple of thousand dollars. I assume that the ability to know the image's history was of importance to avoid unwanted competitive duplication.

 

It seems that Getty can no longer attract such customers, or is no longer interested in attracting them?

 

I assume that there must still be some sort of market for exclusive commercial imagery where rights can be managed and where previous uses are known. It's just that such a buyer will not find what they want at Getty unless they are lucky enough to find an RF image that has never been sold. Same story at Shutterstock, Adobe etc

 

It seems like a golden opportunity for Alamy.

 

By the way Getty editorial  remains unaffected with all images RM.

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by geogphotos

[Cryptoprocta]

2 hours ago, geogphotos said:

I assume that there must still be some sort of market for exclusive commercial imagery where rights can be managed and where previous uses are known. It's just that such a buyer will not find what they want at Getty unless they are lucky enough to find an RF image that has never been sold. Same story at Shutterstock, Adobe etc

There are several specialist RM agencies in the wildlife field, and I imagine in other genres also. They have many advantages for the specialist buyer that Getty and Alamy never had, in particular images are titled/captioned/keyworded properly, which can be really important. Just look at all the dross irrrelevant material you get for many searches on both sites.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[Brian Yarvin]

11 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Could be a lot of previously exclusive RM Creative images heading towards Alamy from very many p**sed off Getty photographers. 

Let's not forget those photographers who aren't angry, but welcoming of a different approach to image sales. Lots of them (us?) too.

[Cryptoprocta]

23 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

Let's not forget those photographers who aren't angry, but welcoming of a different approach to image sales. Lots of them (us?) too.

Yup, they'll be as delighted as I was when their RM file is sold here with very near-RF terms for 65c net.

[geogphotos]

56 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

Let's not forget those photographers who aren't angry, but welcoming of a different approach to image sales. Lots of them (us?) too.

 

One would think that those ( lots of you?) keen on a 'different approach to image sales' might already have selected the RF license model rather than welcoming being forced into it compulsorily.

Edited November 6, 2019 by geogphotos

[Brian Yarvin]

Geo, it isn't one or the other for most of us. It's a willingness to try new methods when they appear and  the opening up of new possibilities after the old ones have run their course.

 

... and yes ... I do detect some anger out there, just not from me.

[geogphotos]

3 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

Geo, it isn't one or the other for most of us. It's a willingness to try new methods when they appear and  the opening up of new possibilities after the old ones have run their course.

 

... and yes ... I do detect some anger out there, just not from me.

 

 Brian what new method are you referring to? Being forced to do something against your will that you could always have decided to do voluntarily previously?

 

I don't see what there is to welcome about that. But each to their own. 

[Brian Yarvin]

Ian, not a new method to the world, but a new chance to place images that once sold well and have now stopped selling with a new agency - a new chance at the marketplace.

[regen]

7 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

There are several specialist RM agencies in the wildlife field, and I imagine in other genres also. They have many advantages for the specialist buyer that Getty and Alamy never had, in particular images are titled/captioned/keyworded properly, which can be really important. Just look at all the dross irrrelevant material you get for many searches on both sites.

 

My specialist agencies in both wildlife and gardening genre consistently sell 5x what alamy does value wise with probably 20% of the files on line but they are curated and often only accept 10% of what i send them. Again they are all RM and often contact me to ensure that i have not sold a particular file elsewhere.

 

 

[geogphotos]

Ironic really that commercial/creative images ( made images) are now just about worthless and available for pennies as RF.

 

How quickly things change!

 

 

[Brian Yarvin]

Indeed, the irony is there in heaps, Ian. The genre that made this business boom for decades is now reduced to rubble. 

[Bill Brooks]

43 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

Indeed, the irony is there in heaps, Ian. The genre that made this business boom for decades is now reduced to rubble. 

 

Agreed, and no sense for a photographer being left to pick over the RM rubble.

 

Expect Getty to run a expensive social media public relations campaign with big time art directors and influencers extolling RF.

 

Probably not the price, but rather the convenience of pay only once and no record keeping or having copyright problems, and the vast choice of RF. The ability to put an RF on the client's internal databases for use in multiple offices worldwide. Also if the buyer wants to, it is always possible to buy an exclusive for a new RF image that has not been sold previously.

 

This will help sales of all RF images across the industry, not just the RF images on Getty. It may even raise average prices for RF.

 

There is always opportunity in change, if you can get ahead of it when it is new.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Bill Brooks
clarity

[geogphotos]

Bill,

 

You present rather a quixotic version of what Getty has been up to. Not many months ago it launched Market Freeze to attempt to promote RM. Over the last few years it has virtually stopped editing for Creative, it created a new Editorial Use only category on RM images and took masses of non-exclusive images from partners. Then it did a quick change and decided to completely hide all Editorial Use RM imagery and only show it to Premium Access customers. These are just a few examples of the false steps that Getty has taken.

 

Each change of direction has been wasteful of everybody's time and effort. This has not been the masterful smooth working through of a clear strategy that you seem to imagine.

 

I would suggest that you are grossly simplifying all this to see it, as you often seem to, as some sort of historic victory for RF.  Many contributors have uploaded thousands of images which are now going to be completely dumped. One photographer has pointed to an image that has earned $100k which is being dumped along with all the rest of his RM,

 

The irony to me is that Getty used to earn mega -bucks for top quality commercial RM images - you could argue at one time that their RM creative collection was the peak of what was available in the stock industry. Now all of it has been trashed and they are not even attempting to offer top end exclusive images for advertising - only flat priced RF.