Fotolia, a micro-stock photography site that we first covered back in November 2005, is further undercutting some of the larger, more traditional stock photography sites, such as Getty and Corbis, by providing many of the same higher-quality images but at lower prices.
Up till now, micro-stock collections have consisted largely of lower-quality photography shot by amateurs or hobbyists and sold through sites like Fotolia, iStockphoto, and SnapVillage for as little as $0 and often no more than $50. In contrast, stock images sold on Getty and Corbis command a much higher price for their superior quality and come from professional photographers who have hired agents to distribute their work.
With the maturation of the Internet came the rise of micro-stock photography because a wider range of photographers could bypass agents and sell more directly to an online market. Some of the more traditional stock photography outlets have embraced micro-stock photography, despite the cannibalization implications; Getty purchased iStockphoto for $50M in February 2006 and Corbis launched SnapVillage in June 2007. Now Fotolia, which claims to be the largest micro-stock image library with 2.8M images, is doing the opposite: embracing traditional stock photography while maintaining micro-stock photography’s biggest selling point, lower costs.
Providing further evidence that photos on the web demand a different price structure than photos offline, Fotolia has debuted what it’s calling the “Infinite Collection.”. This is a set of 15,000 agency-distributed photographs that would normally be found on expensive stock photography sites but are now being sold for as little as $20 on Fotolia. Since these are exactly the same products sold elsewhere, Fotolia is evidently embarking on a strategy of price discrimination, hoping to sell premium products to an audience that wouldn’t fork over the money necessary to buy them on Getty or Corbis.
This idea is corroborated by Fotolia’s refusal to name the collections from which they are drawing their traditional stock photography, which suggests that it doesn’t want to make it easy for people to hunt down the best prices for the same photography. Since professional photographers also tend to shun micro-stock sites because they can’t make as much money from them, the lack of transparency also makes me wonder about how aware the professional photographers actually are that their photos are being sold at highly-discounted prices.
In any case, it will be interesting to see how well this form of price discrimination holds up in the long run, since the Internet has a tendency to prevent rather than foster price discrimination. I suspect that this new offering will lead higher-end stock photography sites to lower their prices, assuming that photographers are indeed really willing to sell their work for a lot less.
what exactly does “price discrimination” mean? Many who need photos for websites and ads can’t affor the $ per image that getty charges. Aren’t they just undercutting the costs? How is offering lower prices discrimination? I’m genuinely asking …
Wikipedia can probably explain it more thoroughly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
But basically, price discrimination is when the same product is sold at different prices to different people who have different willingnesses to pay.
For example, if you forgot to have both breakfast and lunch, then you may be willing to pay $10 for a hot dog. But someone else who had both may be only willing to pay $2. If it only cost the hot dog maker $1 to make each hot dog, it could try to price discriminate by selling you the hot dog for $10 and the other person for only $2. Of course, the seller would have to know that you’re hungry enough to pay more, whereas the other person isn’t.
In this case, Fotolia can price discriminate by assuming that its visitors (accustomed to buying inexpensive photos) won’t be willing to pay top dollar for high-quality photos. But they are willing to pay a little more than usual for the same photos that customers elsewhere (of Getty or Corbis) are willing to pay much more for.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the agencies distributing the photos through Corbis, Getty, iStockphoto, Fotolia et al are the ones price discriminating. Nevertheless, that’s what’s going on it seems. So, yes they are undercutting prices but there’s more to it.
“Up till now, micro-stock collections have consisted largely of lower-quality photography shot by amateurs or hobbyists and sold through sites like…”
Some lower quality, yes, but a very large portion of photography on the micro sites are much better than images you’d find on Getty, in both quality and conceptual categories.
Mark,
You have no proof of price discrimination. You’ve basically reprinted a press release looking for someone to comment. Here’s my comment: If you want to act like a journalist at least try and uncover some facts. Otherwise get in the PR business.
Your further evidence assumption is also garbage because you know nothing about the photography industry. The only further evidence is that TechPunch is pushing an agenda when it comes to copyright and photography. You will never have to worry about that because no one would ever steal this dog crap.
Mike
Hi,
All the article is about Fotolia, but the company information at the end is Istock … do you have share there
?
Great move. I buy images for my articles and Fotolia is my favorite of all the stock photography agencies.
