Getty Images Buying from Flikr

[TRSmith]

I buy a lot of stock photography from Getty Images for my design clients. Getty has recently started using Flikr as a source for imagery. Which means that if you have a collection of photos on your Flikr site, the potential exists to make a sale through Getty to someone looking for a stock image.

I only scanned the info very quickly, but it would seem that you can actually flag your images/galleries to Getty in a way that asks them to be included in their online offering. The details of the deal and compensation are probably buried in there somewhere but I haven't explored that far as yet.

They are positioning this new resource as an ability to source more "offbeat and creative" images which opens the door a bit beyond a lot of the typical stock photography which often can seem staged or extremely polished. It could be an interesting resource for designers and a possible source of revenue for photographers who might not have considered stock photography as an outlet in the past.

Check it here: http://www.gettyimages.com/creative/frontdoor/flickr?isource=USA_home_creative_main1a_flickr

Tim

 

[TRSmith]

An ABC news story on the Flikr/Getty thing: Online photo services can give shutterbug lucrative outlet
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7057060&page=1

 

[Guy Mancuso]

To bad Getty has screwed every stock image price up too. Photographers have taken a preverbal bath with low stock prices in recent years. Adding flicker will make it worse. Good for the casual shooter but the Pro's that lived in that market are not very happy with Getty .

 

[TRSmith]

I've heard that too Guy. They changed the whole deal. Love 'em or hate 'em, they kind of have a lock on the market.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Certainly do Tim. Screwed a couple NFL shooters I know pretty well

 

[charlesphoto]

Groan. I hate Getty (and I'm with them). Another nail in the coffin at actually trying to make some bucks from stock. I wonder if Getty will hold flickr users to their stringent guidelines (ie 50mb files only, no high iso etc etc).

 

[TRSmith]

I remember stumbling upon a forum somewhere that had a discussion by stock shooters about Getty. It was bitter, rancorous, frustrated and really negative about their experiences. Some had been supplying stock for many years and were among the best known and highest selling shooters. It was like getting a peek into the demise of an industry.

My experience is from the other side (buyer). From my perspective, purchasing stock imagery, especially Royalty Free, has been made very easy and cheap. I do remember leafing through gargantuan printed tomes of stock offerings from a variety of stock houses, placing an order, waiting for the transparency, getting it scanned, returning the transparency, etc. Now I can find, buy, download and insert an image in a few minutes. Dead easy. Clients like it and I think they use more images because of it. None of which means a thing to someone who's made a living selling to agencies.

And while I have no real evidence to back this up, my perception is that clients are pulling back on production value whenever they can. It doesn't apply for every segment or client, but many don't even consider hiring a photographer to shoot photos that are unique to their environment but choose instead to use "generic" or stock shots for far less money.

 

[Don Libby]

I received an "invitation" to join Getty sometime last year. Took me less time to decide not to respond than it did to swear at the message.

Don

 

[Dale Allyn]

And then there's the constant stream of requests for free or near-free usage (for commercial use) of images in one's flickr stream by designers or publishers. It's interesting to watch designers request images for free, while they are most certainly not providing their products or services for free. They seem to feel that if you don't want to give it to them they'll just keep looking for someone who is anxious to say "they used my photo in a magazine ad" or whatever. I say "keep lookin' ". (Unless they're a non-profit or similar.)

The truly professional designers who might find images on flickr offer fair compensation, but flickr has also become (long ago) a pool for the bottom-feeders as well.

Stock is really of tough environment these days. Some folks appreciate quality files and are prepared to compensate fellow craftsmen, but there's a lot of scrounging in the space too. It sort of looks like a glutted market of buggy whips at times.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I think in all candor flickr needs to step to the plate to help protect there users from this type of freebie. I know folks want to get published but Flickr should explain the real facts how much it hurts the industry at large. Not sure they do or don't but something or someone from there owners needs to step it up. One reason I don't belong to these sites.

 

[Dale Allyn]

"Their owners" are Yahoo! now, so guess what?

In fact a friend just had an issue where his photos were downloaded by a jerk and re-uploaded as his own. Yahoo! made it a HUGE hassle for my friend to get the swiped images taken down. The images were of an individual and commissioned, so there could be no mistake of copyright/creator, etc. (The guy was using them in his "soft-core porn" stream because they were of an attractive yoga instructor.)

The old owners, Stewart and Katarina (and their team), would've had it fixed in a nano second.

 

[Oxide Blu]

Welcome to "digital" -- everyone with a cell phone camera is now a photographer.

It is not just photography that is changing because of the internet -- oh, and it is the internet that makes these changes in stock photography possible -- it is also real estate and legal services. In short, folks, any folks, with access to the internet (the entire free world) can now do themselves what used to require professional services, and professional pricing.

You can sit and bitch about it but you aren't going to make the changes that any new technology brings go away. As a professional photographer, what can you offer that Getty Images on-line can't?!? That's where you are going to need to focus (pun intended) if you are going to be successful.

 

[Dale Allyn]

Yupp. Offer something better or different (preferably both).