Panthera tigris Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) Interesting piece from Melcher on how the industry is still changing and how its losing its commentators, bloggers and forums...... whether they had insight or not. http://blog.melchersystem.com/this-is-not-a-press-release/ Are people/the crowd now becoming bored with what is left? This paragraph, from a man who was at the helm of many stock companies, really brought it home ..... "Since the industry is no longer supporting independent photographers, the stakeholders have switched to a bunch of institutional investors, corporate climbers, and emotionless lawyers. None of which care about the industry beyond quarterly earnings reports. Photographers have gone made their living elsewhere, taking their passion with them." Edited September 26, 2021 by Panthera tigris 2 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 This paragraph reminded me of here. ' Gone are the pearls of wisdom, except those sporadically emerging from unsuspected bulletin board postings. In-depth thoughtful analysis of industry trends has been replaced by individuals publicly scrutinizing their diminishing monthly sales reports. '🙂. Thanks for posting. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) Stock has become dull I suppose. There used to be those take-overs, collapses, scandals, big rows, exciting initiatives, etc As with capitalism in general the industry has become concentrated and is now dominated by two really big suppliers. There are a few specialist agencies but many if not most also sell through the mega agencies - they just can't secure enough market share on their own. The other thing I notice is how many cultural institutions such as museums now have their own stock library. Alamy is growing its profits by cutting commission and muscling in on secondary rights. Fees are tumbling forced down by the much more powerful competition. I can't see any reason for optimism at the moment but there is always some hope that something positive will come along. Edited September 26, 2021 by geogphotos 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 I don't think fees can fall any further. It will be interesting to see in a year or two how SS for example will keep shareholders happy with increasing profits when they can't squeeze the suppliers anymore. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) 8 minutes ago, BobD said: I don't think fees can fall any further. It will be interesting to see in a year or two how SS for example will keep shareholders happy with increasing profits when they can't squeeze the suppliers anymore. The overhelming majority of suppliers don't care about being squeezed. They don't do it for money but for the thrill and sense of purpose. They produce perfectly saleable content with no need to cover their costs. Edited September 26, 2021 by geogphotos 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 2 minutes ago, geogphotos said: The overhelming majority of suppliers don't care about being squeezed. They don't do it for money but for the thrill and sense of purpose. Yes there are those, but I disagree it is the ' overwhelming majority ', and that will be of no use to image buyers. You only have to look at the quality available on the free sites. What really is needed is some form of co-op. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) 20 minutes ago, BobD said: Yes there are those, but I disagree it is the ' overwhelming majority ', and that will be of no use to image buyers. You only have to look at the quality available on the free sites. What really is needed is some form of co-op. Like Fair Trade? Can't see that enough image buyers would care less about the plight of stock photographers. And having gone through that process at least part of the way once before it is much easier said than done. It ended up being called Picade and I think has now died. Must have been a final start when they put their pics on Alamy! First off, the problem of finding a platform which is affordable and where different photographers can pool image. Then imagine all the potential for disagreement over RF/RM, fees, commission, 'quality'. I think we need an industry 'guru' to spot a gap and see how to exploit it. Edited September 26, 2021 by geogphotos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 10 minutes ago, geogphotos said: Like Fair Trade? Can't see that enough image buyers would care less about the plight of stock photographers. And having gone through that process at least part of the way once before it is much easier said than done. It ended up being called Picade and I think has now died. Must have been a final start when they put their pics on Alamy! First off, the problem of finding a platform which is affordable and where different photographers can pool image. Then imagine all the potential for disagreement over RF/RM, fees, commission, 'quality'. I think we need an industry 'guru' to spot a gap and see how to exploit it. I agree that a co-op based on an agency model wouldn't succeed but maybe a platform that displayed images then directed the buyer to the photographers own website to complete the sale. An initial 'committee' could oversee the quality issue by only allowing photographers with a good standard. An agreed minimum price would be set, then it is up to the photographer to set their own price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 1 hour ago, geogphotos said: I can't see any reason for optimism at the moment but there is always some hope that something positive will come along. There is no obvious premium placed on photos which are difficult to take, which means, looking forward, that agencies like Alamy will keep amassing millions more pix which are easy - and cheap - to take. Other subjects will be under-represented if they are difficult to shoot, or require research, preparation, travel, complex permissions, insurance cover, or, say, a