A fairer way to license stock photos
The Winter break is our time to reflect and make decisions about our business as we head into the New Year. However, his year was slightly different as we had much stuff going on. So planning for our stock photo and video business was placed on the back burner.
It is now time to look at our stock imagery business. I am not optimistic that we will continue as we have in the past. The catalyst was NYE when we sold 14 royalty-free images through one of our agencies. It wasn’t so much a sale as a bloody insult.
Seriously, a deal that returns 84 cents to the photographer on the sale of fourteen images is a joke. Oh, that wasn’t 84 cents each, but instead, that was the total sale for worldwide royalty-free use in perpetuity.
The 14 licenses above, I suspect, will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. As a result, we will add more content to our stock photo archive. Spend more time promoting our library than supplying large libraries that pay a 1-2% royalty to the photographer.
If we market our stock images of Australia that way, the buyer gets licensing at lower prices. And we get a much larger cut of the fee. So life should be better for all. Our royalty-free and editorial images are found at Excitations Stock Photos of Australia.
Licensing stock photos fairly is crucial for the growth and sustainability of the stock photography industry. The industry can attract and retain talented creators by ensuring photographers are fairly compensated for their work. Doing this will produce more high-quality images for businesses and individuals to license.
Next time you need to license stock photos, please consider licensing directly from the creators. Help everyone get fair remuneration for their hard work.