July 15, 2008 by pmelcher.

The truth about your photo organizations is that they have either no idea what they are talking about or they have no idea  what they are doing. Either way, they are slowly becoming obsolete and useless.
Take PACA for example. The Picture Archives Council of America is preparing for its next “international” meeting to be held in New York sometime in October of this year. One of the panel they have organized for their members   is called ““What Role Will Technology Play With New Business Opportunities?”.
I had to read it twice. Does it say “will” ? Like in the future “will” ? Has anyone at PACA looked around and noticed what is already going on here and now ? How technology is running their business already. For an industry that currently runs 95% on technology ( it always did , by the way) it is a weird panel to have. But this is not the worst part.

The worst part is that they are “excited” to announce that they have secured the participation of  Ben London/Executive Director, Northwest, of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Now, I do not know this gentleman and I am sure he is a fine person but inviting the RIAA to explain what opportunities exists in technology is like asking a bear what to do in winter.

I wonder what went into the PACA committee’s collective brain who set that up : “lets find an industry that has completely missed the boat on new technologies and is currently gasping for air, for what they think about new technologies and opportunities ?”

I mean, makes complete sense, no ? The RIAA is now known worldwide for its smooth aptitude to deal with change and a prime example of what the photo industry should do. Let’s see what we can take from the RIAA lessons:

Do nothing and then sue everyone.
Desperately refuse the introduction of new technologies and stubbornly hold on to antiquated business models.
Install technology that alienates your customers so intensively that they prefer to break the law then license anything from you.
When desperation comes, jump on any new business model around and dramatically slash your prices ( think iTunes). Regret your decision 2 years later.
Keep on suing. Maybe that will cover the losses
Alienate you artists until they also leave you for new business models
Merge or die.

Rich (it is a very expensive proposition to attend this congress) and successful PACA members will come from the whole world to listen to this man explain how brilliantly the RIAA has handled technology and new business opportunities. And then, after a few drinks, when all is said and done, everyone will go home with the deep satisfaction that this was money well spend . Some will even dream of a potential merger of the RIAA and PACA,  strongly united against the advent of new technologies, new business models and plenty of lawsuits.

Mmm, I wonder why Getty Images decided to sponsor that one event ?

For the latest from PACA, please go here.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, CEPIC, PACA, getty, law, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

July 7, 2008 by pmelcher.

Barely waiting for the ashes of the CEPIC congress to cool down, Istockphoto descended on the island of Malta with a vengeance. In a quite ironical move, the microstock giant has picked the same location than the commercial stock industry association. The difference is that while one was only there to blabber endlessly about photography, the other supplied an opportunity for its contributors to mingle with each other and produce more images. Same place, same industry, two different approach.

Now, most people would react and think : all these photographers are shooting the same thing. What is the purpose? Well, those who have attended the Cepic congress before know that most of the agencies who participate in the congress also keep on trading the same images over and over : You represent me, I represent you, this guy represent us, we represent him, we all represent each other. One day, an agency will end up representing its own work without even knowing it, as it will come back through various representation under a different brand name.

So Istock has thousands of photographers shooting the same thing while traditional stock agency each all represent each other ad nausea. what is the difference ? As we know, volume, quantity, range, depth, millions are the buzz words of this industry, quickly followed by cutting edge, fast search, new website (always a new website), new servers, bigger files.

It used to be that grandad of this industry, Image Bank , claimed high and loud, with proudness and defiance, as badges of honor, the names of the photographers they represented . Today some Istock photographer are better known then any in the traditional world, most certainly the RF world. Lisa Gagne, Yuri Arcurs are better known than any JupiterImage photographers. Go ahead, name one…No, Banastock is NOT a photographer.

So who will criticize Istock for throwing a contributor lovefest in Malta?  Which commercial stock agency will dare throw the first stone, especially knowing that none have done anything equivalent. They throw sub agents lovefest,  a la self declared king of European stock, Alfonso Guieterrez of Age fotostock. Does any RM agency even know their photographers anymore ? I know RF do not, as they rebrand all their images under a theme rather than photographer. RF photo production reminds me of surrogate mothers. You pay someone to have your baby and then you never see them again.

