Getty allowing unlimited free editorial use?!

[ann]

Good grief. Don't mean this at all in a flippant way, but thank goodness stock is not the beginning & end of business opportunities in photography.

 

- - - - -

 

Long ago, G was an agency I aspired to work with, but in recent years it's become clearer and clearer how little it cares about being a satisfactory agent for its contributors in general.

 

The bottom line is NOT everything.

 

I deal with Alamy and other agencies that I trust will work for, rather than against, me. I don't need an agent that works way more for its interests than mine.

 

- Ann

[Dyn Llun]

Funnily  enough, (although it's not funny of course), I wrote a piece about the decline in revenue for stock photographers in my blog yesterday. http://peteslandscape.blogspot.co.uk/ (I only use my own photographs and never steal from others). My input into the stock market is virtually nil as I have many other avenues for my work but I do feel for those who have devoted much time and effort to it now seeing not only ludicrously small fees but their work being given away. All very depressing for those who rely on stock for all or a major part of their income. Or for those who may be hoping to build it up for the future. 

 

I have been around photography for a very long time and have loved it all. However, if I was young again would I make the leap? Not into stock photography that's for sure. Very disheartening for young people with some ambition to see this.

 

Pete Davis

http://peteslandscape.blogspot.co.uk/

www.pete-davis-photography.com

[Callie]

What Getty is doing is trying to grasp some control back. All our images are currently being used for free by a multitude of bloggers around the planet, with no credit either to the photographer or source library. Try using the src-img bookmarklet on your collection to find out the extent of free use. I tried it this week and found 40 odd unreported uses in the space of half an hour. I havent yet tackled the bulk of my 18000 images over 4 libraries and, frankly, am not going to waste my time doing so. The unreporteds were all blog sites. So, folks, your stuff is already free and has been for a while.

 

that sounds like Getty b*s*t aimed at gullible photographers. Everyone knows images get ripped off, that is no news. Giving them away to anyone and everyone is not a solution for this.

[John Richmond]

As a very recent Alamy contributor (test submission passed QC on 14 Jan 2014) I do hope they don't go down the same road.  Unfortunately I suspect the genii is well free of the bottle and Alamy may have to respond.

 

On paper the Getty move looks fairly reasonable.  Don't chase people you'll never make any direct income from but incentivise them to promote your agencies' imagery and, hopefully, piggyback advertising revenue and image sales on the back of the non commercial bloggers efforts.  But already I can see a loophole for marketing people.  Why spend a good chunk of your promotional budget on correctly licencing images when a couple of "independent" (ie paid and instructed at arm's length) bloggers could freely use all the images they required to extensively illustrate a series of puff pieces for the marketeer's employer?  Be subtle about it and everyone wins - except, of course, the poor photographer and copyright holder.

 

Having previously worked as a small business advisor it's a route to market that would certainly appeal to some of my previous clients.

[digi2ap]

In using the code embed approach it will be possible for Getty to automatically track which images are being used from web stats. Perhaps there should be a payment distribution to those photographers whose work has been used based on whatever advertising capital this new embed player generates?  

[Martin P Wilson]

Photographers are in the same position as farmers. The chain of distribution has been taken over by a few, large retailers/distributors. They can squeeze input prices (whether milk or images) and can live with low, high volume sales (it aggregates to serious income, not the case for the individual contributor). There is so much competition amongst producers and demand from the market the big corporates can demand the input price they are prepared to pay, take it or leave it - ask any dairy farmer.

 

However in most markets there are premium retailers and small individual brands that continue to do well. Unfortunately most of us photographers fall in the middle ground and that is an uncomfortable place to be. The middle gets squeezed from the bottom as the "cheap" products improve but the middle does not have the exclusivity to compete at the top end. Also the top end gets bigger with increased affluence so middle market players also get squeezed from the top (BMW 3 series out sells the Ford Mondeo, even though in many respect the Ford is a better drive).

 

A few photographers have a strong brand, a cachet, that allows them to demand high fees; but only a few can achieve that, we may not have the talent , discipline, marketing skills and much more. The rest of us have to fight for and take what scraps we can. As some have done in the microstock market it is possible to do well out of the new reality. It requires a different approach, become a mass manufacturer of images by increasing productivity of the right sort of images and optimising production costs and then it may be possible for a few to do well in the mass market. But that is not why most of us want to be photographers, some think like artists (and will starve in their garrets ) the rest of us are prepared to be more flexible but not to give up the soul of our photography in which case we need to find other sources of income and make photography part of a portfolio of income sources. How big a part that photography income will play will depend on how close an individual is prepared to go towards mass manufacture and the ability to read the market.

 

We can blame G, C, A et al. But we as consumers are part of the problem; we demand inexpensive milk, cheap food and other commodity products at low prices, it is all the same after all. Photography is just the latest commodity now everybody is a photographer (btw: same is true for writers, artists, ...)

