Looking around the various Forums and Blogs I often read that the end client or customer is legally responsible for the image, and how the image is used, but what about the image content are you sure that you have no responsibility that you have not already discharged.

There are some sweeping statements which are often used as a blanket response for all types of possible scenarios and image violations, but rarely do the posts and comments question the artists and merchants responsibilities, and was enough really done to protect the interests of the artist, agency, merchant, end client or customer?

There are so many conflicting views about Copyright and Intellectual Property there is just a maze of information for an artist and agency to consider.

What can the contents of an image be used for, where and how to use it, does this image require a property release, does this image require a model release, do I really have all the rights to sell an image I shot of an item, product or property, is it my problem when I then upload it to an agency and they accept it, they are saying it is fit for purpose so it is no concern to me.

As artists and merchants with the law reportedly putting all the onus firmly with the end client it is easy to bury our heads in the sand or just put a box over our heads, if we do not see any problem with the way we upload and trade with our online communities we are safe.

Anyway it is the customers responsibility not ours, we know that we cannot be held to account in any way, if the customer has used an image in a way that has lead to an action it is their problem, so really we are ‘squeaky clean’ in all matters.

As an artist selling through an agency or direct through your own website, you are not just an anonymous community member but you are running your own business, even if you were only to sell a single licence through an agency you have certain duties and responsibilities.

You should be more aware of these and we are not talking here about copyright issues, but business practices and responsibilities.

There are some actions that as artists and business owners, we do not think about or take enough ownership of, we do have a greater responsibility in some of our own business models, two of these are ‘Due Diligence’ and ‘Duty of Care’. 

 Due diligence in civil litigation is the effort made by an ordinarily prudent or reasonable party to avoid harm to another party, failure to make this effort may be considered in a civil court as negligence.

As an artist your due diligence is to gather enough information about a location, product, or model and make sure to the best of your knowledge that it is ok for you to upload the image for the use that you have offered the licence for.

Many locations now only allow non-commercial photography, when you plan a shoot or you have taken photographs at a specific location then you should inquire about commercial use, even for any images that you are then going to upload as ‘editorial use only’, when shooting a teen model that claims to be 18, then you should not just accept the word of the model , and have a record for ‘proof of age’ to use if called for, the preference is a photocopy of a passport, as any fraud is a criminal and not civil offence, the witness to the model shoot should also sign at the same time as the model and also be present at the shoot to protect the photographer.

if you own a virtual agency website that sells licences on behalf of other artists then as the owner you should have recorded proof that the artist is who they say they are, once again a copy of their passport on file, you also need to action due diligence on any images your service represents, that includes being sure to the best of you ability that the artist of images you represent have full releases and copyright control of the asset and you have a record of all required information. 

If you keep all information and a file of these actions, then you can show you have exercised due diligence for the supply of an asset.

Duty of Care is another consideration in business, there should be a duty of care from the supplier to the agent and the agent to the end client or Customer.

Any businesses greatest duty of care is to their customers, to ensure they have the knowledge and information to make a balanced and informed choice when making a purchase.

This means the artist also has a duty of care to the agency to collate and offer all the correct information when submitting an image to a library or collection, the agency then has the same duty to pass all this information on the the end client or customer.

Sure we can say everything is down to the buyer, but as an artist we should be more ethical and consider with whom we place our valued assets, have look at every new agency before committing to contribute.

Look to see if there has been any real consideration by the agency of due diligence when you applied to join and become a contributor, what information have they asked you for and how comfortable would you be trading with them as a customer.

Altering a passport or using someone else’s passport as ID would be a serious criminal offence in most countries, and most likely would attract a prison term if used for fraud, that is why the big agencies will take nothing else as verification, as a company it shows that they have done due diligence on the suppliers of the assets.

After joining also look at how you submit an image, is the stock site asking the right questions about your asset, the information you would want as a buyer, and when you enter the information does this restrict licence options if applicable.

Many websites that require a lot more information are really protecting themselves, in doing so they are protecting the artist as the supplier and showing a duty of care to the end clients and customers. 

Note: all images here are licensed from Istock microstock agency and are subject to the artist copyright, please do not copy or download any of the images used here.    

I posted a couple of replies myself and started to think ‘”just how diverse in other areas are the stock sites already?”, as we tend to have preconceptions and visual stereotypes, many images I see like this one here are departmental, as they fit nicely into subconscious boxes,  the ones that spring to mind are the many family images which are mostly mum, dad, kids and grandparents, I then considered how many of these typical families I know myself and there are not that many, so what if I had to write an article with a single parent and child as the focus, how diverse is the selection of images and what images to use?

We have a large number of single parent families in the UK 25% compared to AUS 14% and USA 9%, many of these parents are wage earners and some are single by choice, or relationship breakdown, with not all families fitting into the happy 2 + 2 + 2 family

I have created this scenario to research.

