Online = free?

An interesting issue. I think we will have to question the “All free” myth as there will be serious consequences the access to information. For those interested, I wrote about where is going photojournalism (and journalism) in regard of the “All Free” culture and consequences.

Here’s an extract:
“The revolution of the Web conveyed a myth; the “all free”. But the “all free” business plan makes the survival of the media dependent only on publicity, which can cause ethical problems. The pressure of the advertisers ends up directing the contents of the news, which decreases the capacity of journalism. A democratic society rests mainly on the enlightened judgement of the population. This judgement depends on the access to the most honest possible information (objectivity is another myth).
But, the exemption from payment imposes limits which are incompatible with in-depth reports. The quality journalism requires time, reflexion, search, average techniques, displacements (it is necessary to be on the ground) and skills.”

And for complete text:
In French (my first language)
http://www.marcpauze.com/fr/La_Zone.html
In english (a translation attempt)
http://www.marcpauze.com/en/The_Zone.html

Food for thought.

If we go further on your points on commercial versus non-commercial use, at what point does a blog, Getty, or Life need to get a model release? When is line between editorial and non-editorial use crossed?

On another note, it’s interesting that the site is branded as “Life” given that many recent photos are simply credited as “Getty Images.” I didn’t realize that the two were synonymous. Has Time Warner finally decided to give Getty the Life brand?

I am glad to see these images are going to be given another look. They are great. I agree that if a blog or website is running ads, it’s a commercial entity and therefore, should have to pay to use this stunning work. I run a commercial blog and would fully expect to have to license these images if I wanted to use them. I think the photographers behind these images need to monitor their use. If the images appear on commercial pages, the photographers need to take the appropriate steps, even if Time/Life/Getty won’t.

Well… certainly there are a lot of chicken and the egg, headache generating questions put forth here. I do have my personal take on two.

Bloggers want to be considered journalist when seeking access to traditional new / media events… and enjoy first amendment protections as “journalists”… so, if you run ads on your blogs… it’s a COMMERCIAL. You are a commercial entity and should be designated as such. End of story.

Regarding images on line deteriorating the value of other formats of the same image… I think we see a benefit of exposing MORE people to BETTER images. Yes, this comes at the risk of them attempting to reproduce that image at an inferior quality… but does the fine art “poster” business deteriorate the fine art original or even “print” business?

How many young people become exposed to artists via posters? How many get their first exposure to Lichtenstein or Warhol or Vasarely and so on?

A larger audience could, in fact, raise the awareness of an artist and increase the value of the original works.

How many inspired young photographers would know the name Vincent Laforet were it not for the growth of the internet? Just asking. 🙂

John Thawley

I think as time moves on, the definition of ‘commercial endeavor’ is going to get so hard to nail down that it’s going to throw a lot of the current laws and rules about use, rights, and licenses into a tizzy.
With the internet allowing so many people to have (multiple) ‘micro businesses’ that are a mix of pleasure/business this line just keeps blurring and blurring.
I think it’s actually a good thing – people can make money pursuing their passion. And multiple income sources for more of the population will help stabilize economies. However, if the laws aren’t re-written with an acknowledgement of this change – it could be a rough time for people in creative fields trying to assert and maintain control of their rights.

Fifteen years ago someone could make a living selling email service; today it’s very difficult thanks to FREE services like Hotmail and Gmail.

I see that this blog uses WordPress, which is FREE software. Does using it devalue commercial software? Absolutely — today it’s near-impossible to sell blogging software.

The rise of inexpensive, good quality SLRs, combined with sites like Facebook and Flickr, have greatly reduced the perceived value of photos, in the same way that Gmail reduced the perceived value of email and WordPress reduced the perceived value of blogging software.

The world changes, and business models become obsolete. In the past, someone could make a pretty good living being a photographer; in the future that may not be possible. Fighting to preserve an obsolete way of making a living won’t work for most photographers any better than it did for most paid email providers.

I’ve gotta agree with Oscar – it’s a race to the bottom in so many respects as everyone expects things cheaper: software, goods from China and, yes, photography. Whether the images are free from Life or as is discussed here and on my photography blog photographers working for free, the axiom of supply and demand are the same. It means that professional photographers must deliver extraordinary work where the bar for ordinary continues to rise. Unfortunately, some of the equipment needed to make this happen hasn’t gotten cheaper so the prospects for someone with a traditional business model are a bit grim.

With respect to the Getty and Life, I suspect that the decision was in part because people were already using their images for “non-commercial” purposes in ways they could not profitably prosecute. So making it okay for non-commercial use gives them great publicity without adversely affecting their revenue stream (at least in the short term). The analogy with the newspapers is a bit faulty in that, the newspapers never charged more for the content for commercial use. Well, okay, I concede that businesses could request a reprint of a favorable article but this amounted to a very small percentage of income. The Getty and Life get all their revenues from commercial entities who don’t question the fact their commercial.

I will admit that I am not a pro or looking to be a pro needing to find a way to make money shooting photographs. I think there are a lot of valid questions that are brought up in the post and the comments, but here’s the thing. This very blog doesn’t charge me a thing to subscribe why is that? Is your sage advise not worth something. Should you not charge for this wisdom such that you uphold the prices for other sages to be able to charge for words of wisdom? It would appear that Vincent has something to gain from people following it either personally or monetarily so he chooses not to charge. Does this blog in some way squeeze out some traditional print media with its low or no cost distribution model?

