For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - NYTimes.com
Paul D. Fernhout
"For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - NYTimes.com"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html
"""
Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during
the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of
children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos
but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with
limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines
and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether.
�There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not
hurting,� said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News.
...
That meant a flood of pretty decent photographs, and that changed the
stock-photography industry. In the last few years, stock agencies have
created or acquired so-called microstock divisions. They charge $1 to $100,
in most cases, for publishers or others to rerun a photo, often supplied by
an amateur. And Getty made a deal with Flickr in 2008, permitting Getty�s
photo editors to comb through customers� images and strike license
agreements with the amateur photographers.
�The quality of licensed imagery is virtually indistinguishable now from
the quality of images they might commission,� Mr. Klein said. Yet �the price
point that the client, or customer, is charged is a fraction of the price
point which they would pay for a professional image.�
...
In 2005, Getty Images licensed 1.4 million preshot commercial photos. Last
year, it licensed 22 million � and �all of the growth was through our
user-generated business,� Mr. Klein said.
That is because amateurs are largely happy to be paid anything for their
photos. �People that don�t have to make a living from photography and do it
as a hobby don�t feel the need to charge a reasonable rate,� Mr. Eich said.
"""
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of
abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.
Kevin Carson
> When will this happen to product design?
> "For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - NYTimes.com"
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html
> """
> Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during
> the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of
> children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos
> but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with
> limited career options.
It's part of a much broader phenomenon. I think for every blockbuster
author, and everyone who had a comfortable standard of living as a
full-time author, and is now losing money because of the Internet,
there are probably at least ten people like me making a few thousand
extra bucks a year marketing our writing over the web who before the
network revolution would never have been heard of. For every
full-time recording artist signed on to a big label who's losing
money, there are probably ten part-timers making what they consider
nice money on the side by marketing their music directly to fans, who
would have been heart of before.
--
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
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The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto
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Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html