Scenario:

I am a writer for a busy single parent magazine style blog, I am writing a lifestyle article for lone parents and their children which are my target group, the editors brief for this article is to aim at the single dads struggling with the work life balance and stuck for ideas to engage the child in activities in the home, it must show just the father and a son sharing quality time together maybe cooking, it is raining outside so they can not play sports or have a barbeque,  as they are at home and in a one to one situation, the images need to show the two interacting with each other, they must show that they are relaxed and having fun, really comfortable and enjoying each others company, the child must have the parents full attention, these images must not be comedy shots with silly hats, pots on heads or unnatural poses with kitchen utensils, the child must be standing or seated safely, not standing on a chair, not sitting on the worktop, not near a flame, or doing anything that looks like it could be dangerous.

I wanted to see how well the Images are represented compared to the stereotypical gender thoughts about family roles like mum and daughters do cooking:

I first searched for suitable images over on IStock:

• Family Cooking :863
• Mum and Daughter Cooking: 221
• Mum and Son Cooking: 85
• Dad and Daughter Cooking: 51
• Dad and Son Cooking: 44

I was not happy that the 44 images returned were a good fit for the brief, many were outside the house and barbeques, others had other people in the shot, some like this one were comical, in some the dad and son were not interacting, others with the child in arms or a sling or sitting on the worktop do not fit the brief, I was left with just about four Images.

I carried out the same search “Dad and Son Cooking” on a total of 11 stock sites, RM and RF Images but all had to be for commercial use and model released, changing the word Dad for Father had the same results in the searches.

Traditional Websites Searched

• http://www.GettyImages.com :261 Images
• http://www.corbis.com :293 Images
• http://www.Alamy.com :129 Images (Commercial Collection)

Microstock Websites Searched

• http://www.istockphoto.com :45 Images
• http://www.shutterstock.com :74 Images
• http://www.fotolia.com :30 Images
• http://www.dreamstime.com :33 Images
• http://www.stockxpert.com :2 Images
• http://www.123rf.com :38 Images
• http://www.bigstockphoto.com :4 Images
• http://www.canstockphoto.com 57 Images (Poor: many not cooking related)

Conclusion:

The traditional sites only had a slightly larger choice, from the Microstock searches many images were on all the main websites, so overall I only had a handful of microstock images to choose from across all 8 websites.

Generally site by site from the returned images about only 5% – 10% from the search would be a match for this lone parent article, but “Family Cooking” on Istock returned a massive 863 images, so it looks like as artists we still do not diversify enough and put a lot of content into our own comfort boxes, maybe when shooting family 2 + 2 + 2 add all 1 + 1 variations as well, then when searching there would be 863 “Family Cooking” and 863 “Dad and Son Cooking” images to choose from.

Seeing the limited choice I went back to Istock to purchase the selected images for this blog post, the choice was just a narrow two images, so I purchased them both at xs, I would rather have purchased two shots with the same models, the first of these I saw many times and had become irritating, but to be fair it did have some variants, and I could have purchased them from any of the microstock sites:

If we look at many blogs there are often microstock images in the posts as hooks, with affiliate links and targeted Google Adsense blocks on the page, these sites will have no product, so the revenue to maintain the sites is generated just from these adverts, to bring traffic to the website the content must be dynamic and updated often to bring the readers back, user forums are a classic example, so as much as the images are used in an editorial article, they are used as hooks for commercial reasons.

The business in the scenario is the website itself, and it would use such images to attract readers to the blog articles, with the hope that another advert would catch the eye of the reader and generate revenue for the owners, the adverts are targeted on the blog site to the content, and could be for many services aimed at single parents, the first ones to jump to mind are dating agencies ,singles holidays, social clubs, restaurants, support groups, associations.

Note: the links in this blog post are standard links and not affiliate links, the images are all rights reserved by the photographers and should not be copied.

I have attended a photography day at the Wildlife Heritage Foundations Big Cat Centre in Kent every year for the last three, this centre is not open to the general public and is not a zoo, the big cats are a mixture of cats that have been born in captivity, and have retired from public showing or been rescued from a zoo or a circus.

I like many others do feel uncomfortable with animals in captivity, but for these animals of which most have been in captivity all their lives, releasing them to the wild is not an option as they just would not survive, as the centre is not open to the general public the animals will only get about 200 visitors in a week, compare this to the life of an animal in a zoo or circus and it does not seem so bad.

The centre has a number of sponsors and different community focused groups that visit the animals, to help top-up funding the centre allows sponsors and a few organised photography groups to also attend the centre for the day, the centre gains funds and the sponsors and photographers have a good day, where they can take their time to observe the cats and capture images of the animals in their habitat, by getting closer than they ever could at a zoo.