Istock has innovated by creating a market for microstock . It has, however, not lost touch with who the creators are, probably because its founder was an ignored commercial stock photographer before. Lesson learned.

More on Malta Istock lovefest here

Posted in technology, commercial stock, Midstock, web 2.0, CEPIC, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

May 30, 2008 by pmelcher.

In a predictive move, Uber microstock giant Istockphoto, owned by Getty, is launching a contributor-wide call for exclusivity. The 6 top microstock companies share about 90 to 95% of their photographer, thus their content. In order to leave the pack, anyone of them should request exclusivity in order to offer their image buyers something the others do not have. With 1.4 downloads per second ( General Motors only sells a car every 3 seconds), Istockphoto is in a very good position to dry up the contributors pool by sucking them in an exclusive relationship.

Obviously they will offer a higher commission in order to make the offer appealing and help their contributor compensate for their possible losses. It seems, from the outside at least, that unlike the Long Tail theory would like us to believe, most of the microstock sales comes from a pool, rather large, of the same contributors. Otherwise, Istock would have not bothered doing this move. If Istockphoto can take them out of the rest of the market they will certainly make their competition suffer,  a lot. They will also make it even more difficult for new companies to enter the microstock field, at least with pertinent content.

The reaction from competitors will be interesting to watch . They could go down the same path, declaring an exclusion war that will leave most contributors baffled and confused. One aspect of RF, and a strong one, is its non-exclusivity.Why be exclusive with a product that is sold on a non exclusive basis? After all, isn’t a big part of the microstock game in volume and not on a per image sale. Will an exclusivity with Istock generate enough sales to compensate those lost by leaving its competitor ?Only if a huge amount of contributors decide to make the move simultaneously forcing image buyers to follow them. If 6 or 7 photographers decide to pull out their images from other platforms, there will be not effect. If thousands do so, then image buyers will have no other choice to go where the choice is. Either way, Istock cannot loose.

Some contributors might, however.

And for those who are still confused on how successful microstock is, this traffic ranking from Alexa should help them visual it:

Even Getty Images, with all its fire power cannot even come close to Istock and barely makes it over Dreamstime. Corbis and Jupiter don’t even have a chance. As traditional stock companies continue their stop loss policies, as beautifully explained by Julia Dudnik Stern in Chasing Lost Business Ignores New Markets on sellingstock.com ( subscription only), they fail to understand that they are fighting the battle in the wrong battlefield.

Ever thought why most microstock companies are not attending CEPIC, PACA and BAPLA congress ?

Posted in alexa, technology, commercial stock, Jupiter, CEPIC, getty, corbis, PACA, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

May 23, 2008 by pmelcher.

Just imagine. Just imagine if a company like Google, or Yahoo, or even Microsoft put their hand on microstock and social photography. Not only Istockphoto projections of $171 million revenue within a few years would be pulverized into unknown heights but it would be the end of both RM and traditional RF forever.

Why ?, you might ask. Simple. Right now, the only reason Istock is not growing faster is its lack of reach compared to better known sites like Google. Given that firepower, there is absolutely no reason why the whole market not tip over into a microstock Tsunami.  Let’s face it, Rights Managed is a badly protected island. And part of its protection came from the purposely shallow amount of choice. A lack of choice is what makes  RM potentially valuable, or what others call “bleeding edge” photography. Thus, out of a pool of 10 images, it is important to secure exclusivity. Out of a pool of millions, who cares?

Furthermore, it would be so simple to “retire” an image automatically for a higher price, thus making that image exclusive by automation.

Why would anyone  consider putting their images anywhere else than on Google Stock ? Already, everyone, from photographers to photoagency are taking night courses in  SEO to pump up their ranking. Most will buy huge amounts of adwords. If Google opens the gates and starts welcoming images in order to license them, there will be no holding back. From no one. It would be an act of suicide not to be part of it.  And since microstock pricing has now set the tone for commercial usage pricing, everyone will seek the low-priced volume sale. And, besides the user generated sites, no one will survive.

RF would quickly become  standard and no one would even bother with any other of those complicated and boring licensing  models. The only way for agencies and photographers to survive will be to jump, or stay, on the assignment peak. Those who have created a market for their photography, their personal work ~ the way professional photography first started~will continue to be untouched by this whole stock mess.

