In part 11 of this series I related my quandary about how to deal with my RM stock images in light of current developments in the stock photography business that are putting increasing pressure on the RM licensing model. After giving the matter full consideration, I have made a decision and committed to a course of action. The factors considered and the decision follow.Compelling Factors
Microstock is beginning to put pressure on the RF model, which has been putting pressure on the RM model for a decade. The RM model is almost defenseless because price dictates whenever a buyers usage and quality needs can be met through more than one stock-licensing model. RF is mostly mass produced and generic subject matter, which lends itself to being produced by stock agencies. Consequently, stock agencies, seeking greater profits, are moving to acquiring wholly owned RF images. Those images will undoubtedly improve in quality as part of inter-agency competition. That will put more pressure on RM, which has been the source of the highest quality stock. As Microstock puts price pressure on RF, it, in turn, will increase its pressure on RM. So photographers earnings from both RF and RM are unlikely to increase. Due to increasing wholly owned stock production a more likely scenario is that earnings per image will decrease as supply exceeds demand. As photographer/producers of RF are replaced by agencies with staff or contract photographers in countries with a much lower cost of doing business, more independent photographers will try to return to RM. Will they be able to? It depends on market for the RM in the future. I believe that RM collections will take on a new look over the next few years. Images that look like those in RF and microstock collections are likely to be weeded out of RM because RM cant compete with the other models. RM has to be differentiated to be worth purchasing. That differentiation has to come from the nature of the subject matter, its aesthetic treatment, and its timeliness, all things that neither RF nor microstock are focused on.
Personal Perspective
Not being at all interested in producing images, RF is out of the question for me. Microstock is too because I just cant see selling anything I shoot for the prices that microstock sells for. My photography leans away from being generic in nature. As such, it fits the RM model better than the RF model. Also, it is what I like to do, so it is what I will do. I can only maintain my earlier conclusion that RM is the way I will license stock. Now I want the RM model to survive and prosper.
I wont sign on with a competitor so working with an agency that produces wholly owned images makes no sense to me at all. All I would be doing is making income for them that they would use to produce work that will eventually replace mine. Signing on with one of the agencies that doesnt engage in RF is risky because there was a time a when none of those agencies engaged in RF, but thereafter the owners changed their minds. I do not have the resources, time, or inclination to market my RM stock directly. If it is to be marketed, I need an agency to do it.
Past Activity
In 40 years in the business I never licensed stock through an agency. In fact, I rarely licensed stock at all. After leaving ASMPs employ in 2002, I decided I would eventually license some stock images as I began to use the camera professionally after a fifteen year hiatus in my professional photography while working for ASMP. I decided to join Creative Eye, the photographers cooperative that ASMP played a role in starting in 2001. Mira.com, Creative Eyes online licensing agency, was effectively owned by the cooperatives members. I liked that concept. However, Creative Eye was on hard times after the 9/11 tragedies, which happened when the enterprise was only three months old. Being owned by photographers, it does not have the kind of working capital that many other agencies have. But I joined it because I chose to support it with my membership fees and dues even if I never got around to marketing stock. When I was ready to sell some stock Creative Eye changed service providers for Mira.com. As a result, the site had to go offline for a while. Complications in the transition kept it offline longer than expected. I decided to upload my stock to a different online service. I withdrew all my images from that service since I didnt like the direction that company was headed in. In the interim, Mira.com had come back online, and I had become a member of Creative Eyes Board of Directors. Still, I placed no images with Mira.com because I wasnt sure about continuing to market RM images. I had to think about it, and, as I did, this series of articles emerged. If you have read all twelve installments, you understand that I have thought it through.
My Decision and the Reasons
I have now uploaded a batch of 40 of my images to Mira.com. The images were selected by Miras editor months ago. I have decided to make additional contributions from my legacy images and newly shot work. I expect to mount between 30 and 40 images per month. Over time I expect to have more than a thousand images online at Mira.com.
Why am I doing it? Its simple. The stock photography business is continually deteriorating for professional photographers while at the same time it is making agency owners wealthy. What we have learned during the past decade of online image marketing is that the owners of the distribution channels control the deal that photographers get. Being dependent upon others distribution capability allows those others to exploit photographers by lowering percentages of revenue sharing with the photographers and now by competing directly against them. Ownership of copyright once gave photographers some power, but copyright ownership is not ever going to overcome or even equal the power of owning distribution systems because, as they have now shown, those systems owners can easily produce or purchase content to which they own the copyright. If stock photographers are going to survive as independent businesses in the stock photography business, then they have to take ownership of some distribution systems. Creative Eyes Mira.com is a collective attempt by photographers to do that. It might succeed or it might fail. Ill be there either way because nothing else makes good sense to me as a photographer. Id rather be part of the attempted solution than part of the problem being solved.
What should you do? Well, thats obviously up to you. I hope I have given the readers of this series food for thought. Thats all I could ever do. Good luck with your planning.
Return to Part 1
(c) 2006 Richard Weisgrau [contact] [bio]
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