Author Topic: What does the Adobe Stock program mean for royalties? (Read 16780 times)

tickstock · « **Reply #25 on:** June 26, 2015, 14:37 »

It seems to me like Adobe could do very well and still offer more to contributors. For instance 500 dls per month subs plan at the same price and pay 50 cents to everyone, $20 single sales and $100 packs of 10. That would beat most all of the other sites and it's not too much for buyers to pay. As an Adobe user I would much rather see a plan like that in place.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #26 on:** June 26, 2015, 14:53 »

Sure, Adobe could offer us more. That would be great. But what would be better, for me at least, would be if iStock went back to higher prices and raised royalties to match Adobe's. I have many, many more images with iS than with Adobe, and iS has the lowest royalties around. If they matched Adobe even without raising prices my earnings there would instantly go up more than 50%, and would more than double for indie photographers who get an even lower royalty rate than I do.

dirkr · « **Reply #27 on:** June 26, 2015, 15:04 »

Quote from: tickstock on June 26, 2015, 14:37

It seems to me like Adobe could do very well and still offer more to contributors. For instance 500 dls per month subs plan at the same price and pay 50 cents to everyone, $20 single sales and $100 packs of 10. That would beat most all of the other sites and it's not too much for buyers to pay. As an Adobe user I would much rather see a plan like that in place.

Agree. That would be great.
And in addition I'd like Shutterstock to raise their royalty rate to 50%.
And I'd like Istock (Getty) to travel back in time and NOT sell out to financial investors and paying them huge dividends out of massive amounts of new debt piled on Getty - while telling us that paying us 20% of the sales price is not sustainable, so they have to cut it.
Or maybe travel back some more and starting microstock not with 20% royalty on 1$ prices but 80% royalty on 50$ prices.
Or maybe the macro agencies back then not ignoring amateur photographers, crowd sourcing and the internet completely until Pandora's box was open and prices and royalties in free fall, but rather opening their doors to more people and educate the masses about what value their images could really have.

All that is done.

Adobe is certainly not bringing around heavenly times where all we need to do is sit back and watch the money rolling in.

But what they did is what I still see as one of the rare examples in this industry:

They have taken an existing offering (Fotolia) and actually made changes that improve the contributor situation.
Like raising the royalty for some offerings from 20% to 33%. Or making achieving next levels easier by counting subs as full download (also for past downloads).

So for me Adobe is not the first target in the line when fighting against contributor-unfriendly conditions.

tickstock · « **Reply #28 on:** June 26, 2015, 15:17 »

Quote from: dirkr on June 26, 2015, 15:04

So for me Adobe is not the first target in the line when fighting against contributor-unfriendly conditions.

They might be the first that's willing to listen?

dirkr · « **Reply #29 on:** June 26, 2015, 15:21 »

Quote from: tickstock on June 26, 2015, 15:17

Quote from: dirkr on June 26, 2015, 15:04
So for me Adobe is not the first target in the line when fighting against contributor-unfriendly conditions.
They might be the first that's willing to listen?

Good point. I must admit I didn't look at it that way...

cobalt · « **Reply #30 on:** June 26, 2015, 16:33 »

How about we just give them time to roll out the store, make sales, accumulate data, add video, learn even more and in 9 months all of us will know much more how their store is doing?

They came in and gave us more money. Let´s give them a little time before the aggressive lobbying starts.

Maybe we should just say "Thank you".

I think it would be great if they offered an additional premium segment, sort of macro for the masses which was easier to get into than normally. If they added editorial, including editorial video. And premium video or premium vectors with higher prices than normal. etc...

Other people will have other ideas.

And who knows what they themselves will come up with. They are not stupid, they understand the media market very well. They have made it clear they want to work with us.

I don´t think we need to panic, the stock market is not going to disappear. They are a new factor in the market and the other agencies have to respond. SS already mentioned a new premium segment, I am sure they will now have even more incentive to come up with something interesting.

Maybe even istock finally introduces exclusive images, because they realize this will attract good content and new people.

All the agencies know by now that we are ready to pull our files if necessary and that dramas are not good for their business. The internet has a long memories. Happy contributors are better for business and will license more adobe products.

gbalex · « **Reply #31 on:** June 27, 2015, 02:13 »

With all due respect you seem to be telling us all that you are working with both shutterstock and fotolia to recruit and train new contributors to fill areas of their collection that are lacking. You have a working relationship with both agencies that benefit the agencies bottom line not ours.

I think it is in our best interest to consider our own bottom lines, we need to protect our own assets.

cobalt · « **Reply #32 on:** June 27, 2015, 12:53 »

If all agencies become better in selling my local German files, I believe I will benefit.

It gives me more options to shoot instead of the same very generic images. It is a subject area in stock that I am personally interested in.

It would also mean less people working in that niche. "Christmas in Cologne" will have less files than "christmas tree" in general. "young people looking at tablet in front of cologne cathedral", much less than generic images.

There are a lot less artists taking pictures of Cologne, it is something that photographers in russia, US,asia etc... can´t do (unless they come here for work or holiday).

So yes, localized content is a niche, but I also have a LOT less competition.

And to do that, agencies need more local content, so that customers will be interested in looking for these more niche images. The beer example is a simple one, although SS has thousands of beer images, from my city there is very little.

I could of course just look for these niches from my area, shoot what is missing, hope nobody else notices and be the only one who makes the local money.
But I cannot reasonably alone cover a whole region and if more people can make interesting local content, I think we will all together sell more.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I should hope the agencies don´t encourage local content and just do it all by myself.

But I believe if more artists shoot local, more customers will know they can find it and I have more chances to get sales.

Overall I see every agency as a different marketplace. They might have some customer overlap, but I don´t think customers will have contracts with all agencies. I also would prefer if several strong agencies exist, that somehow are all a little different to each other, instead of one super agency that dominates everything.

I could try to send my localized content maybe to a smaller agency here in Germany that is known for mostly local content. But how many customers will they reach across the globe? Or maybe I want to do both? Something very unusual and special for them, simple "friends in cologne beergarden" to anyone.

So I personally believe more local content will help my bottom line and allow me to work with less competition. Even if I then subdivide it by theme and say "food images from cologne go to fotolia", people stock exclusively elsewhere etc..I still need several agencies.

I would prefer it if several companies offer me good sales options for local content instead of one, i.e. I don´t mind if adobe stock picks up german content, SS becomes stronger, istock too etc...the question should my files then be exclusive or go everywhere is a secondary one.

So these are my thoughts on "shooting local"

Sorry for the long post.