Last week Getty Images announced a new $49 “web use” license for images from all of its collections. This week several leading trade associations representing over 12,000 professional photographers have asked Getty to remove all Rights Managed imagery from the new license. In a letter to Getty, they contend that “Offering your very best imagery at heavily discounted prices may well increase volume, but it also risks undermining Getty’s core licensing business-as well as the businesses of the independent contributing photographers who create and own the majority of imagery in your RM collections.”

Stock Artists Alliance Press Release

Leading Photographer Groups Call on Getty Images to Remove Rights Managed Collections from new $49 “Web Use” License

Heavy discounting of premium stock imagery risks future revenue potential from major digital uses, as budgets shift from print to online.

Last week, Getty Images announced a new $49 “web use” license for images from all of its collections, including its highest quality Rights Managed collections. With this move, Getty has effectively slashed the value of commercial web use licenses by up to 96% off their established rates for Rights Managed photography.

In a coordinated response, leading trade associations representing over 12,000 professional photographers have called upon Getty Images to remove all Rights Managed imagery (including their Rights Ready brands) from this new license product.

The Stock Artists Alliance (SAA), the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the U.K. Association of Photographers (AOP), Advertising Photographers of America (APA), Editorial Photographers (EP), and the Canadian Association of Photographers (CAPIC) represent top advertising and editorial assignment photographers and thousands of stock photographers- including many Getty contributors.

Their shared concern is that this extreme competitive response by Getty Images presents huge risks to the image licensing business, and threatens the livelihoods not only of Getty contributors but of professional photographers industry-wide.

In a joint letter sent to Getty Images CEO Jonathan Klein today, the associations have urged the company to reconsider this plan and remove the Rights Managed collections from the $49 license scheme. “Offering your very best imagery at heavily discounted prices,” they contend, “may well increase volume, but it also risks undermining Getty’s core licensing business-as well as the businesses of the independent contributing photographers who create and own the majority of imagery in your RM collections.”

Furthermore, the letter states, “As the market leader, Getty’s actions affect the entire industry. We therefore expect that your action of devaluing digital usage risks the long-term earning potential from image licensing, whether it be stock or commissioned.”

Anticipated consequences of this dramatic move, they suggest, include:

1. Loss of high-value digital license revenue.
Getty is unnecessarily giving up money from commercial and high-end advertising customers willing to pay premium prices for the most exclusive imagery.  Now these same customers are rapidly shifting their large media budgets from print to the web as the internet emerges as their primary marketing platform. Spending for web advertising by these customers can easily rival traditional media budgets with many spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on relatively small media buys. This $49 deal gives away valuable rights for minimal prices that will not be replaced by increased volume for this kind of commercial usage.

2.  Devaluation of RM licensing.
Flat-rate license fees run counter to the Rights Managed premise that price and value are commensurate with usage. The $49 deal lumps together buyers for global online ad campaigns with small mom-and-pop shops and local web uses. Flat-rate unit pricing is already being offered in Royalty Free products, and this new product will offer value-conscious customers access to quality RF imagery. There’s no need to extend it in RM. Offering the very best images at a bargain price point communicates to customers that all images, even the very best and most creative, are all worth the same.

3. Erosion of prices across the board.
The devaluation of web usage prices will lead to devaluing print and outdoor usage that will pave the way to further steep price cuts across all types of licenses. Once customers can obtain a major use license of an RM image at this cost, they will likely question the validity of being charged significantly higher rates for other uses.

4. Reduced return for photographers.
Lower per-image returns for photographers make it more difficult to produce the highly creative images that form the core of creative RM stock collections. These images cannot be produced in volume, and photographers are already feeling the impact of reduced revenues. This move further strains the viability of independent photographers’ businesses, and will result in less fresh imagery available for customers.

5. Reduced recovery value for images.
The offering by the world’s largest stock image supplier of all their images across the board at a $49 price point will have a serious impact on the valuation of claims in the courts for copyright infringement and lost/damaged originals. It also undermines the proposition that each image is unique and has to be valued on its own merits. Infringements of stock images are already at crisis levels-especially for web and digital uses. We are alarmed that a consequence of the low value established for web uses will dampen efforts to enforce copyrights and recover otherwise lost revenues.

Pricing on GettyImages.com for Web Uses
Collection License Use
placement / term Current Prices New Price (500KB)  %Change
RM Commercial Website one page / 1 year $680 - $870 $49 93% - 95% reduction
RM Web Banner Ad
unlimited / 1 year $1140 - $1460 $49 96% reduction
RR Web & Electronic unlimited / 10 years $550 - $650 $49 91% - 92% reduction
RF Unlimited, Perpetual $55 - $145
(1MB) $49 11% - 66% reduction

Evolution is Needed
There is no doubt that stock licensing and pricing models must evolve to address the needs of a diversified marketplace of new media users, which include major stock image users, as well as new kinds of customers. An essential part of this evolution must include logical and consistent licensing and pricing structures that make sense to the customer, and that preserve the value of high quality professional imagery.

In closing, the association letter states: “We are eager to work with Getty Images and other leaders in the industry to find ways to evolve image licensing that address the changing needs of new media customers, and which leverage the distinctive value associated with Rights Managed imagery in a changing marketplace. We have a mutual interest in growing our image licensing businesses but respectfully contend that we must explore better ways to do so, which do not risk the value of what we have created.”

SAA president Roy Hsu, an Advertising Art Director specializing in digital media and stock photographer, explains: “Digital advertising is currently the fastest growing segment and will become the key source of high end advertising within the next few years. Internet based campaigns now can define brand campaigns and make headlines on their own, which used to be reserved by print and broadcast. Media budgets for online are now comparable and sometimes higher than those of traditional print media. This pricing scheme oversimplifies a complex industry by mixing the high and low end users together, and the discounting these digital uses is in effect giving up on the high-end customer.”

Coordinated Action by Photographer Associations
This is the latest example of coordinated advocacy initiatives by leading photographer trade associations who are increasingly working together to address issues of common concern to their members. They have also joined together as members of the PLUS, The Picture Licensing Universal System; and the Imagery Alliance, a diverse coalition of industry stakeholders formed to respond to proposed “orphan works” legislation, and to champion the need for industry licensing and metadata standards, and copyright education.

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