[Abiyoyo]

"Once an image is embedded on their site--we have the right to monetize whenever we might choose to do it; retroactively. If an image was embedded a month ago and we decided to serve an ad in the viewer today, we could. "

 

Is Getty going to share the new income, due to inserting ads, to the photographers?

 

 

 

El País, the leading Spanish newspaper, uses lots of Getty images; it seems that in Getty will use the millions of users to put ads while the people are reading the news online. In comparison El País will get the images free. Is that going to be the case?

 

[Paulstw]

So if I get this straight. Getty remove the watermark and allow people to place the image of their choosing in a custom embed code for their site? A tracking and link back system will serve ads and data to 'someone' and that marketing and ad revenue will somehow make its way back to getty? 

 

I noticed they failed to mention the point where the photogragher gets paid. 

 

Anyone with Ad-Blocker won't see ads or provide marketing data
Anyone with knowledge of website development can steal the image via inspect element
Anyone can use the Snipping tool to grab any picture they like from a site. 

 

I feel for the full time stock photog who is continually battling with 'the man' over what seems to be a whole bunch of suits changing the rules to suit their business when they are forgetting who supplies them with their product. 

[Martin P Wilson]

IF, and it is a big IF, the embed approach effectively eliminates the copied image (which I seriously doubt) I could see how it could work by getting a share of ad revenue from all those blog site views. It might only be pennies per click but just think how many views such sites get - it must be billions per day in total. A few cents per thousand views would be a LOT of money if it became anything approaching universal - I could then see how it could work as long as the libraries share the revenue equitably. (another big IF)

[digi2ap]

The 'if' remains whether there is any intention to share the new revenue as a distribution to photographers.  Technically it is all very possible.

[Abiyoyo]

It will be interesting to know if this new ad system from Getty will be compatible with others, like AdSense, for example.

[Martin P Wilson]

...

 

I feel for the full time stock photog who is continually battling with 'the man' over what seems to be a whole bunch of suits changing the rules to suit their business when they are forgetting who supplies them with their product. 

 

We can complain as much as we like but the problem is the supply side is so fragmented it is dog eats dog and gives the large corporates the room to behave as they do. Unfortunately photographs are not diamonds, de Beers effectively created and controlled the market for a product that does not really have an intrinsic value (certainly at the premium level they sell for). Too late to put that genii back in the bottle for photography.

 

We could withdraw our labour but would any of the libraries even notice if most of us deleted our images unless we were one of their top 100 (probablyfewer) best selling contributors (and then they might cut a special deal).

 

I don't see any point grumbling. It is as it is and it will not get better whatever we say or hope. Our only way forward is to reexamine our objectives and approach - the old stock model has gone for ever. Some photographers will find new ways of making a living, just as, say, a few horse-drawn buggy makers have.

[Alex Todd]

The 'if' remains whether there is any intention to share the new revenue as a distribution to photographers.  Technically it is all very possible.

 

The contract between photographers and agencies are for license fees. This is ad income so won't be shared with the contributors.

[WPL]

Seems a bit like Getty put the final nail in the coffin for image exclusivity. At least if a non exclusive agency does a move like this you can request deletion of your account and move on to another!!

 

I love this bit:

 

What we’re finding is that the vast majority of infringement in this space happen with self publishers who typically don’t know anything about copyright and licensing, and who simply don’t have any budget to support their content needs.”

 

If they have content "needs" then they should be able to pay for said content or they don't really need it!

 

What Getty forgets is publishers will simply bypass the Embed code as this will screw up page formatting.

 

I for one will be putting a total stop on adding images to Getty until I see how this one plays out.

[WPL]

 

The 'if' remains whether there is any intention to share the new revenue as a distribution to photographers.  Technically it is all very possible.

 

The contract between photographers and agencies are for license fees. This is ad income so won't be shared with the contributors.

 

 

Not sure this is true, does anyone actually have an answer on this from Getty? 

[David W]

I don't contribute to Getty and am not likely to try if all this is true and correct. Photographers through the decades have aspired to be as good as Getty photographers - truly sad if greed has taken such a formerly great name in imagery to this point.

 

Lets hope and pray that Alamy don't plan the same - unless as has been pointed out the plan is to share fairly with contributors.  I've been around a long time and successfully ran a small business for nearly 20 years. By successful I mean trying to respect customer, supplier, staff and make sure all were fairly treated and rewarded - didn't always get it right - but survived to tell the tale.

 

So what of respect in the image business for us the hard working contributors. I recently had a post deleted because I had (truthfully) pointed out that it had taken 6 months and a string of excuses for 1 small sale to be registered on my account. Is that respect! Numerous chasing emails and stress just to get a tiny share of what I created!

 

Same has happened in many other areas - but some have done something about it - think of fairtrade  - and what they have achieved for small farmers/growers/suppliers - and largely supported by the customer.

 

Alamy had it right in my view when contributors got 60% - that I believe is the least a contributor should get from any agency. Without the product there simply is nothing to sell!

