December 31, 2010 by pmelcher.

Feel small ?

From Gerald Holubowicz  Ebook : Sortir du Cadre (Think Wider) – Future of photojournalism.

(* for 2010)

Posted in magazine, license, technology, commercial stock, Social Media, web 2.0, prosumer, getty, corbis, editorial, flickr, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

December 29, 2010 by pmelcher.

Along with publications refusing to pay any additional licensing fees for Ipad usage, declining space rates, horrific day rates for assignments, the new trend in photography is the legal mumble jumble that now accompany  emails from researchers and photo editors looking for images.

Example ? sure :

” By agreeing to this request, you grant Microsoft a royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual license to use the Image on Microsoft’s MSN, Windows Live and/or Live Search websites, and you agree Microsoft’s use will not infringe the rights of others or give rise to any third party payments.  You agree this email is our entire agreement regarding this license, and merges all prior and contemporaneous communications. ”
More and more, photo agencies and photographers are receiving emails requesting specific images along with dictatorial usage terms.

“All requested photo licenses are for **Company Name** magazine and any digital replica thereo “.  What if you do not want your images on any “digital replica”

or you could get this along with a request for invoice :

” for editorial purposes on its web site now known as ****.com  and on its affiliated online services and to promote the editorial content in which the photo(s) are used, for the life of ***** Online for a fee of $xxx per photo, for a total fee of $xxxxx.  Please indicate your approval by  sending a return email approving the license request or sending an invoice for the above usage. This email exchange constitutes our entire agreement with respect to ****’s license for the photo(s) and supersedes any other agreement, discussions or terms regarding the photo(s). ”

Does that means that even if you had a contract or previous agreement with that company with different terms, should you reply by sending an invoice, all bets are off ??  If you invoice them you are screwed since it means you agree to these new terms, if you don’t you are screwed, as you will not get paid for your images. Nice.

We could go on and on with many variations of these.

( Disclaimer:) THE FOLLOWING IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. If you need legal advice, please contact an attorney directly. Do not go to court with my blog as it will get you nowhere, besides maybe in more trouble.

You should know that these “end of emails agreement” do not constitute a viable agreement. However, if nothing else was agreed upon in a more formal way, then it could be used as bidding terms. What does this mean ? Well, if you had not previously or afterwards agreed in a more formal way on the terms, then you should, immediately.  Have them agree to your terms.

What used to be an informal hand shake between two people or companies is now  turning into a legal tug of war between lawyer-obese companies and legally uneducated  photo agencies.

Posted in copyright, Corpocrates, license, transaction, editorial, law | Print | No Comments »

December 27, 2010 by pmelcher.

PicApp is no more.  Launched a little bit earlier than GumGum, PicApp was an image portal offering free images via an embed option in exchange for advertising. The idea was noble, in sort. It allowed for cash-poor blogs or websites to use images from major image providers,  like Getty Images, Splash or Newscom, for free. In exchange, photo agencies, as well as Picapp would share revenues made by clicks on adverting.

It didn’t work for many reasons :

It was impractical. If you found an image you liked on one of the photo agencies and wanted to embed it, you had to leave it and go to PicApp to do so. A bit if you went to a supermarket, decided to pay via credit card and they told you to leave the merchandise, leave the store and go somewhere to redo a search and finally pay the way you wanted.

It was competing against its own image providers. Instead of being a sales partner for those agencies who participated, they had to lure customers way from them in order to be succesful. However, not only the photo agencies have an advantages by having their credit along every image published but PicApp never really launched a marketing campaign. They were probably hoping for a  viral explosion.

The business model was flawed. People do not click on advertising embedded in images. They might click on the image, not on it’s advertising. Furthermore, PicApp had to go out and sell it’s advertising space. With little or no knowledge on who would see the ads and no prior experience in the business, it was also a failed task.

It never became open to users. The only images available were those of established photo agencies. A maybe wiser idea would have also allowed users to upload their own images  in order to seek revenue from them. Having your users participate in the growth of your services in exchange for money is now becoming the norm for any succesful web enterprise.

It never reached critical mass, if it does exist. The fundamental assumption of PicApp was that enough users would publish enough embedded images generating enough clicks to make it a viable business. Either via a few images embedded an obscene number of times or many, many different images published a few times.  There is not been any examples of any editorial images going viral. Photographs that go viral are mostly user-generated and have nothing to do with regular editorial coverage.  PicApp was hoping for some kind of  Google type of acceptance. It never got it.

