The old whore

October 29, 2010 by pmelcher.

You know what’s funny ? I’ll tell you what’s funny. By continuing to put so much financial pressure on photographers and photography, the media will loose it’s source of imagery .

With declining space rates and assignment rates, increasingly obscene rights grabbing bordering on copyright infringement, unacceptable usage agreements and overall disrespect of the photography trade, publishers are literally pushing the photo industry to look for new revenues, and respect, somewhere else.

Already photo agencies like VII with news and X17 with celebrity have entered the publishing arena in direct competition to those who used to be their best clients. Others are aggressively investigating how to license images to the million of blogs worldwide while others, like Black Star for example, have left the editorial world almost entirely in favor of the greener pastures of the corporate world.

Independent photographers do not bother approaching publications  anymore for assignments and have long gone with either NGO’s or Foundations. Even new technology companies like Mediastorm already make most of their revenue from foundations/NGO’s. We talk a lot about the desertification of entire regions of the world, soon we will see the same happening in the editorial landscape: Magazines, whether on Ipads or not, filled with nothing more than text and lonely generic images. Textbooks forced to use the same images over and over because there are no more “image suplliers”, preferred or not. Not far is the day when, calling on the phone, a photo editor will hear over and over” Time magazine who ?”.

It is not the will of anyone in the photo trade to cease doing business with publishers. However, the business conditions are becoming so unbearable that they have no other choice than to look elsewhere for revenue. And overall respect.

There will always be photographers because it’s not a job, it’s a passion. But like any passion, it needs to be fed with substantial income. In it’s short history, photography has had a strong love affair with the editorial world. Now the editorial world is treating it’s favorite mistress as an old whore. The bond is being broken.

However, it is not like photogrpahy doesn’t have anywhere else to go to be treated as a princess again. The internet has opened new revenue streams and while it is still a wild west, it promises a lot of new beginning. A lot of new love stories.

There is really no logical reasons for this change in attitude. Publishers have seen a lot of pressure on their industry, certainly, but none brought forth by photography. However, if circulation goes down, it’s photography that pays the rough price. Cuts are made, because, unlike electricity, it is deem unessential for the survival of a magazine. Almost as if, completely rid of the cost of photography, a magazine or book would actually do better. Well, soon, that might just become reality.

With licensing fees coming close to insulting, there will be no one to take those images anymore. No one to shoot wars, politics, archeology or even movie premieres. No one left to service them with their needs. Just an obscenely huge amount of crowd generated images of everything that doesn’t really matter. Pretty, certainly, but of no interest. It will be cheap, but useless.

For now, the old whore still clings to its lifelong lover in the hopes of a change of mind. But for how long?

And yes, you are right, it’s not that funny after all…

Posted in magazine, celebrity, technology, Newsweek, Good Enough, license, mediastorm, finance, editorial, TIME, Search, multimedia, news | Print | 3 Comments »

French salsa

October 28, 2010 by pmelcher.

Seems like all the news is coming from France these days. You would think they were all out in the streets protesting against having to work two more years, O but no, they are actually busy. Well Getty Images is busy.

Via a grandiloquent press release, they have just announced the distribution of the Gamma - Keystone collection for the whole world, besides France. For those of you who were not paying attention, Gamma Rapho Keystone used to be called Eyedea no longer than a year ago before sinking into bankruptcy. After weeks, months of negotiation, the discovery of a trust fund, alliance and dis-alliances, the liquidators managed to find a buyer in the  person of  Mr Lochon. Ex-photographer from Gamma in the 80’s, Lochon used his personal money to buy the company with the promise he would resuscitate it from the dead.  His plan ? Well, give it to Getty Image. As if Getty needed more content to distribute.

It’s a great deal for Getty. They didn’t have to buy anything thus no risks of being investigated for monopoly . They don’t have to scan, edit, or deal whatsoever with cranky mostly french photographers. Just sell the images and keep a cut . If they don’t sell anything, well, they don’t care, they haven’t spend a dime. For Lochon and Gamma - Keystone ? Well, not so good. Getty already has the Hutlon-Deutch archives ( some 80 million  images) as well as  what is left of Archive Images; Both trump Keystone historical content in size and content. Gamma’s content ? Well, it all depends on what gets scanned and how well.

The reason this deal went through ? Probably because Getty was to only one to ask. It is doubtful that AP or Reuters even approached Gamma Rapho . Corbis, freshly out the of dubious bankruptcy of Sygma, will probably never deal with anything French for centuries to come. What happens next? Little to nothing. Getty is now apparently in an aggressive strategy to represent as much content as possible, if only to take it out of its competition hands.

