Comments on: photo “licensing” and working for free

By: Elvis Hoshida

Elvis Hoshida — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:15:20 +0000

If the blog/website makes money i will charge . Even if it is just goggle ad .
Minimum fee ¥5.000 yen for 700 pixel on the large side .
If it is a FREE blog , a link to my blog is cool but it has to keep my watermark at the button of the photo as well.
If they don’t like the idea i just send a link to istock and let them waste hours looking for something there .
Times is money .

By: tony

tony — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:16:09 +0000

Thanks for the great comments. I wonder if there’s a parallel with recording artists? Seems like stock images are the equivalent of digital tracks and assignments concerts. Albums have become little more than a free viral marketing tool for musicians’ concerts/TV appearances etc. The same thing may be happening with stock. That’s why I am putting so many of my images on the net.

Not for the first time I’m glad that I’m a photojournalist and that I started out writing. As David points out there’s always going to be a market for news text/photo/sound?/video? packages. After all, news is supposed to be new – so there won’t be any stock to compete with!

By: David Shackelford

David Shackelford — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:30:01 +0000

Unfortunately, the market for simple pictures of stuff is saturated; the value of a photo that simply shows a product, location, or event is essentially zilch. There are enough amateur photographers out there, and good enough tagging and archiving tools, that anyone can find a picture of anything that someone’s willing to give them for simple attribution.

It seems that the market for pro photography has turned into:
1) Assignment photojournalism, where you pay a photographer to bring back the photographic accompaniment to a story (as well as possibly write the story).
2) Full-service event photography, where you’re paying to have the best shots, processed and printed, of once-in-a-lifetime events like weddings, and
3) Fashion and advertising photos, where you need a specific item of clothing in a specific light on a specific person.

With mass Creative Commons licensing and iStockPhoto, I don’t think we’ll ever make it back to a place where photographers can expect to make a living on simply good photos of stuff; the market will shrink to a set of assignment photojournalists, event photographers, and fashion photographers, all of whom work on contract and are paid to deliver an image or set of images to exacting specifications.

By: Durf

Durf — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:05:21 +0000

Shibuya246: “Through the growth of the internet have we started moving back to more of a barter society rather than a cash payment one?”

On a very small scale, perhaps, but I think this dynamic is limited to a small population of alpha users who bring skills to the table that other people want to use in the Web environment. A talented designer could license some of your shots in exchange for hand-tuning your WordPress code, for instance. I don’t think that sort of exchange can take place between anyone and everyone, though.

More importantly, I think the Internet has raised a generation or more of young people who think that media is supposed to come for free. Newspapers are going out of business left and right because everyone wants to read news for free online; music comes from file-sharing, not Tower Records. In an environment filled with these people it’s a certainty that for every one company kind enough to write and ask for permission to use a photo for free, there are dozens of bloggers who just grabbed the .jpg, cropped out the watermark, and stuck it on their sites without a word to the photographer or a link to his site.

By: Shibuya246

Shibuya246 — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:00:17 +0000

As the internet continues to grow and more people come to use if for both reading and writing stories, the traditional distribution and payment valuation system for stories, pictures and videos is changing.

Previously a magazine or newspaper may buy a story or photo as a scoop or because they were on a tight deadline. The value payment for this was generally cash. Years ago you might have been paid with a free dinner but we have progressed to the cash form of payment.

With the internet, once the photo is published anyone can access it. That doesn’t mean they can republish it without your consent, but it is easy to point people in the direction of where to find it at least. Giving people a link to your site is simpler to follow than telling them to go buy the magazine.

So does the value of the photo become less because it is easy to access? Is its value less because the website referencing it or asking to reprint it does not charge money? (maybe they earn through advertising only). This is hard to say, but is is clear that because of the internet the playing field is changing.

If you want to attract the highest value for your photos and receive cash payments, it may be better not to let them be seen on the internet at all. Make them exclusive to off-line publications. This would mean less circulation than the internet. It is often a choice between fame and fortune. Do you go for increased circulation and become well known but less well off, or do you find a niche and earn more money by limiting access to those willing to pay?

Through the growth of the internet have we started moving back to more of a barter society rather than a cash payment one? For individual merchants, the world is becoming like the villages of old where people could trade their skills for things they needed. Since you can reach out easily to the other villagers through the internet the need for a cash payment system decreases.

Is it better to accept traffic to your site rather than a cash payment? Maybe it is, but as the business owner of your own site and brand you need to make that judgment call.

I don’t have the answer, but I can think of a lot more questions on this topic that would be interesting to think through and work out. It is the internet that is changing the dynamic of the market place the most and therefore you should consider what that marketplace may look like in 5 years and again in 10 years time. Where are we moving to? and then try to get there first.