The company is not dead . Instead, it has shifted it’s attention to offering on the fly slide shows to those who put up a snippet on their website. Their new offering doesn’t make their business model obvious but it seems that those slide show will soon have advertising on them.  It is also very unclear how participating photo agencies will benefit from this, if at all. They will now see their images available on websites who have  will have no need to officially request them. It is nice of these photo agencies to let PicApp experiment with their content until they find a viable business model.

GumGum, PicApp infamous competition, has been very quiet for a while. After getting some funding, they have disappeared into super stealth mode, also probably trying to figure out how to make money with the embedded image idea while they burn VC money.

The real issue with those PicApp, Gumgum type of companies,  is :

- They work as photo portal and have to take traffic away from photo agencies in order to be succesful

- They work a third party licensing system for photo agencies, taking a commission for every sale they perform

Thus they take a commission of every sale they take away from the image providers they work with .  How does that make any sense for a photo agency ?

Posted in celebrity, Plus, technology, license, Search, finance, web 2.0, keyword, editorial | Print | No Comments »

December 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

So you lost your job at a fancy newspaper and wedding photography is not you thing. Or you spend years behind a photo desk editing others’ pictures and you want in on the action. War is too far and too dangerous. Studio is expensive and tedious. Microstock is just that : micro. what’s left ? Well you heard over and over that the big dough is in celebrity so why not try that. Well, here is a little “how to become a paparazzi” DIY kit.

First, head on to California, where most of the celebrities live, at least the most notorious ones. Once you are settle, book a tour with ” Rolling With the Paparazzi”

as the website says :

Individuals have the opportunity to run with, rather than from the paparazzi, and see celebrities they otherwise wouldn’t have access to.  The new Rolling with the Paparazzi Tour takes you all around the city by car, so that as the tips come in, you can get there much faster than by running.

In the Rolling With the Paparazzi Tour, up to three people are teamed up with Rick Mendoza, a real-life paparazzi, for the Hollywood experience of a lifetime.

 “Rolling with the Paparazzi is available as a stand-alone tour for $150 per person for up to two people and $400 for three.The Rolling with the Paparazzi Tour is offered daily, with three-hour segments beginning at 8:00AM all the way until 10:00PM.”

After those 3 hours of basic lessons, you should have  a good idea on what to do. If still unsure, you still go to You tube and hit one of the hundreds of videos of paparazzi chasing celebs.

next, you should get a map of the stars and figure out where most live and hang out. Those maps are sold in the street of hollywood and for those who are map reading impaired, tours are organized that will actually show you where everyone lives . Some websites can be useful too.

Now, you need to know who is where when. Nottaproblema : website like Just spotted.com can help you with that . Using a combination of users tips and website searches, it delivers the recent location of whom you would like to search. You can also, if you like, just follow your target star’s Twitter feed. They sometimes reveal their location real time.

Finally, once you are all set up, you need to figure out how to price your images. Here to help you is a real quote from a top Pap agency :

……………………………………………………………….
100 Non + Exclusive Pics: $500/ month ($5/pic)
100 Non Excl ONLY: $400/ month ($4/pic)
250 Non + Exclusive : $750/ month ($3/pic)
250 Non Excl Only: $500/ month ($2/pic)
Unlimited Non + Exclusive: $2000/ month
Unlimited Non Excl Only: $1500/ month

 …………………………………………………………….

Now, go ahead , make millions !!

Posted in magazine, Tweet, Waste of time, celebrity, license, editorial, No sense, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

December 20, 2010 by pmelcher.

With more than 10 % of every internet visit going to Facebook and 25 % of pageviews in the USA, Facebook has, in 2010, shown to be a more powerful player than Google.

Sure, you can spend your days optimizing your website for Google search results until you are blue in the face, or until Google tweaks it algorithm yet again and you have to start all over again. Sure you can read or hire search gurus for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to show you the “hidden” tricks for SEO. Thing is, since they show everyone else, including your competition, it is not so secret anymore. It’s like everybody trying to climb the same ladder, at the same time, to be the first on top. For what ? Lots of clicks ? does that bring business?

It’s not because you throw you kite in a lot of wind that it will fly.

Problem with Google is that it’s google. It’s a search engine, not a reference tool.

In other other hand, you have millions of people connected via Twitter / Facebook / Linkedin , sharing what they like, and dislike, on a huge scales. Friends, colleagues, family telling each other : “look at this/that” ( sharing links is the number one activity on social media, by far). Why can’t your website become one of these links, with the added features of a friend reference ?

