Connecting Buyers/Sellers . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report
October 2, 2005

Two companies based at opposite ends of the United States soon will launch services that promise to bring image creators and buyers closer together.

Spy Media, of San Jose, CA, offers a new level of efficiency for editorial freelance photography transactions while PhotoShelter, of New York City, is primarily an image archiving solution with modules that let photographers sell images in ways that best fit their individual businesses.

Spy Media soft launches this week with a special offer that lets photographers upload images for free until the official launch on Nov. 1.

PhotoShelter, already in its soft launch phase, officially goes live at the PhotoPlus trade show in New York Oct. 20. The term "soft launch" refers to active web sites that are still being polished by developers.

The two new offerings join a growing class of web services that connect buyers and sellers of stock photography with less "friction" in the middle. Other services include Digital Railroad, IPNStock, Alamy, StockPipeline and even Yahoo's flickr photo sharing service.

Spy Media is interesting in that it potentially raises the "citizen-journalist" to a new level while being equally friendly to established professional photographers who want better ways to get their images to publishers.

As digital cameras proliferate, news outlets find themselves frequently using non-professional photography created by regular people who just happen to be at news events. What such imagery lacks in polish, it makes up for in immediacy. A mediocre photo of a burning building beats a professional image of the burned-out skeleton every time. Pros just can't be everywhere at once.

At the same time, pros do create better images and they have access to places and situations from which amateurs are excluded.

Spy Media makes it easy for creators of both kinds to offer their images quickly and efficiently, whether the work is of local, national or international interest, said Bryan Quinn, President of the new company.

Once a photographer has joined the service, Quinn said, it takes about 90 seconds to upload an image of up to eight megabytes. The photographer then provides relevant information and sets the appropriate usage prices. Quinn noted that images can be purchased and downloaded in less than 90 seconds.

The company will charge photographers between $1 and $3 to upload an image and will take 35 percent of sales revenue, with 65 percent going to the photographer. No licenses for commercial uses will be offered.

Photographers set their own prices in any or all of four categories, Quinn noted. Photographers can change prices at will, he added.

The top pricing category, "first exclusive," is essentially a full transfer of copyrights. "Thirty-day exclusive" provides the buyer an exclusive image license for 30 days, followed by 11 months of non-exclusive rights for news purposes. The "non-exclusive" category is a one-year, non-exclusive license for news purposes only. Finally, there is a "personal use" category for people who want news images for themselves.

Quinn said images will not be censored unless they are obscene, clearly not news, or infringe on an existing copyright. "News" he said will be defined very liberally.

"If it is news to ten people, that's news," he said, noting that even images from local little league games would fit under this definition.

"I don't think, right now, people understand how valuable news photography really is," said Quinn. "I think a lot of amateurs will catch on and start to really sell their photography," he added. "Do you know how many retailers have been created by eBay?"

PhotoShelter is essentially a flexible digital asset management (DAM) and archiving system that lets photographers back-up their work for a small fee. (Click here for more information on digital asset management.)

"It starts with the notion of digital asset management," said CEO Allen Murabayashi. "But you can distribute photos however you want to stock agencies, clients, etc., using our e-commerce modules."

In addition, he said, photographers can make their images searchable directly from the PhotoShelter web site. About ten percent of the photos in the database are currently searchable, Murabayashi noted. PhotoShelter charges no commissions.

At $5.99 per month for ten gigabytes of storage space and no set-up fees, the service is certainly within reach of most photographers. For safety, PhotoShelter stores the images simultaneously in two databases, one in New York City and the other in San Francisco. The system supports hundreds of file formats.

"The moment you put your pictures online you increase the chances they will be found," Murabayashi asserted. "People are definitely selling images through our system."

 

 

Spy Media can be found at: http://www.spymedia.com

PhotoShelter is at: http://www.photoshelter.com

Digital Railroad is at: http://www.digitalrailroad.net

IPNStock is at: http://www.ipnstock.com

Alamy's web site is at: http://www.alamy.com

StockPipeline can be found at: http://www.stockpipeline.com

flickr is at: http://www.flickr.com