StockPhotographer.info

My recent series of articles, Successful Stock Strategies, motivated quite a few Stockphotographer.info readers to email me with a variety of questions. A few asked me to write an article about how I go about selling my rights-protected stock images. This article begins an explanation of how I do that.

The photograph in this article was taken at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, about an hour drive from London, England. What makes the photograph stand out in my eyes is the lighting and dessign. I had the good fortune to be in the right place as the late afternoon sun lit up the arches of a passageway that runs the length of one wing of the Palace. Luckily, I had the right equipment to allow me to capture the image with the great depth of field that was required to make it look sharp from end to end.

June 6, 2006 at 9:30 PM.  I have just learned that Arnold Newman died this morning at the age of 88. I am saddened to tears. Our profession has not only lost an artist and icon who earned every bit of his celebrity by working so hard for it, but it has also lost a hero who fought along with other top rated photographers through the fifties, sixties, and into the seventies to make our profession a better one to be in. He is one of those rare individuals who decades ago refused to cave into the threats of never working again made by major publishers in their attempt to restrict photographers’ rights and fees.

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.

This was to be the last article in this series, but now one more will follow. It has taken longer to write this part than the other ten parts. That is because the article is the result of a work in progress – my planning for my future in stock photography. Recently, I have been reading new information about developments in the stock business. It has caused me to re-examine how I will proceed at the very time I was ready to proceed. What new information? Two items in particular are slowing my planning.

In a lead story at PDN Online, news of the affect of micropayments on traditional RF stock is reported. Here is an excerpt from the story: "There is no question that these lower-priced properties – subscriptions, micropayment, whatever you want to call them – are definitely going to take market share from the high end," said Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia, during a quarterly conference call with investment analysts. Jupitermedia owns Jupiterimages, the third-largest U.S. stock photo company after Getty Images and Corbis.”

Marketing and licensing rights protected stock requires a little imagination along with a lot of determination. Most companies don’t buy exclusive rights to stock photographs. There has to be a good reason for them to do it. One good reason is because they are going to use the photograph in a fashion that they do not want diluted by the photograph appearing to be commonplace (generic) by seeing it or photographs similar to it appearing in media during the same time they are using the photograph. Using that criterion as a guide, when I edit photographs I give careful consideration to whether the photograph is unique in some way, either by virtue of the image itself or the subject matter.  When either presents itself I have a potential rights protected image. If both are present, I have an even more likely candidate for rights protected licensing.

As you know from my previous article , my strategy is to concentrate my stock photography efforts on rights protected and rights managed stock. You also know I’ll be avoiding royalty free and microstock since it is not in my best interest to spend time, money, and energy on those models. To avoid any confusion over terms, I define rights protected as stock that which is licensed with some level of exclusivity.  I define rights managed as stock that is licensed on a non-exclusive basis with the fee based upon multiple usage criteria including the duration, size, placement, and type of use.

In the first seven parts of this series provided an analysis of the various stock photography licensing models that make up the marketplace. Knowing the variety of ways that stock can be licensed is imperative to developing your own strategy for success in stock photography. Equally important to developing a strategy, however, is the nature of the fit between you and any given licensing model. So the second analysis that has to be made is one of your particular traits, assets, capability, etc. That analysis will help you determine which licensing models suit you best.

In the early 1990s a stock photography model we called clip art (a pejorative term) was introduced. If you recall my first article in this series, it was introduced as stock for those who could not afford regular stock. It was to be an opener of a whole new market as a supplement to traditional stock. Today we call it royalty free, and it is the predominant stock photography model, and it continues to gain market share over rights managed stock, the very thing it was not supposed to harm.

Microstock has the potential to have the same effect on royalty free that royalty free had on rights managed stock. Will it? I don’t know for certain, but I think it will because, as happened with royalty free, microstock is inexpensive and the quality of its offerings is increasing rapidly. In another decade, the period it took royalty free to dominate, microstock could be the way most stock photography is licensed. That would kill off royalty free and would further choke rights managed, which could survive only by licensing images that cannot be easily mass-produced or are supplied by semi-professional photographers

The name Royalty Free ought to give anyone buying it pause because it is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. I have sometimes wondered whether it is a violation of the truth in advertising laws. A royalty, is a sum of money paid for the use of intellectual property that is protected by patent, trademark or copyright law. Since users are paying to use any photograph in a royalty free collection they are paying royalties. The naming of the royalty free stock model only demonstrates one or both of two things. These who did it intentionally decided to mislead the user, or they are not too educated.  You pick!

OK, now that we have established that I don’t like the royalty free licensing model, let me say that it is here to stay until a new model replaces both it and rights managed as I wrote about in part 3 of this series. So, the question is what strategy can you adopt, if you choose to participate in royalty free? First, get it into your head that participating today in royalty free is not contributing to the decline of the business. Royalty free has already done that without your help. The business is what it is. Next, decide whether your situation is a good fit with the royalty free model. Let’s look at who fits with that model.

Once upon a time it was the only stock photography model. Over a period of thirty years it became traditional. Then in 1992 a new stock photography model was introduced. Unfavorably, most photographers called the new model Clip Art. Today, it is called Royalty Free. Once legitimized, royalty free forced the renaming of traditional stock to Rights Managed. It is an old model, and one that is under constant pressure from its less expensive competitor, royalty free. Should a photographer participate in rights managed stock when each year it loses more ground to royalty free?  Yes, a photographer should.

I have a simple reason for advising a photographer to engage in rights managed stock in spite of the fact that it is losing market share every year. People are buying it. While 60 to 70 percent of all stock sales are reported to be royalty free, rights managed is reported to be generating the same level of revenues as royalty free. So market share and revenue share are different gauges monitoring different statistics.