Last week, the photographer who took the picture, Robert Lam, proudly pointed out his achievement in the Photography Talk forum on the Web site Model Mayhem.
The first reply to Lam's post asked if Time paid for the image, and Lam replied, "yes only 30.00 from Istock," meaning iStockphoto, an online agency. Stock photographs are existing images that can be licensed for various uses for a one-time fee. They're used a lot in marketing, packaging, advertising and journalism.
Salon is a frequent customer of iStockphoto. Some examples are here, here, here and here.
What followed was a conversation among photographers about stock photography that sounds a lot like the conversations journalists are having about online content.
After various notes of congratulations were posted by other photographers, one of them wrote, "You got screwed," pointing out that commissioned, as opposed to stock, photographs on Time's cover are worth thousands. "Photographers are to blame for that $30 option," the poster wrote.
In response to one poster's congratulations to Lam for his "accomplishment," forum moderator Dan Hood wrote, "No the real accomplishment here is that a huge for profit corporation got a cover that should of cost several thousand dollars for peanuts and the photographer is happy about it."
"How wonderful for you!" wrote another poster. "You get to work and work and work to produce great imagery and a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company with an advertising budget in the tens of millions gets to use your image ON THE COVER for $30."
Another photographer wrote that it bothered him "when someone doesn't know that their work is valuable, and that they could have easily gotten more than $30 no matter what their experience is. The point is that you deserve the compensation NOW, regardless of your experience. TIME wanted to use that image ... they should pay the fair rate (I don't think it's $30)."
And yet another wrote, "Companies gain ... not the photographer. A fine example of why not to use stock. If there was no stock sites companies would have to pay someone their rates which would keep them in their job for another week."
Sound familiar? Is that last post not the same argument newspaper executives make when they say they made a huge mistake by putting their content on the Web for free? If only we didn't give this stuff away, people would have bought it!
Only stock photography isn't some disruptive, newfangled thing. As with many types of commerce, the Web has made it easier to be both a buyer and a seller of stock photography, but the practice predates radio, never mind the Internet.
Saying that if photographers all refused to do stock photography they'd all get paid more is like saying that if restaurants all refused to give customers napkins without charging they'd all make a bundle on napkin sales. It's like saying that if local bands refused to play for drinks at dive bars, they'd all make good money playing music.
It's also like saying that if news organizations stopped giving away content on the Web, people would pay for news content online. It's absurd.
The posters in that forum who are making that argument are failing, or refusing, to understand basic economics, if not human nature. All photographers are not going to refuse to do stock photography. The ones who do refuse will simply be opening up the market for those willing to sell their pictures cheaply, either because they're not in it for the money or because they can make a profit on volume.
And those arguing that Time should have paid more for this stock photo because it sometimes pays more for other photos, or because it has a lot of money, are forgetting a little thing called supply and demand.
We should note, though, that because Time prints so many copies, it is likely it had to pay iStockphoto for an unlimited-run license, and that its cost was more like $125 than $30. Still nowhere near thousands, and we should also note that Lam, the photographer, was thrilled with his Time cover at a price of $30, and plenty of his colleagues were thrilled for him.
The same pricing dynamic is in play in journalism. The price is not set by how much time, effort, talent or experience went into making the product, and it's not set by how much money the customer has. It's set by supply and demand. The supply of stock photography is very large. The supply of general news content is huge.
If Time hadn't found Lam's stock photo of coins in a jar for $30, or $125, it would have found a similar photo for a similar price. If news consumers can't get their news online for free from their favorite news organization, they'll find it for free somewhere else.
What happened with Lam's photo is not a failure of the system, not a case of photographers eating their own and not a matter of big, rich Time magazine taking advantage of the little guy. I doubt those photographers would expect Time, because it has such a big budget, to pay $3 for a postage stamp or $20 a pound for the office coffee.
What happened with Lam's photo is simply the way the industry works. Time paid what it paid for that image because that's about what it was worth.
When the barrier to entry is low, the supply of goods is large and the alternatives available to the buyer many, the price is going to be low. Wishing it were otherwise, as the photographers are doing in that online forum and as opponents of free content do in Future of Journalism nerdland, will not make it otherwise.
mandalp1
Richard Davis
Chris Rywalt
Blue Roses
whitenoise
Anupum Mehrotra
Salon.com
Comments
I haven't looked at iSP's contracts but I do know some sites (Dreamscape comes to mind) have standard rates but also allow photographs to set up conditions on the use. This provides for the photographer to filter for various commercial use of their products and at least open the door for negotiation to a fair price for the use. But if the contract with iSP says its $30 to the photographer and $95 to us because of the volume of reproduction so be it, that's what you signed on for.
If the photographer who had the image appear on the Time cover was smart he would now parlay that exposure into better freelance gigs (if he even makes a living as a photographer, he very well might be a hobbyist as are many of the folks who post to the stock sites) .
I agree with your conclusion that it's the way it works now, that the expectation for services rendered being delivered at little or no cost trumps what artisans need to bring in to live.