On a related note, the director of the French office of Getty Images continues in the tradition of making false statements when he proudly announces that Getty was the first agency to license an image online in 1995 . He’s got a good excuse, he wasn’t at Getty at the time so he’s just repeating what his corporate communicator told him to say. Finally, the real amusing part is that his portrait used to illustrate the article is credited “DR“. At least there is one constant : Corpocrates will remain corpocrates.

Posted in transaction, photojournalism, Corpocrates, editorial, france, corbis, law, getty | Print | 2 Comments »

DR.

October 27, 2010 by pmelcher.

While the French are busy protesting about how many years it will take them to retire, the French Parliament is about to also pass a law governing orphan work.

Up to now, a publication could just slap the credit “DR” ( Droits Reserves: Right reserved)  under an image and ignore any licensing fees. This worked well when those images were handouts send out by publicist for promotion. However, in the last few years, the practice has extended to any and all images where a credit was not immediately identifiable,regardless if a search for the copyright owner was done or not.

Since no legislation was in place, it became  a common practice, some using it to avoid paying for any fees at all. Not so anymore. The law will define how and when DR can be used, as well as creating an organization whose role will be to monitor and collect licensing fees to redistribute to legitimate copyright holders. It will receive the money for usage when the copyright owner cannot be immediately found and will have up to 10 years to redistribute the funds to the owner. If never found, the money will then go to help a project involved in helping photography.

The Union des Photographes Professionels, the main union of independent photographers in France is 100 % behind the bill.

This bill could be a good example for the United States to follow while it still awaits a resolution on it’s own Orphan Work legislation.

Posted in copyright, commercial stock, license, transaction, france, law | Print | No Comments »

PixSlum

October 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

Is Pixpalace involved in price fixing ? On a recent email send out by the company last week, Pixpalace, an online aggregation of photo agencies content similar to Newscom, asked it’s suppliers to agree on prices so it would be easier for publishers to purchase images. The intent is noble, the result is horrific.

Pixpalace has been trying to breach into the content aggregator market in the USA for a couple years, with little or no success. While they have grown in the amount of suppliers they mash up, 86 photo agencies at the last count, they have yet to demonstrate that they are actually a beneficial service for this industry.

Plagued with numerous glitches ( the system has been hacked recently and thousands of images stolen), they have also found that publishers in the United States are not  attracted to these type of platforms. One possible reason:

Any photo agency can sign up to add their images, including foreign photo agencies ( non US based) . The result ? a huge mish mash of doubtful quality with sub par metadata, often in a foreign language. Like Newscom, it has become a huge photo dumping ground where anything goes. Not really a resource/time saver for anyone.

Now, probably pushed by book publishers always looking for discount volume pricing, they are trying to convince their current 86 suppliers to agree to similar pricing. Armed with an Excel that appears to have been directly edited out of Getty images online price calculator, they strongly suggest for everyone to fall in line.

There is a lot of issues with the pricing and the rights that Pixpalace is suggesting everyone accepts, not the least is that price fixing is illegal in the United States. It also prices, for the exact same usage, commercial stock photography at four times higher than editorial . According to them, a photograph of a couple walking on the beach has four times the value of a picture taken of the war in Afghanistan. Wow.

It also treats, how quaint of them, digital rights  as a side thought of print publishing.

Pixpalace had the same issue in France, it’s country of origin. After being a succesful trading platform, it’s started getting involved in the pricing of the images they hosted, leading to the violent departure of it’s top suppliers and the creation of a competing platform, this time owned by photo agencies themselves.

There is a good chance that all of PixPalace suppliers who are not based in the USA will agree as they do not know the US market, creating a ” price dumping” situation and forcing others to follow in order to survive. There is a good chance that the no one will investigate the process for alleged price fixing. Finally, there is a good chance that  this will damage even more the marketplace thanks to a combination of ignorance, greed, incompetence and blindness, attributes that seem more and more frequent in the photo industry world.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, license, transaction, france, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

Beyond Metadata

October 20, 2010 by pmelcher.

We have been advocating the emergence of the “intelligent image” here for many years.  Images that are able to call back home to deliver pertinent data, images that can automatically find their way to the expecting viewers, images that can self edit according to viewership and a lot more.

Some aspects are already in circulation in one form or another. Companies like Fotoglif or Embedanything, for example, already allow licensors to track number of visits on a published image and eventually reap revenues from associated  advertising.

Daylife, partly owned by Getty Images, allow sites to bypass photo editors and have images edit themselves based on surrounding content.

Now, thanks to a company called Netbat ( What’s with all the horrible stupid names ?),  images can be linked to any and all relevant information, thus making them even more informative.

