[LRflex] Re: a mildly interesting read on Stock Photo Market
- From: "David Young" <dsy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Tina Manley" <leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:59:53 -0700
In a message dated 25/07/2011, Tina Manley said ...
> The article was written by Betsy Reid, formerly director of the Stock
> Artists' Alliance. I was a member until they started accepting
> photographers who leased stock photos as Royalty Free which went against
> everything that they supposedly supported. The board of directors made
> excuses at the time that they needed to keep up with all aspects of stock,
> including RM and RF. Now she seems to be having second thoughts and
> realizing, too late, what a fiasco RF really is.
> Tina
The $64 question, Tina, is whether the Stock Photo business can be saved
or, at least, revived. The purveyors of RF images are doing well, even
if their members aren't. Thus, they are unlikely to go away... and so long
as they are in business, they will remain a thorn in the sides of regular
photographers and their agencies.
To me, it is reminiscent of the business that I spent 30 years in.
The makers of "mid-fi" had a multi-billion dollar business, but decided
to bring out "mini-systems", presumably because they thought they'd expand
their market. What they discovered is that consumers, as a group, are not
a discerning bunch. Consumers thought "why by a $2000 stereo, when I can
get one for $299?" The fact that they were buying a sound system, and that
the cheaper system sounded like garbage didn't occur to them.
From the trade journals I still get, the retail value of the component
stereo market, today, is less than 10% of what it was in 1997, when I got
out. And it was already in rapid decline, for some years, then.
These same journals tell me that the stereo market is starting to "bounce
back", but it will be many, many years, if ever, before they regain the
business they had.
I fear the stock photo market is in for a long, rough ride.
--
David Young - Photographer
Logan Lake, CANADA
Wildlife: www.furnfeather.net
Personal: www.main.furnfeather.net
A micro-lender through www.Kiva.org.
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