Not sure this will happen ? Well, think about it. Why did Getty go private ? and more important, why do you think someone paid $2.5 billion for it ? So it can watch it grow slowly like a small pet kitten ? Not their style. And what do you think will happen when Newscorp, Google, Yahoo, AOL and others feel they have managed to control most of the channels. What will be their next target to increase their appeal to advertisers ? Content, you said ? Indeed. By having the most compelling content, eyeballs will be attracted. And who has the highest volume of well targeted eyeballs will sell the most ads. Like it used to be with the TV network. But this next battle is happening online and will include stills.

Hopefully, some will stop asking me why I think this industry has not yet seen the worst ( or best) of it. Why there is no more reasons to attend Cepic or PACA congress. The waters are retreating already and I am no fool.

Posted in google, Midstock, technology, commercial stock, web 2.0, CEPIC, Royalty free, getty, transaction, PACA, Microstock | Print | 4 Comments »

April 1, 2008 by pmelcher.

How many times will  members of this industry get together and talk about IPTC, keywording and other metadata. How many meetings, conferences, synopsis, “get togethers”, panels, parties, does it take ? Both the ASPP conference in Arizona and CEPIC in Malta have scheduled hours long conferences on this subject. Again. The one in CEPIC is 8 hours long !!!

It used to be that the IPTC was a small geeky association of nerds looking into how to standardize metadata in images. It has now become the most sought-after organization. More than the dying PLUS coalition.

The amusing part is that none of the attendants are keywording their own images. They have staff people to do that. Furthermore, none of the companies that offer this service are on the panels( JaincoTech, Keedup, OnAsia Digital, Etc) They would know better, wouldn’t they?  Instead, you have marketing managers or agencies owners sitting in stuffy rooms, vaguely writing notes while waiting for the suffering to end until they can finally get a free drink at the evening’s cocktail party.

At a time when the temple of controlled vocabulary  ( the Library of Congress) has decided to pull out from its antiquated method of keywording by putting 4,000 of its images into Flickr and ask for crowdsourcing wisdom, the photo agency world is wasting time and money into desperately trying to impose a standardized form of controlled vocabulary. Some probably spend more time and money on attending these panels than they do in a whole year of marketing.

The aim, apparently, is to define a series of code words that could be transported from one databank to another and yield the same results. Thousands of them. Same keywords. Wether they are related to the real world is irrelevant as the priority is to standardize and eventually give photo buyers a book on which word to use and how. And then what, have university offer a degree in photo researching, transforming photo buyers into bonified librarians? It is bad enough that some “photo editors” have no visual experience, it gives me the shivers to think what would become if this would happen.

There are few misconceptions here :

Language, unless dead, evolves all the time. Even dictionary publishers worldwide know  as they add and delete words every year.  Who uses “walkman” anymore ?

Keywording is not a marketing tool:  A bad or irrelevant  image well keyworded is still a bad image. It will not sell.

Controlled Vocabulary does not include local cultures. If it does, than it cannot be controlled anymore. It is arrogant, pedant and quite simply foolish to even believe that one controlled vocabulary can and will apply to the whole world.

A word is not a definition. It is only a description. It takes many words to skim the surface of what an image is. Thus keywording should be an accessory to search, not its main engine.

In the long term, keywording will die. Already, there are other emerging ways to search for images : visual, color, face recognition, similar, pattern recognition. In the text world, there is even semantic search, which allows you to search by meaning instead of exact match.

Google images, which everyone sees as the ultimate “find me tool” does not even index IPTC.

They say insanity is repeating the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. Seems to be that the photo industry is banging over and over on the same door and it will just not open.

The solutions ? Exactly what the user generated content agencies are doing. Let the keywords be offered by the source . They shoot, they keyword. And they keyword well because they are using an everyday vocabulary that the buyers are also using. A vocabulary that changes and evolves all the time. A vocabulary that is not “controlled”. Organized chaos.

