Reactions . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report
Sept. 7, 2007

The Stock Asylum contacted a number of stock photography industry professionals to learn their reactions to Getty Images' decision to significantly lower prices for web-resolution imagery.

As one might expect, the sesponses to the proposed $49 across-the-board price, ranged from very positive to extremely negative. Some were logically stated while others displayed a great deal of emotion.

Photographers in particular seemed most disturbed by the move. Only one shooter said he was taking a wait-and-see approach, but he asked that he not be quoted here. Other photographers were uniformly negative. Distributors were more generous in their appraisals.

Read on to see what the stock photo industry is saying.

"Getty might have enough Excel spread sheets to cover the planet and prove that offering all its collections for $49 for web usage will drive a lot of lost business back to Getty. I fear that while they might have all the facts, they are also dead wrong. Market leaders should not act like scared kittens. Getty became a great brand by offering the best images, the best search and the best customer service and they were able to charge a premium for their pictures. Now they are giving away the family jewels at fire sale prices.

"Getty has lost its value by loosing its values."

–– Zave Smith, photographer

"I think it's a smart move and a necessary one given the pounding Getty's stock took after (Getty CEO) Jonathan Klein announced Q2 results in July. Wall Street is looking for a corrective move and this fits the bill. And Getty had to act fast to be able to show some results in Q3.

"It could generate new revenue by monetizing something that thousands of propeller-heads were stealing from them anyway –– the enlarged unwatermarked preview images that are "freely" available on the web site, if you ignore copyright. This will also provide a reasonably-priced alternative for many clients migrating to largely mediocre microstock for microbucks. It won't stop the migration in its tracks but it will surely slow it.

"Unfortunately, Getty's sudden implementation of the thing blind-sided all of their distributors. But since Getty gleans about 85 percent of its revenues from its wholly-owned operations, complaints from distributors who weren't given time to prepare will be seen as collateral damage. It won't cost Getty anything but a bit of griping while the distributors tool-up to make the price changes.

"Ironically, Masterfile was considering a similar course of action months ago but we figured it would be next to impossible to get all our major RF suppliers onside. Getty solved that for us in one fell swoop and we won't be far behind. I like those guys."

–– Steve Pigeon, president of Masterfile

"What bothers me is that it establishes a de facto price of $49 for any web use and it gives an extraordinary amount of value for no money. It may work out to be a good deal for Getty, but I don't think it will be a good deal for individual photographers. If web cases go to court for copyright infringement, what is the value of the images? $49?

"My big hope is that in the long run Getty will create enough animosity in the photographic community that their photographers will stop providing them with content. The fact of the matter is that, without their photographers, they are nothing. In a way, we photographers provide them with the means of our own destruction –– we provide the product. People have to wake up. If photographers had the luxury of a long-term perspective, I think they would see that it is not in their best interest to provide imagery to Getty.

"SAA (Stock Artists Alliance) has taken the lead on this issue and a number of organizations are lending their support to SAA. We will all be communicating to our members."

–– Eugene Mopsik, Executive Director of ASMP

"Mark Getty has very little regard if any at all for photographers other than the fact that they are simply the peons that supply his company with the "commodity" that allows him to make millions. 'Buyers' on the other hand, little Markie will bend over backwards for since they are the ones who are supplying him with his millions. Funny thing is that without the peon photographers, little Markie would have no product and the buyers and Wall Street could then care less about little Markie or his company.

"Remember, when little Markie was looking for a way to make even more money he stated, "Intellectual property is the oil of the 21st century." Intellectual property and those who create it are nothing more than oil to little Markie."

–– Jim Hunter, photographer

"The really positive thing about the Getty pricing is the simplified aspect of the pricing. As I understand it web use pricing has been difficult for customers to know –– priced all over the lot. So this aspect of the deal is a good idea."

"I don't think that the price is compelling. If they offered it at $5, then the price would be compelling."