The only noise that we hear on our day, is from the trains and planes, there is an airfield close by and we see the planes practicing stunts and dropping parachutist.

The centre itself is not signposted from the road and is situated at the back of a small industrial area, which is through a small Kent village called Headcorn, when we arrive the Lions are lazing on a raised platform and do not even stir or take any notice of the next set of visitors to the site, the fence that keep the animals away from the public has quite a large 6cm (2.5 inch) square mesh, this is enough for me to get my old Cannon 75-300mm lens through, I setup for AV with an almost fully opened aperture, as I prefer portrait shots with an out of focus background, it looks more natural to me.

We are greeted by Mark the centres resident Photographer, and we go through a safety briefing, we are told that some of the cats can get their paw through the fence by about a metre, when crouching down be prepared to jump back and never use the mesh as support if you would like your fingers to stay attached to your hand, the bigger cats will also eat your lens if you poke it through the mesh so be aware.

We start our tour with Mark as our guide with a bucket of raw meat to entice the cats, Mark will throw small pieces of the meat like treats you might throw for a domestic pet, the meat is thrown over the fence which the cats eat, when people have seen some of my Big Cat shots they have asked how do they get the cats to look up, well it is just the cats expectation of the meat coming over the fence that is the secret.

So we set off to see the new arrivals for this year which are the two Puma’s, When we arrive at their pen the puma’s come out to see us as they know there will be food treats.

The water is also no problem for this cat as it dips it’s head in the water to find a piece of meat that had sunken.

Our next stop is to see the Cheetahs, there are two in separate pens and they were not enticed on the day by the meat treats, and they just chilled and relaxed in the warm sunshine, soaking up the rays and paying no real attention to the visitors.

The Cheetah is not a lazy cat as many small animals like rabbits that make the mistake of running through the pen find out to their cost.

Then it was on to see the Sumatran tigers these are some of the larger cats and were very calm with one just brushing itself against the fence post, just like you may see a domestic cat do, the other jumping up on the fence to get a meat piece Mark had put there.

The Sumatran Tiger is the father of the cubs you will read about later.

The Amur tigers were next, they used to be called Siberian tigers but are now called Amur tigers simply because Amur is the region where they come from just like the Amur leopards you will meet next, the Amur region where these Big Cats can be found is now protected by law.

The area is well policed and to enter the Amur region where you find these cats in the wild, you will need a government permit, anyone including game hunters that do not respect the government and try to poach the animals for their fur will find that they are the hunted and not the hunters.   

There are five Amur leopards at the centre two of which are the cubs of the adults and were born at the centre they are now about a year old, although their young age they are already as big as their parents.

We then went on to meet four more Tigers, two male cubs with their mother and an adopted aunt who mothers them as well and keeps them all in check.

You can see here just how close we were able to get to some of the cats, with Mark commenting on just how close you could or could not get to each cat or species, with the smallest the Pallas cat being one of the cats to watch most as Mark knows only to well.

The Pallas cat above is one of my favourites, it looks just like a large domestic cat with a fatter face and those wonderful large eyes.

Next to the Pallas cats high on a platform was the Snow Leopard  also know as the Ocelot.

There was not much of a reaction and the cat just sat there posing for the photographers.

A new arrival last year was the Lynx or Bobcat, this was the first time I was able to photograph it and it obliged by coming out walking up and down and sitting on a platform a real catwalk super star.

Last on our tour was the Serval this very lively cat has to be thrown meat continual or it will just go and sulk away in the long grass.

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour, the favourite image I have taken in the three visits is this one from 2007 from my first visit, he looks so relaxed but just look at the paws and you realise just how powerful these cats are, if you want to know more about the cats and how they are related to each other, the links above will take you to web pages with names and more information.  

All images in the Blog Post are straight from the camera, two are cropped but all are  un-edited, they were taken by David Cox between 2007 – 2009 and are subject to the authors copyright, please contact me if you would like to use my images.                 

This Photoshop plug-in that helps photographers to add metadata keywords to their images efficiently and easily. Main tools: spell checker, correction suggestions, synonyms suggestions, sorting, deleting duplicate, and counting. Saving groups of words and complete Templates of Meta-data.

The plug-in has no limitations and is from 2006, I tried to visit the website for Deep Perspective but the link was not valid, but I thought it may be worth looking at the tool anyway.

First download the tool from CNET:Deep Perspective:  and save the zip file to a folder on your PC, the next step is to locate the folder and unzip the file to a new folder:

Open the the new folder and run the Install.exe file

When you run the Install it will ask you to drill down to the Photoshop folder on your drive and find the Plug-Ins folder

Finish the Install and Open up Photoshop, open any image you may want to save the details as a keyword template, or even a new image, then from the menu choose File > Automate > Keyword Editor

If the image already has the data you will see it in this dialog box.