The fact is I think the most important thing that was brought up is the lack of clarity on how and when they will charge for image use. Then you can, as a creative person, decide if you want to hook your trailer to getty/Walmart.

People go broke not selling to walmart and people go broke selling to walmart and oddly enough some make a fortune selling to walmart.

In my mind the the future will be macro blogs or blog coalitions as people get tired of following 20-40 blogs for content and no one or two blogs can get all the great content, inter-blogger posting reading similar content and cross merchandising material. If this happens, Getty can make some money by being the defacto standard image offering for online blogger media.

There was another comment made that I agree with. By exposing people (and not other photographers) to very good photography there is a change that the appreciation for the art form will grow again. Right now people don’t pay $150 bucks for a portrait session to cherish or having kids professionally shot. they buy a digital camera and are perfectly happy with lots of OK shots they can show friends on facebook.

The largest comparison I could make to the Getty question is the fact that pros have to buy permits to shoot productions in say a big city while as an average citizen can shoot away. However, I would question how many pros truly get thier permits and pay their fees for images they sell or license (typically the bigger you are the more likely you pay while the smaller you are the less likely you pay)

OK I realize this is a total ramble…Shoot cause it means something to you. Keep up the great work.
KJ

In response to your question: “I have to ask: if most of what is being put online is being put up there ‘for free’ – how are the people responsible for producing that content supposed to make a living in the long run?” in many ways is a rhetorical question that you already answered in your earlier post “The Perfect Storm Has Arrived.” The traditional channel for still photographers to make money has been print, but as we have already seen in the last 12 months, print is dying faster than anyone had anticipated and the traditional revenue generating channel for still photographers is also shrinking. For better or for worse, still images have been commoditized with the proliferation of image capturing devices since the migration from film to digital, and this proliferation as driven the demand for immediacy rather than high quality composed images. Many of these modern images are becoming free as consumers are looking for images that occurred at or immediately following an event (Michael Pheleps and the photo of him with “paraphernalia” taken with a camera phone).

I think a more relevant question to pose is what tools will future creative professionals and artists use to communicate their story and what channels will they have to monetize and protect their work? When I look at the work you’ve done with the Canon 5D Mark 2, it has opened up opportunities for users to create highly engaging content at a fraction of the cost. If you were to consider the equipment cost of producing “Reverie” with tools that existed prior to the new class of still and motion capture devices, it would have been cost prohibitive and most likely inaccessible to you. In many ways the key to success in the current paradigm shift is to change and adapt to the market and push your personal limits of creativity and ideas. Change is disruptive and forces people to re-evaluate what they are doing in work and in life. We can only hope the changes that are happening today will allow people to reach a broader audience for their work and allow them to make a living at what they love to do. BTW, think about how many people you would have reached with “Reverie” if the only outlet for you was public access TV…

This is art theory 101 — if you’re interested in these topics, be sure to read some Walter Benjamin, and some of the surrounding discussion about the “aura” of art in the age of reproduction.

I think the detail Getty Images and LIFE have overseen is that their use on LIFE is in fact commercial use, why in effect I and other photographers who’s photographs now appear free of use on LIFE will require LIFE to pay for providing this commercial service.

Getty Images’ archive does include several picture banks they bought over time. As for Getty Images them self, most of their photos are made by their own photographers who was paid a salary for doing so and gave away the rights in the same instant.

But for many other photographers, it’s their (our) photographs and Getty Images have been granted the right to license them, for which they get a percentage of the sales price. They act as our agents, you see.

Now, “our agent” already have one class act suit from angry photographers because they invented the type of license called “Premium” which is good large clients who get a very special price on pictures; in the range of a few dollars, not very different from iStockPhoto prices.

All very good if you have a huge inventory of pictures in files which you can sell many times instead of not at all. The iStockPhoto is an eye-opener as it introduced “micro economy” which means you sell one picture 3,000 times for 3$ instead os one exclusive sale for 500$. Easy to see this is great business.

Now, introducing “micro payment” for the big medias is an odd thing, because you then get 300 sales of 3$ instead of 300 sales of 100$. Not a bright idea, actually.

Not that it bothers me if it’s their own pictures. But it happen to be also be the pictures they are supposed to be “agent” for. It’s like if Leonard Cohen’s agent invented the “micro payment” for Leonard Cohen. “Hey, Leonard, in 2010 you’re going to perform 6,000 concerts for 10$ a piece instead of 120 for 200,000 a piece. It’s the internet, you know!”

Getty Images has taken it even further; they now give it away. Not only their own stock, but their photographers as well.

It’s a suicidal strategy, economically. But even worse, it’s a detour of creativity and quality. Getty Images (and LIFE) was build on great photography, but as the idea that “nobody wants to pay anything for photos” become pervasive internal in the Getty organization, so does the idea that some photos can be UNIQUE also die.

They fear – and they react to – competition from Flickr and other “internet picture databases,” but have you ever tried to find a great picture of Paris Hilton in Flickr, or of the Queen of Britian. Because you won’t.

And I fear that within a very short time span you won’t at Getty either. Because, who’s going to take them?

If only someone could invent a way to permanently tag a photo so that it could be tracked. Then we would have the best of both worlds, international distribution (the internet) and respect for the image.

Stock photography has more images than say 10 years ago and thus less value per image supply-demand, however when you consider the cost of an ad campaign or travel brochure the last thing you want is the image you picked appearing in another competitors product at the same time, so images may be cheaper but but good copyright control will still be worth $$.

good inf!

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