While your competition is still trying to climb the SEO ladder only to fall off a few weeks later, why don’t you explore the Social media jungle.

No, not by opening a Tweeter account and talking what you are eating. Besides your mom, no one cares. Neither by opening a Facebook page about your photography. The only friends you will get is those who already know you, or just want/have to be polite.  These are just time waster for both you and whoever has decided to follow/friend you.

Rather, become the fuel of Social Media. Become those links that everyone shares. Become what other people want to talk about. Make your site Social Media Optimized ( SMO).

Just think about it. After links, or very close, the most shared item on social media is : Photography .

Don’t you have both ?

Here you have the ability to get yourself a rather free market research along  with free ( and powerful)  referrals.

Sure, we could go here about what steps to take to make a site SMO. But this is not our purpose here, nor do we claim to be a guru of anything, beside common sense. Furthermore, since it is constantly evolving, there is no such things as rules. The same way you research your next photo shoot, research what could work. For you.

And you know what ? The more SMO your site is, the more SEO it will be.

Posted in technology, Social Media, multimedia, pictogram, web 2.0, slideshow | Print | 2 Comments »

December 10, 2010 by pmelcher.

The two sides of Getty Images :

Getty images : “we will drown you with our images”

Getty Images : Cool Year in review

Posted in multimedia, celebrity, photojournalism, slideshow, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

December 9, 2010 by pmelcher.

VII to Corbis is like Magnum to OnRequest and falls into the “what where they thinking ( drinking ?)” category. But hey, who are we to judge. If they think it’s better for their business then let’s give them a cheer. Up to now VII has always been quite savvy in their business decision so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt ( we couldn’t do that with Corbis, could we ?)

But, that is not the important part of this news. What is important here is what we had wrote about a few years back. More and more, producing photo agencies, those that have a sizable roster of  producing photographers have diminished their own internal sales team in favor of agreements with mega suppliers. Earlier, we saw what is left of Gamma drop all of it’s images into the hands of  Getty images. And we could go on with other examples.

Started mostly in the RF area , extended to Commercial Stock RM collection, it is now entering the editorial. The Wal Martisation of the photo industry. Here are the reasons :

- The full  automatisation of sales is not happening, not in  RM. As much as one could take pictures for an entire life without ever talking to a customer in the RF world, the RM world still needs a lot of hands on.

- As licensing prices are dropping worldwide, maintaining a human based sales force is more costly  and less profitable.

So, what does these small to medium photo agencies do ? They engage their collection with existing large to extremely large sales platform and distributors, like Getty, Corbis or AP who already have a huge sales force . These benefit from an economy of scale that the little ones cannot afford.

Thousands upon thousands of staffers that can answer phones, negotiate, discount, read endless contracts and optimize.

It is ironic that those who are responsible for the depreciation in the value of images are actually the ones benefiting from it. The more licensing prices fall, the more the Getty’s and other will see collection coming to them for sales distribution.

Until when? Until the market will be separated in two. The creators and the distributors. Small entities of photographers regrouped in common interest units on one side and large to extra large sales platforms on the other. It’s all benefit for the sales platforms since they have no cost of production to cover in their prices. Think Istockphoto. Think Wal Mart.

So, next time you see another agency sign up for sales distribution with one of the big ones, think how much photography will become concentrated in the hands of a few that will able to set any condition they feel would benefit them. And only them.

Posted in finance, photojournalism, license, commercial stock, transaction, editorial, Royalty free, getty, corbis, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

December 5, 2010 by pmelcher.

What we haven’t found yet is the core value of a photograph.

The value of an image is calculated based on its usage . Thus making it’s association with other elements the moment when a photograph changes from being a valueless entity to becoming valuable. Those element are well known.

- Support : Whether print or digital, it has to be part of self sustaining package that is sold as such.

- Context : it has to be within a very well define context that reinforces its message.

- It has to be pre sold. It’s audience is already familiar with its content before it reaches them.

Thus one could say that what gives value to an image is what is around it.

Well, that cannot explain why a photograph on a photographer’s website has no value . That is because what surrounds the image needs to have a value, like information. Only surrounded by information does a photograph has any value. Thus the information becomes the value.

Those come in three types:

The credit : little or no value, expect if the photographer has been able to position himself as a brand.

The metadata : Increases the potential for usage of the image. The more the caption contains information, the most likely the image will get used.

The context : Whether a brand, an article or the support itself. The catalyst to value.

