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Re: [OM] The Stock Photography Business

Subject: Re: [OM] The Stock Photography Business
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2015 20:08:47 -0800
On 11/20/2015 2:36 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
Markets evolve. Sometimes one wins from that evolution, sometimes not. What you are 
seeing is a result of disruptive technology. Just ask a musician how much he earns 
from Spotify, the preferred way to listen to music among my children’s 
generation.
The winners are those who have been able to monetize the distribution
of assets with no cost of acquisition. The stock agencies are selling
images this inexpensively because their own imbedded costs are near
zero. It used to be that the stock agencies had to charge more because
of the staffing, storage, mailing, billing and so forth. Now, it's all
automated and they have minimal sunk costs. All the sunk costs, with
the exception of the server farm, which is leased cloud storage from
Amazon, is assumed by the photographers.

This analysis seems to me incomplete, at best. It seems to me that that age old duo, supply and demand, are the primary causes.

1. It used to be that it took photographic skill and arcane knowledge to sell in the stock market. No one was willing to offer their abilities and images cheap. It was a business that took a lot of time and expense and no one was willing to do it for less than a reasonable wage. The internet is an enabler here, not cause. It already existed, but the change couldn't have happened without it.

Digital imaging and the highly capable cameras that have come along completely changed that. Suddenly there were millions of people taking photos that seemed, at least to them, as good as that other stuff. And many were right, their images were technically up to the needs of stock use, especially considering no. 2, below. Probably a majority of these folks are happy just to see their image out in public, with their name on it. Getting paid a couple of bucks is just a bonus.

2. The drastic effects of the internet on print media had just as great an effect on buyers for stock images. Many outlets, particularly mass media, ceased to exist, and the image budgets for the rest were curtailed. The "new" media on the web could get by just fine with lower technical quality images. Many/most came from an everything should be free, or at least cheap, background mindset.

Mix those two factors, and you have a market flooded with images available cheap to buyers who don't want to pay much. That's the old free market at work. I'm sorry you, Tina and others have lost out in this change, but Nathan is correct. Ask the buggy whip makers, ask the Stanley Brothers, ask Kodak, and so on, and on, and on ...

As to the factor you blame, I think it's a small part of the change. Can you imagine any business intentionally and unilaterally lowering prices just because their costs go down? The only way it happens is if competition sees an opportunity to increase their share. Inevitably, that happens eventually, but not, I think to the extent that it has happened to this market. Prices go down, but not to the point of disappearing. Usually, there's a shake out period, during which weak/poorly managed players fail, then things settle down to much the same absolute profit level as before. I could write you a biz school thesis on the supermarket business and unions in the US Midwest from the early 70s through the 80s ... I'll agree that the internet has allowed the agencies to survive by lowering costs so substantially, but it didn't cause their problems in the first place.

As Nathan has pointed out, the music business has also changed dramatically. In fact, if you go back a few more decades, you'll see what a roller coaster it has been. An old friend and musician has said all along that the recording and star business has ruined music, that's it's only real live. Maybe he's to blame. :-)

I got royally pi**ed when I had some images sell for under a dollar.
Because of the way the images were sold, my per-image take was 25
cents. However, that then was negated due to other fees, so I got
zero. Nada.

There is a solution; get out of that business.

I do wonder about the future of IP rights. When the law starts going too far afield from what the majority of people think is right/fair, it risks political revision, even destruction, in favor of a different model. The US Millennium Copyright Act has gone that way with physical art. I own originals of a few, very minor, works of art. The artists sold them with no expectation of owning any rights to them any more. At least one artist is dead, and I have no idea how I might contact others. And yet, I don't own the rights to the art, just the right to hang it and view it. It's only a very few artists and a greater number of galleries, agents, lawyers, etc. who have any interest in separating image rights from the original physical work of art. For their profit, the masses live in a silly no mans land.

Out of Stock Moose

--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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