Photographer Groups Call on Getty Images to Remove Rights Managed Collections from $49 Web License

4. Reduced return for photographers.
Lower per-image returns for photographers make it more difficult to produce the highly creative images that form the core of creative RM stock collections. These images cannot be produced in volume, and photographers are already feeling the impact of reduced revenues. This move further strains the viability of independent photographers' businesses, and will result in less fresh imagery available for customers.

5. Reduced recovery value for images.
The offering by the world's largest stock image supplier of all their images across the board at a $49 price point will have a serious impact on the valuation of claims in the courts for copyright infringement and lost/damaged originals. It also undermines the proposition that each image is unique and has to be valued on its own merits. Infringements of stock images are already at crisis levels—especially for web and digital uses. We are alarmed that a consequence of the low value established for web uses will dampen efforts to enforce copyrights and recover otherwise lost revenues.

Pricing on GettyImages.com for Web Uses

Evolution is Needed

There is no doubt that stock licensing and pricing models must evolve to address the needs of a diversified marketplace of new media users, which include major stock image users, as well as new kinds of customers. An essential part of this evolution must include logical and consistent licensing and pricing structures that make sense to the customer, and that preserve the value of high quality professional imagery.

In closing, the association letter states: “We are eager to work with Getty Images and other leaders in the industry to find ways to evolve image licensing that address the changing needs of new media customers, and which leverage the distinctive value associated with Rights Managed imagery in a changing marketplace. We have a mutual interest in growing our image licensing businesses but respectfully contend that we must explore better ways to do so, which do not risk the value of what we have created.”

SAA president Roy Hsu, an Advertising Art Director specializing in digital media and stock photographer, explains: “Digital advertising is currently the fastest growing segment and will become the key source of high end advertising within the next few years. Internet based campaigns now can define brand campaigns and make headlines on their own, which used to be reserved by print and broadcast. Media budgets for online are now comparable and sometimes higher than those of traditional print media. This pricing scheme oversimplifies a complex industry by mixing the high and low end users together, and the discounting these digital uses is in effect giving up on the high-end customer."

123