Or follow the giants. Getty, which you never see at these repeated panels, as well as AP, Reuters, Corbis and others, have hired outside companies to do their keywords. Because it is not their chore business and do not feel it necessary to have a full time dedicated team of librarians. They seem to prefer selling images rather than cataloguing them.

It would be an interesting exercise to calculate how much time was wasted in “perfectly” keywording images that never sold in some of the medium or smaller agencies that seem to be obsessive about doing in house keywording .

Would it be more interesting for these congress, meetings, conference to have a panel about how to make great pictures that sale ?

Worst that could happen would be a few hours looking at great image.

Posted in keyword, Search, Plus, Zymmetrical, google, flickr, corbis, PACA, CEPIC, getty | Print | No Comments »

March 31, 2008 by pmelcher.

While photographers trade organization are wasting their time fighting issues like the Oprhan Work bill in order the save whatever they have left, and while photo agencies association seem violently silent, the world of editorial continue its downfall.

According to Radaronline, Newsweek magazine got rid of 111 staffers last week ( didn’t even know they had that many)  and the newspapers of America had the worst ad revenue in its 50 years history, according to E&P.Worst than the 2001 slump. While analysts seem to confuse Getty going private with Getty shutting down, it is quite obvious that the tide is retreating before the big hit.

As previously written here, the editorial world will loose its dailies and weeklies in favor of the internet. It is not a question of if, but when. Monthlies will continue to thrive as long as they keep away from time sensitive news. The old ways will not continue.

While this continues, photographers and agencies will continue to bear the heaviest load as they will be asked to support the biggest part of theit cost saving initiative. A lot of companies will sink with the ships they will be trying to save. Those who will survive are those who are, today, turning to the new market. Companies, like Getty, that have understood that the future is on the Internet and create for themselves opportunities to be competitive.

Istockphoto, and other micro/midstock agencies are a good example of internet savvy photo agencies. Lean, mean, fast, cost effective companies that have learned to both cut their costs and leverage technology to its fullest. They can reach wide and far accross the world and up and down the client ladder. Others have jumped into new licensing models like Gumgum which  allows them to operate like a microstock on but a RM model.

The issue will be the relenvency of content. Currently, the internet is replicating the print editorial world. Some are adding video or multimedia, but it is still very linear. But that will change too as “born in the internet” art directors will re -invent  the web page and how we consume our news. Photographers will and agencies will have to reinvent their offering to match it.

Getty, by going private, will certainly take advantage of this new situation. They have already by acuiring Istockphoto. The celebrity photo agencies have also initiated the switch by producing videos and embrassing new licensing models. Others will probablly decide that book publishing, exhibits, grants are a better way to go and try to carve a controlled market. But, with schools already using Wikipedia and other National Geographic sites as references, how long will this market survive?

More technology based solutions are peeking out of the horizon that can help this industry  make a succesful transition. It is, a little, heartbreaking to see how slowly they are being ignored by the guardians of the old temple who beleive that saving what they have is better than growing in new markets.

Posted in copyright, license, Midstock, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, gumgum, Zymmetrical, multimedia, TIME, editorial, news, getty, transaction, CEPIC, photojournalism, msnbc.com, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

March 11, 2008 by pmelcher.

This industry is whacked. Definitely, positively, completely and definitely. While some industry commentators are desperately trying to get attention to their new pricing guidelines in a last , useless effort to save the RM model, others have just thrown sanity up in the air.

Most commercial stock companies are still around, not because they are doing good, but because their operating cost are low. Like the store around the corner. No big revenue, but then again, no big cost. And that could last forever. Once a year, they all meet up a CEPIC, burning their hard earned savings, to congratulate each other on making it through another year, quite blissfully unaware that the storm has yet to come. It has just been bad weather up to now. The Hurricane has yet to hit.

And so, a huge amount of little store owners, more obsessed by cost saving then revenue making, gather around together for a few days, in a yearly bacchanal ritual of parties, drinking, table hopping and schmoozing, as if to give thanks to an indifferent God under some bored European sky. This year will be no different, as the island of Malta, lost somewhere in between its past glory and the Mediterranean sea, will host the secret and private gathering of the last believers.

Most have switch to RF, grant you, hoping that new fortunes will be made. Alas, too little too late. So in order to increase their offering, they exchange content, like kids with cards, or marbles. They become distributors of each others photographs, in a web of tangled relationships, trying to hide the frog in a bear’s costume.

They remain stubbornly confident that their model is the sole and only model and that new ideas are just hiccups. And so they sit in rows of chairs, listening to people who have never achieved anything in their careers, tell them how to operate their businesses hoping for redemption from these latter saint prophets.

Sure, there is fear and concern, but each one has its own “special” plan, carefully kept secretive and as powerful as a lottery ticket. It is most of the time disguise as a new website that will put the industry upside down, a miraculous search engine, or a new pricing scheme, that will revolutionize the industry forever. Most of the time, it is only just that, a lottery ticket.

“it use to be..” says the crowd, followed by a “remember when ?…” and ending as “ah well, what can you do…”. Getty and, although less and less Corbis, gets blame for everything, including if it rains on their little gathering. It is the cause of all evil, because God forbids, they are not the ones to revisit their decisions. It is the stubbornness of the assurance of things past. “It has worked so it will work” is CEPIC’s cry to the god’s of commercial stock. With a little adjusting of our pricing and a cool redesign of our website, we will see better future, better than we have ever seen.

There is more hope in these hearts and minds when they all leave to go back to the harsh reality of stagnant sales numbers. There is more conviction, because as a group, they agree. And we all know the majority is always right and that there is comfort in numbers . The election of George Bush as president of the United States is a living proof of that. There will be a huge celebration of conviction, an exciting confirmation of ideas past and the realization that change is just another word for stupid.

The imaginary gods of commercial stock photography will certainly be pleased as they wink to the new born microstock king.

Posted in Midstock, Zymmetrical, technology, prosumer, CEPIC, Royalty free, getty, corbis, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

February 28, 2008 by pmelcher.

“my first (and probably my last, unless you tell me it is a good idea) guest post :”

How did it start?Was it the 1890’s ?Photographers took pictures, pushed the edge of the envelope but could not do everything, they needed agents.In the meantime copyright came along to try and stop the exploitation of artists, there where always those with money willing to exploit the talents of an impoverished artist.Come the 1950’sAgents came along and entered into a partnership with the photographers, 50/50 or whatever, photographers owned the copyright, agents sold and kept the collections in hard chemical form, their business grew in the center of cities, large amounts of real estate holding pictures.

Pictures where sold for 1st rights, 2nd rights, 3rd rights and so on, the sellers had a firm grip on the marketplace.

Photographers if they where good made money in editorial, rights managed, it was a financial meritocracy, the best made the most. Art and creativity was king.

Agencies like Sygma, Sipa, Magnum, Rex, and stock agencies like Tony Stone all flourished, not by employing photographers but entering into partnerships with photographers.

20 years went buy and they became big business.

It’s the 1990’s along came digital, Getty and Corbis.

Digital, binary code was an astonishing revolution allowing millions of images to be stored in a box the size of a car instead of a 10 story building, on top of that images could be sent thousands on miles in a few seconds and reconstructed to the original quality thanks to jpeg compression, opportunity was knocking and along came the bankers and big business.

Getty and Corbis knew with a few million spent wisely they could dominate the industry, they started their acquisitions

Most of the agencies sold out but this was the first knife in the back for the photographers, the content creators, whilst an agency owner pocketed the $ 20 million from Corbis the photographer got nothing and in Sygmas case an assumption by Corbis that they owned the archive!!! I think the lawsuits are still continuing. What did I last hear Microsoft has $ 40 billion dollars in cash, what chance does a poor photographer stand?

Getty, owned by bankers saw an opportunity for consolidation and cost saving, they also thought “ Art” could be created on a 9-5 hour day, a salary and no incentive. They went ahead and spent $ 500,000 million dollars acquiring photo agencies.

Bill Gates, he initially just wanted art on his walls digitally, constantly changing to fit his mood, this was when big screen plasmas cost $ 30,000

These where tough times for artists, creative photographers who ideas where stolen, their percentages crushed, financial ruin approaching.

The agencies new owners drove hard bargains and percentages to the photographers, if you did not sign, get lost, plenty to fill the departing artists shoes, plenty of styles to copy.

A typical business model bulk sold content on monthly deals, sending thousands of pictures a day to clients, 1st rights, 2nd rights, 3rd rights became a thing of the past, your pictures where likely to be bundled at a $ 100,000 deal a month for 200,000 images used, you do the math !

By 2000 the creative photographer had been destroyed, art had become sterile, its becoming obvious bankers are not good for art!!!

Mix with this through the late 90’s early 2000 the growth of Google, a search engine with a bland front end. What the hell was this and it was free!!!

By 2004 we knew what Google was, an advertising agency who had managed to optimize the Internet and its revenue through click through revenues and who was being screwed the most in this, as if in a double whammy, creative photographers and newspapers, in fact anyone who published!!!

Those bulk all you can eat deals really paid of for Google with free rights in perpetuity as they displayed the web pages of most of the publications in the World, blatantly using fantastic images for free to drive click through revenue to their advertisers. The poor old content creator ( photographer) got nothing

Catching onto what was happening the media industry jumped on the Google band wagon and followed Getty’s lead and obtained pictures under tough contracts ,  New York Times, Tribune Group, Associated Newspaper, News International and almost every publishing group in the World started their own web sites, using pictures for peanuts whilst lamenting, “ We are loosing Money” they continued to make money off pictures through CPMs, “ accidentally” using pictures without paying  or sometimes purchased for ridiculously low fees.

Then came the blogs who where inspired by Googles claim to free usage under the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 and other internet users of pictures, all claiming they where making no money, whilst the poor old photographer where having to spend money to apparently make nothing
Then came blogs and other internet users of pictures, all claiming they where making no money, whilst the poor old photographer where having to spend money to apparently make nothing.

In 2007 the World implodes, what happened to the American Dream ?

In 2008 when Getty Images sells for $ 2.4 billion with a failing business model they still do not understand what they did and their errors. Quite simply they where conducting business using digital with analog business models, they distributed full resolution digital images on a daily basis to hundreds of users, millions of asset files that could be stolen and used by everyone for free, whilst those users made millions on click through advertising revenue in perpetuity.

It all seemed hopeless and then along came GumGum, and they have suggested a solution that could get the creators back in financial control of their lives and the industry back on a firm foothold.

For in the end it’s the creators of new art that drives the marketplace but the industry must change the way it markets images in this maturing digital age. The artists have to be paid and then the flow of great marketable images will continue and big business through shared revenue will make even more money and survive.

And I suspect Bill Gates will still be rich!!!!

Paul Harris

Pacific Coast News
Celebrity Home Photos
Pacific Coast News Video
United States Head Office
BWP Media USA Incorporated

Posted in Midstock, license, multimedia, Search, newspaper, copyright, idee, Pacific coast news, gumgum, technology, magazine, keyword, google, editorial, law, news, corbis, finance, PACA, web 2.0, photojournalism, wire service, CEPIC, getty | Print | No Comments »

December 31, 2007 by pmelcher.

As much as I could understand the music industry for trying to stop the free for all downloads initiated by the old Napster , as much as I can’t agree with the Recording Industry Association of America latest move:

According to the Washington Post of December 30, 2007 : ‘In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.”

The RIAA says you cannot make a copy of your legally purchased music unto another medium.

This is important because the RIAA is using the same laws as we use in the photo industry. And the RIAA is giving copyright laws a bad rep. Under the same principle, it would be the equivalent of  suing a publisher for scanning one of our slides.

I am all for copyright protection and believe that the laws should be unforced but there is a limit to how to interpret the law. There is also the need for old businesses to adapt with the current times and find a better way to handle new challenges, not bigger threats.

The photo industry doesn’t have such an organisation as strong as the RIAA. The closest we have is CEPIC or PACA, none of which is allowed to take any legal action on behalf of its members. Even if they had, I would doubt that they would go suing their customers for making a copy of an image they just purchased. How else would they be able to send it to the printer or designer ? As long as those copies remain in the belly of the beast and are not exposed, we keep our eyes shut and our mouth closed. It is not legal but no harm is done, so who cares ?

The RIAA, but its actions will soon trigger a backslash that will affect anyone who uses copyright laws. The winners will be the “Commoners”, those who have been promoting free exchange as other where promoting free sex back in the 70’s. The San Fransisco based Electronic Frontier and Creative Commons who are still flying high from the pot and acid left overs. Those who see themselves as the cool dudes that will finally create the ephemeral idealistic society where everything is free and traded.

There is not much the photo industry can do while we wait for the pendulum to swing back in our faces and force us to change our policies. Without choosing camps, we will very soon be the bad guys as we will be swallowed in a vicious battle of digital rights and grabs. We will probably have to give up more than we wish, or can, before we can emerge. Or we can set our own rules. Clearly, simply and with efficiency.

We can separate ourselves from the RIAA and shark eating lawyers and specify our own code of conduct that clearly specify what can and cannot be done with our images. Post it loud and clear on our sites and in our communications. This is what we stand for and this is what we authorize you, our customer, to do.

An iniative as worthy, and useful, as the PLUS Coalition.

Happy 2008 !!! May all your wishes become true and your resolutions become reality.

Posted in IPTC, license, copyright, web 2.0, CEPIC, law, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

November 23, 2007 by pmelcher.

There are some that still combat royalty free in what seems to be an unfounded hope that it will disappear. Others that turn a blind eye towards microstock and its user generated content. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Then, there are those who strongly believe that this whole technology thing is just a fad and sticking with the old fashion way of doing business is but the obvious way of doing it.

And all this while, image buyers are having a field trip. More choices, a huge and illogical range of pricing structure, extremely isolated image suplliers competing in tight corners. It is a good time to buy images or rent a photographer. I would even say, it is the best of times. You can get really great images for a bargain these days. The photo industry is so focused on survival rather than growth, on retention rather than expansion, that it has adopted an “any sales is better than nothing” attitude. And that means accepting any prices given to them.

It has also put then in a no investment position. Many agencies or independent photographers do not even want to consider cost saving solutions as they do not feel it is the right time to spend money. They are not willing to analyze their work flow in order to reinvent the rules.

It is quite ironic, since this industry was created by risk takers. From the crazy photographers who picked up a camera in the early 50’s and decided to sell their images to the crazier day dreamers who brought them together and build the first licensing offices. From its inception, the photo industry was lead by wild innovators with a sharp sense of business. The photo industry owes its phenomenal growth to those who chose to do things a different way. To those who did not believe in rules.

Today, its the “copy and save” model. When you introduce anything new in this business, the first question you get: is my neighbors doing it ? or my competitor ? if not, than why should I ? The second is : How much will it cost me ? It is never, ever, how much will I save or better yet, how much more revenue will it generate ? and the final one is always the killer : Can you give me some numbers to prove it ? An example ? I love this one the most because it puts the burden of running the business on the solution provider, not on the business owner.

The underlying thinking is that you do not invest in anything new unless someone else has done it before you and proved its success. In the mean time, you keep with the the status quo and desperately try to protect your business from others. Thus, the “Copy and Save” model.

If NASA had waited for an example to walk on the Moon, we would still be waiting. Do we really think that Apple, who everyone admires, really had accurate projections for its Ipod and Itunes?

Japanese archers never need to check their targets after they shoot arrows : If the movement, the position, the aim and the equipment’s is perfect, the arrow will most certainly hit the bullseye. The outcome is defined at the moment the arrow leaves the bow, not when it hits the target. At the instant the archer lets go the arrow, the outcome is already obvious.

Most business owners wait for the arrow to hit  the target to see if they succeeded. They seem to  hope that, regardless of their aim, there is some magical interference that will happen in between them releasing their arrow and the bullseye. They repeat it over and over in the hope of scoring a hit. The result, for them, is the justification of their action. They do not realize that the action justifies the result.

The photographers that succeed, and the photo agencies that grow are the ones that constantly innovate and master their tools. The ones that go with the gut feeling and the instinct. The ones that smell good ideas million of miles away and focuses on the benefits, not the costs.

There are great products and solutions on the market right now that can make an agency or photographer highly competitive for the next 5 years. Some have already adopted them and are reaping the benefits of being early adopters.

The rest are still busy waiting for the next industry meeting to see if it is really worth it.

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