 

So time for a fairtrade of photography - respecting, paying substantially and as promptly as possible each and every small contributor. And yes before anyone asks - it is possible - and yes I am willing to put my energy, time, effort and passion where my mouth is. Not words, some balls, some guts, ACTION.

[Gervais Montacute]

Getty contributors don't have an opt out clause on this either. They are automatically included in this new scheme.

 

I would not be surprised to see most agencies, including Alamy following this model. This is not really surprising when you look at the recent events regarding iPhones, for instance.

 

I just had a full page spread photo in a newspaper published that Alamy turned down in QC and I'm again on 31 days or whatever it is. The whole thing has become quite comical and I can no longer be bothered.

 

I have very few images here and don't think I can really be bothered to add too many more under the present cycle of recent events. I definitely understand Philipe's chagrin and with 20K plus images I would be seriously hacked now.

[Jose Elias]

(...) your stuff is already free and has been for a while.

 

No it's not! Sure, there are a lot of unauthorized uses, that's not a secret, but there are still many paid ones.

 

This move will eradicate those that still paid for images, while not making anyone of those that didn't pay before, to start doing it now.

[WPL]

I don't contribute to Getty and am not likely to try if all this is true and correct. Photographers through the decades have aspired to be as good as Getty photographers - truly sad if greed has taken such a formerly great name in imagery to this point.

 

Lets hope and pray that Alamy don't plan the same - unless as has been pointed out the plan is to share fairly with contributors.  I've been around a long time and successfully ran a small business for nearly 20 years. By successful I mean trying to respect customer, supplier, staff and make sure all were fairly treated and rewarded - didn't always get it right - but survived to tell the tale.

 

So what of respect in the image business for us the hard working contributors. I recently had a post deleted because I had (truthfully) pointed out that it had taken 6 months and a string of excuses for 1 small sale to be registered on my account. Is that respect! Numerous chasing emails and stress just to get a tiny share of what I created!

 

Same has happened in many other areas - but some have done something about it - think of fairtrade  - and what they have achieved for small farmers/growers/suppliers - and largely supported by the customer.

 

Alamy had it right in my view when contributors got 60% - that I believe is the least a contributor should get from any agency. Without the product there simply is nothing to sell!

 

So time for a fairtrade of photography - respecting, paying substantially and as promptly as possible each and every small contributor. And yes before anyone asks - it is possible - and yes I am willing to put my energy, time, effort and passion where my mouth is. Not words, some balls, some guts, ACTION.

Is this not what Photographers Direct tried to do? I would love to get involved with something like a true photographers collective. And these days with Amazon cloud product for example (or google / MS / other) it would not be impossible for something like this to work from a technological point of view. It is just marketing  / sales etc that make this a real challenge.

[WPL]

 

(...) your stuff is already free and has been for a while.

 

No it's not! Sure, there are a lot of unauthorized uses, that's not a secret, but there are still many paid ones.

 

This move will eradicate those that still paid for images, while not making anyone of those that didn't pay before, to start doing it now.

 

 

100% agree.

[Callie]

 

So time for a fairtrade of photography - respecting, paying substantially and as promptly as possible each and every small contributor. And yes before anyone asks - it is possible - and yes I am willing to put my energy, time, effort and passion where my mouth is. Not words, some balls, some guts, ACTION.

Is this not what Photographers Direct tried to do? I would love to get involved with something like a true photographers collective. And these days with Amazon cloud product for example (or google / MS / other) it would not be impossible for something like this to work from a technological point of view. It is just marketing  / sales etc that make this a real challenge.

 

 

Photographers Direct isn't really a true collective. I have thought for a long time that the only future for photographers would be down the 'collective' route and it is probably getting urgent for this to happen. But it would have to be so all encompassing and take masses of photographers away from the current main players for it to work, it certainly wouldn't be so simple to achieve.

[David W]

WPL - I am not very technical but sure you are right. True about it being huge challenge - guess thats what make sit exciting possibility. An old cliche I know but everything must start somewhere. In truth with all these kind of issues many will moan and whinge but rare for anybody to actually do anything. History says that those that do often have surprisingly good results. Not sure what happened to Photographers Direct - still running or not - but basic principle was there and with some tweaking (and a good deal of energy and passion!!) could work. I particularly liked the way a potential client could email a photographer and agree a price.

[David W]

Callie - largely agree but should not being simple be a reason not to try. Small often works well - back to the fairtrade story - yes huge now but built from the "building blocks" of many many small growers/farmers. BUT respecting them and making sure they all make a at least some kind of living. The idea definitely potentially has legs!

[Callie]

David W I would be very happy to give it a go and yes I do think it would be worth trying, I have always been a supporter of the Fairtrade model

[Cryptoprocta]

I found this article giving a personal take about this Getty scheme: http://thedambook.com/getty-did-what

It's an interesting read, but I'm imagining the photos are embedded via this scheme.

If I click on an image, I'm taken to Getty.

If I right click on an image, I can save it out, whereupon I discovered that there is no metadata, no copyright notice, no way of contacting the author or even Getty.