January 24, 2011 by pmelcher.

It’s started when Royalty Free wanted to find an easier way to price images. Someone, somewhere ( history forget his/her name) suggested that images should be priced according to size. A bit like a bag of potatoes .  The bigger size, the more expensive.

Back in the late 90’s, that made perfect sense. To use a photograph in print, you needed a bigger size than for web usage.  And , since websites were poor experiments, that was fine.

Fast forward to 2011 :  Microstock , the irreverent child of Royalty free, has full embraced it’s elder’s pricing structure. A small file size is cheaper than a big file size.

That would be fine if the market had remained the same; But , it hasn’t.  With more than 14 million units sold in 2010, the Ipad has kicked wide open the door of publishing. At the recent CES ( Consumer Electronic Show), no less than 80 different tablets were announced. In the mean time, print is slowly choking under the combined weight of its rising costs and  growing irrelevancy. Websites are now starting to suck all available resources, including budgets.

In other words, the market for images is going 100 % digital. Which means that publishers, advertisers, designers need much smaller files. For example, an Ipad image needs to be 1028 pixels on the large size, at 130 dpi. No more. That means the markets is going to need more and more of the smaller files. You know, those that cost the less. To the point that the larger files, the XXL’s, might never get sold anymore.

Since Royalty Free ( microstock included) has made the wrong assumption that smaller image files were always going to be a marginal market, they are entering this new market totally under priced. They are practicality giving away the small file sizes in order to attract visitors.

If they were smart, they should reverse their pricing scheme. Make the large files the cheapest. But, for various reasons, that would never work. One of the most obvious reason would be that no one would understand why bigger is cheaper ( or smaller is more expensive). That is just not the way we think.

The second irony  is that cameras are also producing larger and larger files  while the market for images needs smaller and smaller files.

It is just a mistake to beleive that only editorial images are being affected by this shift to digital usage. Advertising will follow where publishers are going , as well as brochures, books and practically  everything else. Even billboards will end up fully digital. It is just a question of time.

The challenge of the next five years will be how to re invent the pricing structure in order to take full adavantage of this new demand, not only in pricing but delivery methods.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, E Reader, magazine, license, Royalty free, editorial, finance, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

January 18, 2011 by pmelcher.

What has been the plague of social network might generate a tool that could become a standard for image licensing on the web. A German company has announced that is about to unleash a software that will automatically make an image posted on the internet inaccessible after a certain time.

The idea behind X-Pire is to allow people to post images of “that party last night” for everyone to enjoy for a month after but then make them disappear so that those incriminating pictures of you will not appear 10 years from now. We all make mistakes, don’t we ?

The system is quite simple : you drag your image via a software that tags it with a code and an expiration date . Once online, that image is linked to a database that holds this information. Once the date has expired, the image is no longer visible. Pretty straightforward.

For image licensors, like agencies or photographers, that could be a great tool. You license an image online for one month, let’s say, and after that time period, it is no longer visible. If the client wants more, he pays accordingly and you can reissue a time based license.

During the period when it can be seen, the image can be copied without the embedded key. Thus, It will not prevent the image from being used maliciously elsewhere, although they could certainly tweak the system to do so.

For now, this system, entirely geared for Social network users, is per a subscription model ( 3 months = 6.99 Euros) .

Not sure who will use it : You have to be the one posting the image in order to use it: Who really posts damaging images of themselves, even with a time limit ?

However, with a few tweaks, this could be the basis of a strong system to license images online, even automatically. A website would come to your site, select the image it needs, put it the time it needs it for and download the hi- res before posting it. In the background, your top of the line website will have inscribed the time limit key inside the image. Once the license expires, poof, the image is gone.

This could revitalize the RM  ( rights managed) model in exciting new way. Another step closer to reaching the “intelligent image“.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, Social Media, copyright, license, editorial, filter, Search, Royalty free | Print | No Comments »

January 13, 2011 by pmelcher.

Strangely enough, the future of photography is in curation. With the onslaught of images invading the web in an ever growing pace, the task of finding the right image is becoming more and more arduous.

Strangely, because it is mostly in the editing department that companies are making cuts (pun intended) . The recent trend has been to let go of talented photo editors and curators, in favor of poorly designed algorithms , crowd-controlled selections or freshly out-of-internship semi-volunteers.

One would think that for website boasting millions of images, the ability to get to the right one would be a priority. But, because of the sheer volume, it has become  almost impossible to  have it done by human. While sites like Flick ( billions of images) rely on a sophisticated secret sauce of “rules” that allow certain images to bubble up, others, like microstock companies, rely on penny paid armies of humans spread out across the world. Still, the results is overwhelming.

