New Streamlined Rights Managed Licensing

A new approach to Rights Managed imagery offers a simpler and streamline approach to licensing imagery.


A Simplified Approach To Rights Managed Imagery

We all hate paper work and complexity, and Rights Managed imagery has a reputation for being complex and unwieldy. But that is changing.

Blend Images is pioneering, or perhaps re-pioneering, a new way to approach Rights Managed imagery (Getty tried “Rights Ready” years ago but it was still too unwieldy and ultimately was abandoned). RM, as it is known, was the original model for stock photography, but has fallen far behind in volume to RF (Royalty Free) and microstock (which is simply lower-priced RF).

High Prices And Complex Fees

Part of the popularity of RF imagery over RM is that RM has the reputation, if not always the reality, of higher price points. Of course, after getting a lot of my sales reports it sometimes seems to me that RM can underbid any RF image (RF images are sold by image size)! I have actually had RM sales in which my share came to 4 cents…more than once! But perhaps an even bigger problem in today’s world for RM images lies in the complexity of the fee structure.

Pricing RM

Have you ever gone to Getty’s site (or for that matter any RM site) and priced RM? Yikes! It is complicated, frustrating and time-intensive. I find it intensely irritating to be trying to come up with all the various parameters only to, at some point in the process, to be stumped as to what category, industry or specific application that is offered in the pull down menus fits my unique needs. You also need to know such things as the duration of the use, size of the use, print run numbers and circulation figures. It is enough to turn one to RF!

Making RM Simple

Blend Images has come up with a new approach that makes licensing RM imagery much simpler. They are offering a series of bundles of rights that greatly simplifies the licensing process. If you need exclusive use then one can talk to a sales person. There will always be a need for Rights Managed imagery…in my own case I have exclusive agreements with greeting card companies so I cannot offer my humorous animal images as RF. And many clients just don’t want to risk having their competition using the same images. Now those clients have an option that can fill their need for RM photos that approaches RF in terms of simplicity of licensing.

RM Licensing Bundles

On the Blend site you can choose either “editorial” or “commercial”. If you choose editorial you then can choose “Cover” or Digital Non-cover. Next you choose and “industry” and finally “duration”. It is even simpler than it sounds. If you choose “commercial”, you get a choice of three different bundles and a forth that includes “all commercial uses”. You gain choose an “industry” and a “duration” that ranges from one to five years. This is going to change how creatives view Rights Managed imagery!

A Discount On Your Stock Photo Licenses

And for those of you who are interested in checking the new pricing out, whether you need RF or RM, if you use the discount code JL-PROMO2016 you can get a 25% discount on any stock image you license on the Blend site. As a matter of fact, tell your friends and co workers as well (disclaimer…I too get a bonus when that discount code is used). Hey, what are you waiting for!

The Evolution of Stock Photography: The Merging Of Traditional and Micro

The Stock Photography Market is in transition; Will the future see our stock photo revenue be coming or going?

The Merging of  "Traditional" and "Microstock"
It is not only inevitable that traditional stock (RM and RF) will soon be sold side-by-side with "Microstock", it is already happening with a vengeance. I believe it is a good thing as well. As traditional and micro stock images are increasingly sold alongside each other the market will be better able to mature, become more efficient, and reach it's equilibrium. Stock shooters and the industry will be able to better understand what price points really work for both the producers and consumers of stock imagery.  The industry is truly a mess, and this is a natural step to help straighten things out.

Lee Torrens, Microstockdiaries and the merging of RM, RF, and Micro
To find out where things stand today I checked with Lee Torrens, who among other things, has a site called microstockdiaries...a good place to check on the pulse of the microstock world.  Lee put together the following summation of the current state of the merging of micro and traditional stock photography when I asked him where traditional stock and micro stock are being licensed together:

The simple answer is: Thinkstock, Pixmac, Moodboard, Glow, Reflex and quite a few other distributors and resellers.

But, as the definitions of 'micro' and 'traditional' blur and the prices cross over, it becomes more complex:

- Some traditional agencies have 'downgraded' certain collections to micro level pricing (Getty-Thinkstock)
- Some of those have also introduced micro-priced small sizes (Getty, Corbis, Blend, everyone)
- Some microstock agencies have 'upgraded' collections to near-traditional pricing (iStockphoto with Vetta,          Fotolia with Infinite)
- plenty of traditional agencies have added a "microstock" tab to their website and are reselling microstock via Fotolia, Dreamstime or 123rf reseller programs (Glow, Reflex, etc)
- others are resellers of content from many different sources both micro and traditional (Pixmac)
- others just launched with both (Moodboard)
- a few traditional agencies have just purchased microstock agencies and are cross-promoting (Getty with iStock, Jupiter with StockXpert, Masterfile with Crestock)
- some are trying to build it themselves (Inmagine with 123rf, Corbis with SnapVillage and then Veer Marketplace)
- there's some new agency collections coming which will be available on both microstock and traditional platforms
- and there's a few companies starting to distribute microstock content through the traditional channel
- then there's the whole Getty-Flickr thing
 
The Democratization of Stock Photography
These are all steps towards the true democratization of stock photography. They are steps towards a marketplace in which everyone can, and most likely will, participate in all price levels of stock photography. Microstock prices are in many cases absurdly low.  In other cases the prices are appropriate given the reality that it is easier and cheaper than ever to produce certain kinds of photos, and that more people than ever are doing exactly that. Harsh for many of us traditonal shooters, but a reality nonetheless.

iStockphoto, Vetta, and a Step In the Right Direction for Microstock
Hopefully with the merging of the different business models of stock (traditional and micro), images that are more valuable will find their prices rising to more appropriate levels. Traditional shooters may benefit from having their work seen by more eyeballs as the majority of all those seeking stock images are actually going to microstock sites. I have heard that half of all stock images licensed last year were licensed through iStockphoto! It is also interesting to note that the higher priced Vetta collection on iStockphoto has been enormously successful.  That is a step in the right direction for Microstock shooters to be more aware of the money they are leaving on the table. The ones who produce higher value images need to have access to collections that can and will charge appropriately for such images and pass enough of those commissions on to make the production of higher-end and needed imagery worth doing.

Images The Market Needs, Wants and Values
We are in a transition phase from the past where the gate keepers made the rules and determined who got to play, to the future where the value of an image will truly be determined by the market place. The sooner we get out of the transition phase and into the future the better! I base that on my belief that there will always be substantial rewards for those who make images that the market truly needs, wants and values.