I recently recounted my refusing the use of one of my photos in exchange for the privilege of that other person using my stuff in an OS post found here.
Sites like iStockPhoto or Creative Commons for photography or Associated Content and Textbroker.com (full disclosure: Textbroker is my employer) for writing take the chore and work out of searching out clients and securing payment. These sites even help artists build a solid portfolio of work that makes marketing themselves easier, allowing potential buyers worldwide to start a conversation about direct commissions.
Syndication and "talent" websites (for lack of a better phrase) could and should be thought of as artist incubators. They are a great way for amateurs and part-timers to get a toe in the water. Some systems are scalable, so that as an artist progresses with their talent and their clients, rates can change correspondingly.
Current professionals will have to be fast thinkers and good marketers to keep pace with the use of these sites. There are a lot of talented people in the world, and professionals need to find their niche and "selling point" to differentiate themselves and justify their prices. Their prices are justified, they just have to explain why.
Leave the complaints to the others while he seizes the day to gain from this experience. Gain a whole lot more than $30.
For that matter, even if he doesn't, he gets his 15 minutes of fame. There is a big personal reward in simply knowing that he took a photo chosen for Time Magazine. Personally I can relate. I put more than 30 years of obsessive "girl watching" techniques into a book and an audio book. Granted, it is not exactly a best seller and a lot of women would like to lynch me, but the number of guys who enjoy these techniques and the little bit of money I have seen for it bring that sense of reward I would like to see for Mr. Lam.
So to a "new journalism" POV person, it's a win. He gets huge exposure, plus $30 (when he probably would have been happy just for the exposure). For an "old journalism" person, he's being ripped off by Big Bad Time-Warner, not being paid a fair price.
Point of view; it's a big difference. I would be the photographer is under the age of 40; probably under the age of 30. "It's on Time magazine *and* they paid me! Cool!"
Photography has been devalued in so many ways--by a glut of aspiring amateurs, by the swapping of vast print real estate for postage-size internet usage, and by the countless scandals involving manipulated and untruthful images--that it's not surprising that stock agencies are offering $30 usage fees for the likes of Time magazine or that Time magazine is happy to take them up on the deal.
Thanks for the story. It's valuable, even if only as a Tom Wolfe-ish coda on the freefall of photography in the digital age.
The long Open Salon URL is hard to tweet. Maybe there should be a tweetably short URL published on the page somewhere.
Thanks for tweeting it!
Katharine
I'm mixed on this issue. I'm a writer who has made very little money on my writing over the years. and now the chance to make any money is disappearing. If artists aren't paid, they will continue to produce art, but how much of it and how well?
OTOH, the new media forms such as blogging here have been "berry berry good to me" as they saying goes, in that I can self-publish and find an audience if my writing is interesting enough. It all depends on what you want out of creating something -- money, recognition, an audience, or some combination thereof. Very few artists get even 1 of those 3, though.
In the past, a lot of why photographers got paid so much for their was because producing it was a complicated technical process. Well, technological advancements have serious lowered the bar for entry into these field. And the price reflects this. Better get used to it!
As mentioned earlier, Time most certainly bought as many rights as they could. I would even think that the image is no longer on iStock but I didn't check.
Illustrators who produce images for Time can charge more because they create these images for articles. Most work in hours and as a result can pay mortgages too.
Technology allows them to distribute digital copies of intellectual property for $1 and still make a profit. Since their cost of doing business has nothing to do with anything but the cost of "distribution" they have no interest in the potential value of IP.
They make their money on distribution. Artists are now indentured servants. Artists bear all the cost of manufacture and allow the "distributors" to set the price in the marketplace. The immense problem is the combination of the total lack of sophistication on the part of "creators" as to the true nature of IP (IP is not a banana, or a widget) and the fact that technology gives immense ease of distribution which some have figured out how to profit from.
As soon as manufacturers ( creators) give up control of pricing to distributors the consequences are grave. This is true for any market segment, not just photography. All creators must revolutionize the way they do business in the digital age and surrendering your IP to "distributors" whose only concern is to make a profit on the cost of transmission is a destructive business model.
All creators must revolutionize the way they do business in the digital age and surrendering your IP to "distributors" whose only concern is to make a profit on the cost of transmission is a destructive business model
Surrendering your IP to distributors whose only concern is to make a profit on the cost of transmission sounds to me like an exact description of the old-school, offline market for the vast majority of creators. Is that not what musicians have been doing with publishers, labels and distributors for the last century? Is it not what authors do with publishers? And so on.
Every photographer in the world is free not to participate in the stock photography market. It's not a destructive business model for (a hypothetical) me if I'm taking pictures anyway, never plan to make any money off of it, but figure I can make a little pocket change and get some giggles by seeing placement once in a while through stock. Online stock has depressed prices and increased opportunities.
It's increased opportunities in all sorts of other ways, too. You're absolutely right: Every creator who spends an ounce of energy whining about the way things are should instead spend it "revolutionizing the way they do business."
king
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