Getty's Flickr Sales, Money Spinner Or Ripoff?

Barence writes "Photo-sharing site Flickr is offering photographers a new way to cash in on their work. The 'Request to License' scheme allows renowned photo agency Getty to sell photos on behalf of Flickr members. Once part of the scheme, all of the user's photos will carry a Request to License link (users can't select certain photos to license in this way). People wishing to buy the photos are directed to Getty's staff, who 'will help handle details like permissions, releases, and pricing,' according to Flickr. However, the last time Getty sold images on behalf of Flickr members, it led to complaints that photographers were being exploited, with commission on photos as low as $1. So who's doing best out of the deal, photographers or Getty?"

Looks like Flickr and Getty making out

[ebusinessmedia1]

Not good news for professional photographers. Yes, many beautiful images are shot by people with access to cool photo equipment, but there is a lot that goes into framing context and theme for a photo that relates to a story, or even an event. This is a money grab by Getty's new owner (In February 2008 it was announced that Getty Images would be acquired by Hellman & Friedman in a transaction valued at an estimated US$2.4 billion). Pro photographers are going to have to start looking for ways to add value to their traditional services. This is a purely disruptive technology and service offering that is going to hurt the professional ranks. Flickr is also making out on this deal. Digital has democratized access to, and creation of, the photographic image. Add Photoshop and it's a whole new world. I know a few professional photographers who have been put out of business by these new technologies. I see this profession going the way of professional writers, who are still trying to figure out how to surf this powerful, disruptive wave of change. I would love to see some ideas posted on this thread about how professional photographers can adapt to these changes, and continue to put their well-honed skills into play to make a living.

They take 70% or more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the PDF of the agreement:

https://contribute.gettyimages.com/olc/agreement/sample_agreement [gettyimages.com]

The royalties (that they pay to you) are 20%, 25%, or 30%.

Re:Depends on the amount of control

[ColdWetDog]

Oh, there is plenty of excellent photography around. The problem is that there is even more cheap junk and most editors don't need good photography they need cheap and fast images. Look around on the Internet. Occasionally you see real product photography - custom stuff showing off a specific piece of merchandise. Mostly it's a 200 x 200 cutout of the object that could be taken with an instamatic, developed at Wall Mart and scanned on a $100 scanner. Most of the 'news' photography is canned pictures of backgrounds that more or less have something to do with the article. Most website photography is just random smiling people doing something that looks vaguely interesting. You just don't need skills or equipment to do this.

Magazines set up a somewhat higher bar but recently the quality of images is scarily reminiscent of something seen on Photoshop Disasters [blogspot.com]. Getting a decent image out of newsprint is a skill that has long since be deprecated by the vast majority of photographers, editors and press men.

But if you take the time to troll around the various photography sites on the web, you will see quite a number of really good photographers creating excellent images. But since there are so many venues for this, so many photographers and so little time it's easy to get lost in the backwash.

Firsthand Experience with Getty

[vmxeo]

About a year ago I was invited and signed up with Getty through the initial program with Flickr. I had many discussions with friends who are professional photographers about whether or not I should sign up, and most echo what is being said here: the royalty rates are too low. This is a fair assessment; Getty pays between 20% to 30% commission for photos(depending on the license type), far below what most stock and micro-stock agencies will pay. For me however, the other advantages far outweighed the lower royalty rates. Having Getty handle everything is for me worth the fat cut they take. They are a large agency, and do attract a huge amount of customers, most being corporate-use type who are use to paying high amounts for photos. They will go after cases of infringement of photos licensed through them. Finally, I get bragging rights to be able to say I contract with Getty (this makes my pro photographer friends very mad. Now we have an understanding not to mention the "G" word). Basically, once I sat down, counted the cost and the other options, I decided it was worth signing up for. I've made enough money to keep me happy and be able to support my expensive photography habit.

Getty itself is in a interesting position here. For the longest time, stock photography was the domain of professional photographers. With the advent of digital photography, there's a new wave of pro-amateurs that have flourished in sites like Flickr. At the same time, traditional photographers worked themselves into a conformable niche shooting increasingly cliche photos. Creative professionals eventually started noticing they could find more creative photos on sites like Flickr and negotiate dirt-cheap rates directly with the photographer cutting out agencies like Getty out altogether. The deal between Getty and Flickr was smart play from Getty to keep themselves relevant in the changing market. There's still a need for a photo agency to do the middle-man work of contracts, licensing, releases, research, etc., at least for now.

So, in summary, this move is good for Getty, good for non-professional photographers, and not good for existing professional photographers.

btw, if anyone is interested, here's my small catalog on Getty [gettyimages.com] and a shameless plug for my site on Flickr [flickr.com]

Re:Why Slashdot Fired Michael

[larry bagina]

Michael Sims aka michael. former slashdot janitor. I think he moved to Canada to protest the DMCA or patriot act or anti-child porn laws or something. He was responsible for the bitchslap.pl script and generally abused his unlimited mod points.

He was also the webmaster of censorware.org (cofounded with Seth Finkelstein, Jaime McCarthy, Bennett Haselton, and others). He generally acted like an asshat [sethf.com] deleted the site contents (twice) and hijacked the domain.

Re:Value

[jlp2097]

The only value that Getty Images could add would be offering legal services to those who photos are used in violation of whatever the licensing terms are.

Not true - they have something much more valuable: direct access to customers willing to pay for images (newspapers, press agency, online news sites, etc.). That is their main business model after all. That is also why they will pay such a small sum to flickr photographers - because they know that they are in the stronger position. Photographers / flickr users are easily replaceable, but Getty Images is not replaceable.