"I'm not sure it is going to impress Wall Street or impress the buyer. To me, the most important thing is that they are trying to think outside the box, but the question is, is it too far outside the box."

–– Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia

"Printable? What I think about Getty's new $49 pricing . . . you can't print! Getty and Klein are either idiots, are insane, or they're simply getting ready to sell the company to Google."

–– Joe Pobereskin, President, ASMP New Jersey

"Getty stock share price has been hammered lately and I believe the $49 initiative is a short sighted, fear based and a desperate move to improve the immediate earnings picture for the sake of stockholders, analysts and potential buyers of the company. It is not a move that indicates any sort of long term perspective or vested interest in terms of the industry, photographers, and for that matter long term Getty, Getty shareholders OR even a prospective Getty buyer. It is ironic that the company who continually proclaims possession of the best collection in the world finds it necessary to continually position itself as a bottom feeder on pricing (both publicly, as in the $49 deal and microstock leader, and from what I have been told privately, in their preferred vendor deals), especially when you consider that their profit margin on any given sale regardless of price is the best in the industry. Getty either owns it outright or pays the creator about 30 percent on the average sale.

"The notion that Getty would charge several hundred or thousand for an image to appear in a print ad but will only charge $49 for a web placement that could easily generate more exposure than the print version is simply giving away the farm and the future of the industry.

"The potential commercial usage of stock photography is expanding but that expansion is incremental rather than infinite, or even exponential. The micro, RF and RM bottom feeding model of volume in exchange for an extremely low price only makes sense in a scenario of exponential growth."

–– John Greim, CEO of Mira/Creative Eye

"Getty's unified pricing is an iTunes approach to stock imagery. I think it simplifies what has traditionally been difficult to understand –– namely licensing of intellectual property for a specific usage. But it's an interesting approach because Getty has said that the iStockPhoto audience isn't their commercial stock audience, and Klein has said that "good" is good enough for the web.

"Does Getty think that a person that buys microstock will graduate to buying $49 based on the perception of quality? It's a huge step to go from $1 to $49. Similarly, I don't get the feeling that the people that were already paying $100 for a web usage will suddenly buy more because the price has been discounted. The people that were used to paying a few hundred bucks for an image aren't price sensitive in that way, in my opinion.

"That said, if Getty is able to graduate the iStock community into paying more for an image, it'll be a brilliant move.

"There's no impact on us because we don't set pricing for our users. They are free to price images for as much as they think the market will bear. Of course, to the extent that we believe that Getty is a bellwether for the industry, everything they do is of interest. And since their stock has been battered so badly, they are willing to take risks."

–– Allen Murabayashi, CEO PhotoShelter

"I place my images with Getty to take advantage of the pricing power of a large distributor. Now with the new $49 web resolution pricing plan that is being proposed, it appears that Getty has run in front of the crowd waving the white flag on the future of photography display.

"As more and more content moves to the web, the new pricing is a recipe for lower earnings for artists and the company as well. An ill-conceived pricing structure for RF images based on file sizes fostered the issue years ago. Most observers saw the shift years ago and at long last it is time for the largest distributor to show some leadership in promoting the value of the image instead of rushing to be the cheapest on the block.

"If Getty was still an agent that had an obligation to look out for the interest of the artist as well as the company I don't believe that this decision would have been made.

"This looks more like a short term strategy to boost the stock price preceding a sale instead of a commitment to promoting the power and value of photography for long-term growth. I expect Getty to be the leader in supporting the value of images.

"Many companies sell products at different price points under the same brand. Car companies have their entry level vehicles as well as the luxury brands. Getty has a similar model except that they now have taken their high end brand and has rushed to offer it at cut-rate prices.

This looks like short term thinking to me instead of creating long term value for the collection.

–– Mark Harmel, photographer

 

The Getty Images web site is at: http://www.gettyimages.com.

For an article about Getty's announcement, click here.