Major stock photo player, Getty Images, has announced a new plan allowing photographers to place images on their site for two years. It’s a basic pay-to-play arrangement. But I’m not upset about this. I’m not even the one who is upset.
After the announcement by Getty about their new program, many industry newsgroups had a flurry of actvity about this subject. On one list that I subscribe to, a photographer who sells his images through microstock was expressing his outrage about the thought of being charged to place images in Getty’s files.
It’s not too often I reply to posts on this one particular list, but in this instance I felt compelled. My basic reply was along the lines of:
You’re already giving Getty an 80% commission and allowing clients to have the unlimited commercial use of your image forever for a few dollars max, and your upset because Getty has identified you as a profit center and wants to take more money out of your pocket?
Amazing.
Beside, paying for agency placement started more than 15 years ago when agents were producing large print catalogs for distribution to buyers. One by one, many realized that they could get photographers to pay anywhere between 50 – 100% of the cost, sometimes in the range of hundreds of dollars, for an image to appear in a single catalog. And in what was one of the very high rungs of the spiral ladder downwards, photographers were happy to pony up the dollars for the chance to have their images seen in print.
There’s nothing like a little sarcasm to start off the morning. POP once had an article about people who earned a living from microstock. The magazine is often a funny read while at the library or newsstand.
This is nothing new at Getty.
The “Photographer’s choice” program was the same, except that the fee was $75/year (if I remember), and, main difference, you had to be otherwise already accepted by Getty.
At the beginning of that program, returns for the photographer were good enough that Pickerell urged Getty photographers to submit the maximum number of images allowed.
My understanding is that diulation as lowered the RPI, yet with above average images the new program should still be more profitable for photographers than microstock.