The process is simple. When a image is published, it is also populated with links for more information on the subject, being at Youtube, Wikipedia, or any other sources. Thus the image becomes the starting point for a relevant web-wide search on the topic.

 The company apparent business plan is to sell that search link space to advertisers so that topic/subject can be linked to a brand. Already Pepsi has signed up. Instead of advertising on random images, netBat can make sure a brand is always associated to a personality or a topic and nothing more/less. It’s not a big surprise as the parent company of netBat is in the business of selling celebrity endorsement. But that is not what is interesting here.

What is interesting here is how, once again, a company from outside the photogrpahy space, find another way to monetize images . While countless of photo agencies and independent photographers are moaning and bitching about the declining space rates/ day rates  / whatever rates being offered in the traditional licensing space, other companies are hard at work in redefining paying usage of photography.

NetBat, like Pixazza, another image monetizing company (this one partly owned by Google), has no intention of splitting revenues with image licensors. For them, once an image has been licensed by a publisher, the licensor is out of the profit sharing scheme.

Thing is, photo agencies should be the ones offering these services to their clients, not third party companies. It would make sense for a photo agency to offer a tool like NetBat that would allow visitors to go  beyond the metadata.  To transform their offering to a vast array of option that are up to pace with current and upcoming technology.

Currently, besides having painfully switched from analog to digital, none are being pro active in redefining image delivery and licensing. Some have timidly put a toe into third party initiative but none have taken a full plunged into uncharted territory.

We are not saying netBat will be a success. Actually, it is so heavy, it is doubtful it will ever be. However, the idea of helping viewers to go beyond the image is a great concept. One that fits perfectly  with the unstoppable maturing of photography into an intelligent experience that can take you places far beyond it’s current solitary confinement.

Posted in copyright, celebrity, magazine, technology, license, Search, transaction, finance, photojournalism, google, editorial | Print | 2 Comments »

The Caveman Dilemna

October 14, 2010 by pmelcher.

“You want to save it, you should niche it”. From old timers stock gurus to young green microstock expert, they all tell the same tale of potential success : dig yourself into a deep hole where no one else can reach you and stay there. Shoot stuff no one else shoots and bark if they approach. If you can, trademark your subject so no one else can do it.

It’s not about being successful as a photographer anymore, it’s about protecting your turf, like a suburban owner protects his patch of lawn from his neighbors. It’s the typical bourgeois mentality. In face of adversity, retreat and protect. Would you like a pair of well trained Doberman with that ?

Problem is, you do not own your subject. You do not own your clients . You do not own anything ( well, besides your equipment). So there is nothing to protect.

In Microstock, more than anywhere else, clients belong exclusively to the platforms. Contributors have no clue who they are selling to, or why.  In more traditional markets, sales report still carry some information on the licensor. However that is diminishing too. So, tell me, if you do not know who your clients are, what your market is, how can you niche yourself ?

By trial and error ? Sure. Another problem, is that, mostly in microstock, it is very easy to see what works. Makes that niche even more so attractive to others. Quickly.

The commercial stock market has decided to walk on its head. It used to be that photographers would shoot what they loved and sell that. Some, very, very well. That worked well, especially since no one had really any clue what the other was shooting, except by seeing what was being published. Now, everybody can see everybody else’s body of work, especially the vast quantity of what never gets sold. So, instead of shooting what they love, they shoot what has not been shot. They search for a niche, like miner search for a vein.

Let’s say you find a niche. Then what ? How do you find your clients? Since you are the only one with these images, they will find you ? Is that the thinking ? The “field of dreams” marketing strategy ?

Images don’t market themselves ( at least, not yet) . Those images you see going viral are the exception, not the rule. They are billion of images just on Flickr and you think your images will stand out ? because they are rare ? Did you ever think, for one second, that they are rare because no one cares ?

Once you start leaving the crowded marketplace you certainly find less competition but also less clients. And that is what this whole “find a niche” counsel is all about : If you can’t sell what you have it’s because of the competition thus if you eliminate the competition by going where they are  not, you will be successful . It’s not by moving away miles away from Wal-Mart that you will beat them.

Here’s a niche you should try : talent. Shoot everything that everyone else shoots : with talent. No one can copy talent. You will be own out there, because clients will request your images, and no one else’s, regardless of what you shoot.

Leave the niches to those who like living in caves. Your specialty should be how you approach your subject, not your subjects.

Posted in license, commercial stock, Waste of time, Search, prosumer, Royalty free, flickr, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

Could be

October 13, 2010 by pmelcher.