“Up till now, micro-stock collections have consisted largely of lower-quality photography shot by amateurs or hobbyists and sold through sites like…”
There are amateurs or hobbyists as well as professionals at micros. I’m not sure “lower-quality” as a blanket statement is accurate. Images of questionable quality exist in micro and traditional stock. The lines are obviously starting to become blurred between the two.
The only difference between microstock agencies and traditional agencies are the schmuck photographers that sell their creative efforts for $1 a time and get 20 cents royalties…….
Beggars belief…
“Up till now, micro-stock collections have consisted largely of lower-quality photography shot by amateurs or hobbyists”
Huh? Have you ever looked at images posted on microsites? They have strict reviews in place and they block all sorts of junk. Images have to be hi rez, free of noise and artifacts, have good composition and lighting, a most importantly, have strong marketable value. A so called “lower-quality photography” is exactly the opposite of what you’d fine on any of the major microstock sites.
On top of that, these sites started offering non-micro pricing looooong ago, so where is the news? You could buy extended license for almost any image for $15 or $20 from at least 5 major sites for over a year now. TechCrunch, where is the research before posting something?
I know of only one site which can be called a micro site that incorporates traditional pricing, and that’s http://www.shutterpoint.com - photographers can choose whether they want to sell an image as micro/full license, or as full license (and full price) only. All other sites force contributors to offer images for microprices.
The price discrimination has also existed in photo industry for many years. Many sites resell collections found on other sites, either via distribtuon partnerships or by acquiring images from the same contributors. Prices for the same photo can span from a dollar to several hundred across various sites. Again, I fail to see the news.
I think there are always going to be different price points all depending on what different photographers and artists want to do.
You can certainly get free images (see the site above) that are ‘nice’ and that many people would love to have on their web site or report. Is the quality as good as National Geographic? Most of the time, no.
Photographers who spend the money for better equipment and spend more time getting everything right will probably want more money. Like any artist, they’ve got to decide the price point they want — do you want to sell more at a lower price or fewer at a higher price. Both can be a good way to make a living… But lets put it this way — I can afford a Warhol and I can’t afford a Picasso.
The problem with a typical stock site is that you have to browse forever to finally find what you are looking for. Photographers there are just reproducing cows, taking endless photos of items that are around them. It’s not photography, its more a farm of repeating stereotypes. I actually know just one community that focuses on photography and will not tell, because I don’t want you to ruin it. It’s german but I hope it will appear on your english radar soonish
I started a company, Cutcaster, that allows users to set their own prices for photos or videos they want to sell or they can use the Cutcaster alogorithm we have built, which looks at a number of different variables to find the closest and best market price for your content. It’s unique, in the fact, that it is the first dynamic marketplace, which educates and helps users price their hard work. It’s also a good way for people to keep control over how they want to price their content or they can use the algorithm if they don’t know what the market would pay for their content and just want to focus on creating it.
I don’t really mind how they sell/price their photos on other sites or their own site. They can use my site as a “testing ground” for how to price their content and find more potential buyers.
i’ll be interested to see how this works for fotolia and i think they are one of the better stock photography sites out there even though they are a competitor.
Looks like people were right. The source of some of the photos is ImageSource.
The an example photo on ImageSource is priced at $119 for the smallest size ( or $14.97 if you buy the whole CD).
The Fotolia version is priced at 16.60 Euro.
And then Getty would price the exact same all at 49 bucks, even though ImageSource didn’t allow them to price it.
Same image, different price so you can get a nice rebate on your holiday shopping depending on where you shop. I guess ImageSource will have to explain to their contributors what they were thinking and doing.
I think you can take away that midstock could become a bigger trend in 08 and that bodes well i hope for us and others.
I think your opening line would be more accurate if it read “…is now undercutting some of the larger, more traditional stock photography sites…” since Fotolia and other microstock sites have never been proven to dig into macrostock agencies’ profits. In fact quite a few articles have been written suggesting that this notion of microstock stealing money away from the traditional agencies and photographers is nothing more than myth and hype.
This new venture of Fotolia’s might now put them in the ring with larger agencies, thus becoming competitors with this new offerring. But to say that they are “further undersutting” anyone and suggesting that they have been taking business from Getty and others is completely unfounded.