For now, the burden is on the searchers. They are now the curators forced to push their way past irrelevant images to find the right one. It can be paralyzing .

Thus, the next step is to deliver the right image to the right person without them having  to cut through pages and pages of sub par or irrelevant images.Because the volumes have become inhuman, the solutions offered are also inhuman : Each company are intensively trying to develop their own Google like algorithm  that will  magically extract the correct result. Is it working ? no. will it work, maybe.  None, however, has thought to hire professional photo editors that could create a highly edited collection of perfectly selected images : The best of breed.

However, that would solve a lot of problems. Sure, there would be less choice. However, there would be much, much better results. See, the “Long Tail’ theory has polluted the photo industry in making people think that the more you offer, the more chance you have to be successful. A bit as if your local supermarket decided to carry everything ever made. Sure it could be appealing but could you imagine the size? Even Walmart decides what to carry and what not to carry.

Algorithms can not only be beaten, ( Google is constantly changing theirs) but they tend to create averages. Actually, they look for conformity. Thus promoting more of the same .Crowd sourcing ? well, that is also a source of average conformity. Crowd photo editing site like Fotopedia or Acquine  are a good example of the results you get :  Middle of the road images that everybody likes or that no one hates. Not really the curation that is so badly needed.

In order to different itself from the masses of camera crazy photo enthusiast, the photo industry needs to stop trying to compete with Flickr and its offering and start heavily editing its content for perfect results. It needs to reach out to those incredibly knowledgeable photo editors that the publishing industry has dropped and tell them to work their magic.

The future of photography business lies in its ability to continue to be a medium of excellence . For that, it needs to shed its goodenough branches in favor of its prettiest blossoms .

Posted in magazine, license, technology, commercial stock, Good Enough, Social Media, Search, web 2.0, editorial, Royalty free, photojournalism, flickr, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

January 6, 2011 by pmelcher.

Right on the heels of the decision made by Judge William H. Pauley of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York in the Morel VS AFP case ( read all about here ) , things are heating up. According to a press release published by photoarchivenews , news photo agency WENN has made a deal with photo sharing site, PIXLI.

Hold on tight here as things could get complicated. According the succinct press release : “Celebrity photo agency WENN has announced an exclusive worldwide arrangement with the social photo sharing service PLIXI, to represent images posted by celebrities through their platform to Twitter and other social networks.”

PLIXI ( ex Tweetphoto) is a TWITPIC wannabee.  That is, anyone that would like to post an image to TWITTER would have to upload it here before, as Twitter does not host images. There are many sites like these ( yfrog, twitgoo, mobypicture, or img.ly). As per their site, PLIXI is also a member of Celebuzz, a division of BUZZMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT, a deal recently sealed ( November 2010). BUZZMEDIA is in the business of Celebrity news blogs and properties ( more info here).

Still with me here? you can take a break if you would like. I’ll wait.

Ok, what is important to retain here is that they are all in the celebrity news business with a heavy  penchant for photography. Except PLIXI, who happens to host a few celebrity Twitter photo accounts.

So, if you are a celebrity and you or someone uploads an image on your account, WENN becomes de facto the exclusive worldwide licensor of those images.  As the PLIXI Terms of Service specify :

With respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of Plixi, the license (with the right to sublicense) to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content, whether on the Service, or through other media. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Plixi removes such Content from the Service; provided, however, that if Plixi distributes or authorizes distribution of any Content prior to your removal thereof from the Service, Plixi’s (and it’s sublicenses’) rights with respect to such Content shall be in perpetuity.

Yes, in perpetuity, even if you don’t like it.

There is no mention of compensation to the photographer or celebrity. However, you can be sure that Plixi will certainly retain a part of the WENN obtain license fee.

It’s a smart move for both companies. WENN secures itself intimate photo feeds of celebrities while PLIXI generates revenue and publicity. The question is whether the celebrities will continue to use the service knowing  this. It will also be interesting to see if AFP or Getty makes the same deal with TWITPIC after the Morel fiasco, enabling them to legally license images from anyone.

The irony is that Twitter, the company that makes all this possible, does not see a penny.

Ok, you can go outside now and breath.

Posted in magazine, celebrity, technology, Tweet, Social Media, copyright, license, transaction, editorial, finance, prosumer, web 2.0, getty | Print | 2 Comments »