Saw this today :

Idea is smart: Charge and download images at the same time. no wires. Problem : it seems to be entirely thought around the “family picture” market only and not for the pro or semi pro user. Furthermore, you seem to need a box that is linked to your TV. Now really ? who needs another box under the TV?

One step forward, two step backwards

Posted in Waste of time, Good Enough, technology, multimedia, No sense, slideshow | Print | No Comments »

Bring in the clowns

October 5, 2010 by pmelcher.

It’s not there yet but it is certainly starting to look like one. The Morel Vs. AFP lawsuit has all the ingredients of a circus stage, without the tent.

Morel, if you remember, shot some images of the earthquake in Haiti, put them of Twitter/Twipics, only to see them taken by AFP to be sold world wide. Both parties are now suing each other, provoking many public debates, to which we would love to add our voice.

To be a photojournalist is to be a witness.  Those who become the best of the best and pursue a life time career in photojournalism are driven by one passion that is stronger than photography: The urge to report what they see. Photography is only a vehicle to that passion.

Thus, how can one be surprised that a photojournalist would use social media ? It is a witness tool. Jean Francois Leroy, Kriegmaster of Visa pour l’image, self-proclaim Pope of Photojournalism,  has been decrying the lack of space in magazines devoted to these images. Yet, in an interview in the BPJ, he criticizes those who use social media as a vehicle for their images, including Morel. In a nutshell, he is happy Morel got his pictures stolen by AFP. That will teach him, and others, a lesson. He probably believes that photojournalism belongs only in the pages of magazines and in his Festival. Nowhere else. How so quaintly XX th century of him. Can someone hand him a computer and show him how it works ?

While Morel pavlovian’s reaction was to, of course, share his image with the world (Not AFP) via Twitter, it was also AFP’s duty to take that image and distribute it. Let me explain: Similar to a photojournalist, a wire service intravenous gut reaction is distribute images that show a news event. As quickly as possible. Not only because of the competition, but because of the urgency of breaking news, especially in the first few hours when little or no visuals are available. AFP did not take that image out of greed ( they are partly owned by the French government and will probably never go bankrupt). They took it out of duty. They, also, had to inform the world.

Morel and AFP were build to work together. They think the same way. Except, in this instance, they had not reach any agreement and both acted on instinct.  Who was right, who is wrong?

Let’s do an experiment. Put a table full a brand new Ipads in the street with a sign next to it saying ” Free, Take one”. Sit next to the table and wait. What will happen ? People will come to the table, read the sign, see you next to the table and ask you ” Can I take one ?”.

On the Internet, because no one is visible, no one asks anymore. You take. Everybody takes. No questions asks. Regardless if you have an contact info clearly marked. It’s a free for all. Especially photography. It is one of the most used asset of the internet, yet no one thinks they should pay for it, let along ask permission.

And this is where AFP is terribly wrong : Regardless of the terms and conditions of Twitter/Twipics, they should have asked. Common Courtesy.

They should have resisted their instinct and remain human : just ask for permission.

Instead, they turn to their sharks lawyer and desperately try to make a legal case of what should be a human courtesy case. The worst is that other photographers seem to take their defense and claim proudly ” The law is above human courtesy”. That is sad.

No “terms and conditions”, whatever they are, should prevent one company, one individual to politely ask another the permission to use a photograph. Ever. No one should hide behind these “Terms and Condition” and forget the most  basic laws of human interaction.  Especially if they have a common goal : Inform the world.

Considering the financial discrepancies between the two parties, it is quite obvious that AFP will prevail in this issue. That is the way law works in the  USA ( well, the world actually). The one who throws the most money on a trial wins. Laws are made for the rich and powerful. Quite frankly, it is not that important.

What is important is the role of social media and photojournalism. Twitter has been many times labeled as  the new journalism destination for breaking news ( see the Hudson plane landing, Iran,  Michael Jackson death, etc). It has become faster than news outlet, including the wires.  The confusion comes from misinterpretation of what social media is : A end product and not a distribution platform.

Morel, and many like him, use social media as a means to inform the world.  Morel posted pictures on Twitter/Twitpic for the world to see. AFP does not beleive that Twitter/Twitpic can do that properly. They still think  that, in order for the world to see these images, they had to go on the AFP wire.

What is important here is that AFP are, like JF Leroy and others, misunderstanding the role, the reach and impact of social media. Morel lives in the present, they live in the past.

Everything else is a comedy.

Posted in magazine, copyright, technology, Tweet, Corpocrates, Social Media, license, Search, editorial, law, transaction, wire service, photojournalism, news | Print | 1 Comment »