Thus, one could easily say that a magazine, a book, or an ad gives the photograph it’s value. Thus making charging for usage of images a counter proposition. After all, if the surrounding elements give value to an image than the photographer should pay to have their images associated to them.

However, the image does the same for it’s surrounding. It enhances, multiplies and gives value to it’s surrounding. A news article with an image is more credible. A brand advertising with an image has much more convincing power. Why ? because we instinctively believe as being true what we see. The same cannot be said for text alone.

One of the the great disadvantage of a photograph is that it has to give up its principal value in order to be sold: being seen. One cannot license an image before it has been seen thus giving away its commercial attribute before it is sold. So one has to license something else that an image can provide. It’s ability to enhance a message, to render credible, to persuade.

Thus, what we license is not the image, but the image’s ability to add a convincing power to information.

How do we change where the value of the image resides back to the image itself ?

• By making the creator of the image a strong brand. Companies spend millions of dollars and years to make this happen. It’s almost out of reach to any creator.
• By destroying the current model and making it unbelievably hard for anyone other than creators to publish photographs. Not going to happen.
• By shifting who adds value to the image. Some photo agencies have started doing this with encouraging results.
• By creating images that cannot possibly communicate with any surrounding information. They exist. They are called scoops in editorial or works of arts. They contain all the information needed and thus could not gain any value with any associated information. The only possible value that can be added is distribution. The internet has almost render that obsolete.

Thus the core value exist. It has just be abandon. The culprit ? Mostly commercial stock photography that has strongly shifted the use of photography to an adjective rather than the noun. Those photographers do not try to create self sustaining images but rather images that will possibly enhance a external message.

That is why we have such a devaluation of photography. It has lost it’s ability to generate it’s own value.

Posted in keyword, license, commercial stock, photojournalism, finance, Royalty free, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

December 2, 2010 by pmelcher.

Here’s to the future of photography : yes the Ipad has launched and yes it seems that it is successful. The era of the tablet/ Ereader/touch computing, whatever you want to call it is upon us.

And yes, publishers from all over the world are jumping on the bandwagon and releasing their Ipad editions in droves. Most do not make more effort than just scanning their print edition into an electronic version. A repackaging of some sort. Others will add a bonus section here and there in order to make it appear like a new product. Others, finally,  have put a lot of thinking into what can be done and try to innovate.

And all that is fine, except for one important item. None will pay for additional usage of your images. Somehow, they have all decided that using your images on an Ipad should not be considered for an extra license fee . No, they say, it’s an” exact replica” (ya, right) so go to hell with your license fees. Or, they pay peanuts, (because peanuts is what we eat, us little photo squirrel) , saying, “well it is an experiment..we are not sure we will continue”. Ya right ( again). Didn’t we hear that before, at the emergence of websites ?

Here’s the deal : one one side, you have multi-million dollar companies who sit in 80 stories high skyscrapers and on the other, a multitude of mom and pop size store crammed in a closet space in  a shady back alley. The big guys come around and say; “we are going to launch a new product which our studies show will generate billions in new revenues for us and we would like you to give us a discount”.

C’mom, what do you say to such a juicy deal like that ?

The reaction ? well, for the first time in it’s history, photo agencies , who are fierce competitors, are talking to each other. They are even creating associations in order to stand united and strong against corporate bullying. Here, in the United States, EPAG ( Editorial Photo Agency Guild) was created and going strong. In Australia, a coordination is coming together, in Italy, a new association is born, the A.F.N.A. (Agenzie Fotografiche Nazionali Associate ). More will appear.

It is not the Spring of a new revolution and you will not see photo agencies walking the streets hand in hand waving the flag of freedom and liberty. It is just a reaction to what is perceived as unfair business practices. It is important for the future of photography, because  E readers will become the most used platform to read magazines in the very near future And thus, the majority of images used in an editorial manner will reside on these platform. If  photographs used on E Readers are not being compensated fairly then there is no future for editorial photography.

Zero, nada. None. Think about it: Website don’t pay enough and print will no longer be able to afford current prices.

So yes, as a platform, the Tablet/ Ereader/ touch computers show a lot of promise for photography. However, right now, it could be its doom.

( For those who like to know what to do, please contact your local organization or create your own. Do not fight the process but work with editors to find a fair and balanced agreement where images get rewarded their fair due. Engage in constructive dialogue. If anything, images used in Ipad should be compensated at the same level as if used in Print)

Posted in technology, E Reader, Corpocrates, magazine, celebrity, transaction, photojournalism, license, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »