The biggest photo news of the week isn’t another new DSLR camera, but the announcement of Getty to License Flickr Images. It’s been getting lots of coverage in photography blogs, but I’d like to throw in my own thoughts as a photographer and member of both Flickr and Getty’s iStockPhoto site.
First, this is a big endorsement of Flickr. It’s already the go-to photo community site and people post some really creative and high quality images there. Getty has recognized this and decided Flickr is a good place to look for new content in the increasingly crowded microstock market.
Second, it’s a smart business move for Getty. Compare the costs with iStockPhoto: instead of spending time and money reviewing applications and images that aren’t up standards or likely to seel, they can hand pick the best photos for which they have a known sales demand. Furthermore, they’re only offering exclusive deals, which eliminates any competition for their Flickr portfolio. Finally, the invitation-only cachet from a big name like Getty on a non-commercial site like Flickr is likely to wow a number of people into agreeing without considering the terms or other options.
Third, this is a good deal for casual photographers and a bad deal for those who are developing a more serious business. If you’re just posting to Flickr to share, the recognition from Getty and a few extra dollars will make your day. If you’re treating your photography as a business, you’re locking yourself into an exclusive licensing agreement with a single provider, which has been shown to limit your overall and microstock earnings.
There is one upside for professionals struggling to get a feel for the microstock market. This allows them to let Getty do the work of identifying marketable microstock images from their portfolio, which could be used as guidance for submissions to other, multiple microstock sites.
In summary, it’s good news for Flickr and Getty, a little bonus for casual photographers, but not much for growing or established professionals.
del.icio.us/mbotos
July 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Great summation of the deal, Matthew. You make an interesting distinction between the Flickr members who do it for fun and those who do it for business. I wonder how many Flickr contributors who are already selling images though other channels will get offers from Getty and have to decline? Or perhaps Flickr will create an opt-in facility for contributors to make themselves (and their portfolios) available. It’ll be interesting to watch.
Thanks also for the rich links.
-Lee
July 13th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Thanks, Lee. You’re quite welcome for the links - your site is a great resource on the microstock market!
December 25th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I would like to ask a question that till now I didn’t find a exact answer nor a approximated one. I’m working a businessplan for 2009 and I’m having a hard time to find really trustable / representative sources to calculate how long a stock image will live in micro and macrostock in order to predict income in the year to come.
But I haven´t found until now avarage numbers on the “lifetime of a photo”.
How long would be a reasonable estimate for the lifetime for micro and macro agencies?
What I mean is: How long would would be estimated that a photo will sell well until the sales start to decline?
December 26th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hi Mauricio, I posted some thoughts on you comment in another post.