team of assistants or technicians. The money spent upfront is unlikely to be recouped through pic sales. With such a vast collection of images to curate and market, the bean-counters in an agency like Alamy may not notice the shortfall… for a while. But in a few years time the pix going through QC may feature nothing but country churches, road-signs and back-garden butterflies… 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincent Lowe Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 1 hour ago, BobD said: I agree that a co-op based on an agency model wouldn't succeed but maybe a platform that displayed images then directed the buyer to the photographers own website to complete the sale. An initial 'committee' could oversee the quality issue by only allowing photographers with a good standard. An agreed minimum price would be set, then it is up to the photographer to set their own price. Isn't that what Photographers Direct basically did? Another one now defunct. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave R Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 He talks a lot of sense. The only upside is for working professionals is that some type of commissions may come back into popularity as there will soon be big holes in stock collections as you cant make money on certain things anymore. Ironically meaning the end user will pay vastly more for the shots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, John Morrison said: There is no obvious premium placed on photos which are difficult to take, which means, looking forward, that agencies like Alamy will keep amassing millions more pix which are easy - and cheap - to take. Other subjects will be under-represented if they are difficult to shoot, or require research, preparation, travel, complex permissions, insurance cover, or, say, a team of assistants or technicians. The money spent upfront is unlikely to be recouped through pic sales. With such a vast collection of images to curate and market, the bean-counters in an agency like Alamy may not notice the shortfall… for a while. But in a few years time the pix going through QC may feature nothing but country churches, road-signs and back-garden butterflies… Nothing wrong with country churches...the more obscure the better. Edited September 26, 2021 by geogphotos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Vincent Lowe said: Isn't that what Photographers Direct basically did? Another one now defunct. Mira/Creative Eye still appears to be in existence but with only a tiny number of images on their Photoshelter based site. Not sure how they managed that because when I asked Photoshelter I was told that I couldn't include other people's pics and the only option would be a hugely expensive system designed for big organisations. In any case it is virtually impossible to match the reach of a company such as Alamy let alone the top tier mega portals. Edited September 26, 2021 by geogphotos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 3 hours ago, John Morrison said: But in a few years time the pix going through QC may feature nothing but country churches, road-signs and back-garden butterflies… and all be labelled as birds, europe , nature, background, landscape, pretty, lion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Estall Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 I remember when the now defunct ZEFA sent an editor over to go though my collection, she delighted in our pretty little country churches. She took back oodles of them to Dusseldorf, but never sold any. I still have quite a lot of them, but they hardly ever sell unless they are real chocolate box or have a special tale attached Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 7 hours ago, Vincent Lowe said: Isn't that what Photographers Direct basically did? Another one now defunct. PD worked well at the beginning. It actually ended up being run out of Vancouver. I made quite a few good sales through them. However, I don't think that "fair trade," "co-op" or whatever you want to call them models are viable any longer. There is really no reason for photo buyers to want to go back to licensing images from individual photographers. The big agencies with huge collections, bargain prices, and global reach will continue to rule the roost. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FocusUno Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) How about: Google Stock Photo 24/7 one contributes from one's external hard drive which must be Internet-connected 24/7/364 & contain ready-to-use high res JPGs; buyers make payments to Google, then Google allows upload, then Google passes 60%** on to contrib; **because Google is $1T+ mega-cap company & knows how to make healthy profit from 40%... ⁉️ ⁉️ ⁉️ ⁉️ ⁉️ ⁉️ ⁉️ ⁉️ Edited September 26, 2021 by FocusUno 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FocusUno Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 additionally, all keywording & QC done by contribs, to their own AND to other's images; contribs earn minute percentage points on other's images if their own added keywords are the way an image is found & licensed, e.g., owner of image has "antique restored car automobile show" & someone else adds "Packard" & later a buyer searches & buys via "antique Packard" then 2nd contrib gets X% of that sale... (this system has to block purposeful poor keywording & QC by penalizing) the point is, little or no busywork by Google allows 60/40 or even 70/30... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 I can't imagine Google coming to our rescue. We were all encouraged to put our trust in a 'highly ethical' company called Alamy that promised to use our commission reductions to become a Tier Two agency and make everything good. What happened was that the commission cuts made the Accounts look good and then the owners sold out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FocusUno Posted September 26, 2021 Share Posted September 26, 2021 (edited) all I'm sayin' about the biggest public companies worldwide... Microsoft #2 @$2.25T tried & quit. Maybe they'll retry... Adobe's #24 @$300+B does it but lousy split, IMO. Whoever might try it should, IMO, set up system to reward contribs for handling as much busywork as possible including the novel idea of "group handling" each other's images in exchange for piece of other's $$, & un-reward for creating too many views without sales, etc. Lack of busywork for company = lower overhead = favorable split... Alphabet aka Google expertise overlaps stock photo, (searches, ranking, etc.) Apple #1 @$2.48T too, (photo creating) but less than Google...? All's left is Facebook #5 @$825B, IMO, but also less connected...? None of the other seem reasonably connected to stock photos, IMO. AAPL Apple Inc Computers, Phones & Household Electronic... 2.427 T MSFT Microsoft Corporation Software & IT Services 2.251 T AMZN Amazon.com, Inc. Diversified Retail 1.730 T GOOGL Alphabet Inc Software & IT Services 850.360 B FB Facebook Inc Software & IT Services 824.704 B TSLA Tesla Inc Automobiles & Auto Parts 746.115 B TSM Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (ADR) Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment... 589.864 B NVDA NVIDIA Corporation Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment... 562.050 B JPM JPMorgan Chase & Co. Banking Services 481.631 B JNJ Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals 433.991 B WMT Walmart Inc Food & Drug Retailing 398.114 B LVMUY LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE(ADR) Textiles & Apparel 386.821 B V Visa Inc Software & IT Services 385.306 B UNH UnitedHealth Group Inc Healthcare Providers & Services 384.738 B BABA Alibaba Group Holding Ltd - ADR Software & IT Services 372.684 B ASML ASML Holding NV (ADR) Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment... 363.639 B HD Home Depot Inc Other Specialty Retailers 354.506 B BAC Bank of America Corp Banking Services 350.817 B PG Procter & Gamble Co Personal &Household Products & Services 350.010 B MA Mastercard Inc Software & IT Services 346.574 B PYPL Paypal Holdings Inc Software & IT Services 327.951 B DIS Walt Disney Co Media & Publishing 320.269 B YMM Full Truck Alliance Co Ltd - ADR Software & IT Services 313.115 B ADBE Adobe Inc Software & IT Services 300.532 B TM Toyota Motor Corp (ADR) Automobiles & Auto Parts 298.222 B CRM salesforce.com, inc. Software & IT Services 272.025 B NFLX Netflix Inc Software & IT Services 262.575 B BRK.A Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Consumer Goods Conglomerates 260.657 B CMCSA Comcast Corporation Media & Publishing 257.275 B PFE Pfizer Inc. Pharmaceuticals 247.760 B ORCL Oracle Corporation Software & IT Services 244.848 B XOM Exxon Mobil Corporation Oil & Gas 241.652 B TMO Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Healthcare Equipment & Supplies 239.289 B CSCO Cisco Systems Inc Communications & Networking 239.103 B NVS Novartis AG (ADR) Pharmaceuticals 235.402 B KO Coca-Cola Co Beverages 233.270 B DHR Danaher Corporation Healthcare Equipment & Supplies 232.039 B ACN Accenture Plc Software & IT Services 228.586 B VZ Verizon Communications Inc. Telecommunications Services 225.305 B ABT Abbott Laboratories Healthcare Equipment & Supplies 222.134 B LLY Eli Lilly And Co Pharmaceuticals 222.099 B INTC Intel Corporation Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment... 219.200 B PEP PepsiCo, Inc. Beverages 213.025 B AVGO Broadcom Inc Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment... 207.578 B NKE Nike Inc Textiles & Apparel 203.750 B COST Costco Wholesale Corporation Diversified Retail 200.160 B Edited September 26, 2021 by FocusUno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 27, 2021 Share Posted September 27, 2021 I can't understand why you think Google would be any different from any other large corporation. They would look at the commission other companies take and do likewise. Didn't they recently cut the producers share of advertising revenue on Youtube as well as increasing the amount of ads to make it nearly unwatchable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted September 27, 2021 Share Posted September 27, 2021 2 hours ago, BobD said: Didn't they recently cut the producers share of advertising revenue on Youtube as well as increasing the amount of ads to make it nearly unwatchable. A decent adblocker or Brave Browser seems to fix that, at least for now... I'm using Brave all the time now. Mark 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 27, 2021 Share Posted September 27, 2021 2 hours ago, M.Chapman said: A decent adblocker or Brave Browser seems to fix that, at least for now... I'm using Brave all the time now. Mark That works well, Thanks for that Mark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted September 27, 2021 Share Posted September 27, 2021 1 hour ago, kay said: I just assumed google was a distributor, getting a decent cut on all the click throughs from google searches - does anyone know? I would have thought that would be a little unethical unless they separate the search into 2 as they do with ads. If they were getting a commission they would be more than tempted to skew the search results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted September 27, 2021 Share Posted September 27, 2021 Google Licensing seems promising. I'm surprised at how often some of my PhotoShelter images come up on the first page of searches, right alongside those of the big guys like Alamy. However, I've had no inquiries since Google launched the program. I can't see how Google could be collecting cuts from image licenses. Also, I think they would be too smart (in a business sense) to get directly involved in the stock photo business these days. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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