There are a number of options to look at on the drop down like Groups, Spell Check, these you can experiment with, if you want to save the Images data as a template you just select the Save Template button.

Enter a Name for the new template and select OK

When you want to add this data to another image you just select the template from the menu, you can also create Groups and apply these to an image and save the metadata to the image file.

This is just an overview so you know where to find the Keyword editor, the way it could be used is to save Photographer, Copyright Notice as a template, and build and use the keyword groups for quick keyword insertion, and for sites that have a limited keyword set you could save these as well as a full set of keywords for an image type. 

When I write a tutorial, support email or training aid, I will often insert an image rather than text, I think that an image is a far better reference point and a visual descriptor.

Black & White Lab Color Method

There are many ways you will read about to convert a colour digital image to Black and White, there is the lazy way of just performing a de-saturation or just selecting Mode and Greyscale, I use a method called the Lab Color technique, there are several steps to perform, but I feel that I have more control over the final image.

You can find this tutorial here:

Remove Purple Fringing

You may have heard the term purple fringing, and it can become evident when you view a high contrast image at 100%, this fringing may appear purple, blue and even magenta or other colours, purple fringing is the most used term.

Usually this is caused by low light against high contrast areas in an image, the fringe colour range is a fairly narrow band and can be removed in Photoshop.

You can find this tutorial here:

Removing stray areas Isolation over White

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to get a clean background with a product or model shot, which is an Isolation over White, often you do not see the stray area until you make a print and see the defects in the background, in this tutorial there is a simple way to correct this using adjustment layers.

You can find this tutorial here:

This is an option that many other microstock site might already be looking to follow, I thought hard about what would be my target market ,and I still really think that the largest most under serviced asset users, are still bloggers and content providers, and the small sizes are still the future of this industry, the niche collections are the cream and do have a place but are an already limited revenue stream.

Blogging and website content has fast become the domain of the industry, with many self-acclaimed analysts, commentators and critics just like me, from people that think they have a valid point to make and just want to share their perspective, to the many professional bloggers who will review that latest gadgets or bit of software in their given field, and report back in words, sounds movies and pictures their findings to the world wide web blogosphere.

As a blogger and content provider what do I want?

I want some easy tools that allow me to write a blog and post this to the internet, I use the program Windows Live Writer for my content,  I not only use this software for blogs but most of my other website content is updated using Windows Live Writer, with all content delivered direct from my desktop, if I have an image that I own on my hard drive, I can insert this into my post and Live Writer will send this to the website for me when I publish.

But I do not use images much simply because of the hassle in getting the right asset, I could stop what I am doing, go to Istock search for an appropriate image and download it, but that is all time consuming, and if my credits have run out I just pay for another ten credits, so often where an image would add value to my content I do not bother to use one.

I would like to be able to insert a licensed asset into my posts without advertising or having to leave the application I am using, I also do not want to pay for ten credits if I need just two to complete a post, I do not want to download a large size that is far to big for my content needs, and I only want to purchase a licence to use the asset once, as I am not likely to use it again.

As a Microstock artist what do I want?

I want as many license sales as I can get, I do not want any illegal use of my assets, I want my assets to reach and be seen by as many customers as they can, I want a fair commission payment based on usage, a monthly payout if I have transactions not when I reach a commission level.

If I had to start up a new microstock website

I would want a service that resolved the above issues and serviced the largest markets, the content when uploading should only be sized for the web, with the image pixels 240, 360, 480 longest side, an international controlled vocabulary maximum 10 keywords, an easy to use and intuitive interface, easy asset acceptance process and a fast search engine.

Once there were 300,000+ assets the customer website and plug-ins could be launched, the growth would be slow and organic 24 – 36 months, as the target customers are bloggers and content authors, the marketing tools will be these users and not marketing campaigns, blogger, tweeter, reviewers, social network websites.

If a customer was writing a blog on roses, it should just be a matter of menu > Plug-Ins > Images, then enter keywords > search > select > confirm > download or insert.

The confirm would pop up a dialog for the customers login details, if the customer is out of credits the plug-in would allow the customer to enter a value they want to add to their account, this could be $1 to pay for the image, or any other amount, based on the customers details the transaction would then be processed and the asset delivered, metadata within the image would have the embedded ‘transaction ID’ and date.

Contributors would upload their images and submit, if the asset is selected then their would be no further weighting in the search based on sales or views, each asset and artist would be a peer and of equal footing, the asset selection process would be simply to find all assets that match the keyword search and randomize them, so if there were 100 assets returned for a keyword search, each new search with the same keywords would show the 100 assets in a different order.

This process needs to be monetized, so the price structure is simple, artist 55% website 45%, there would be only licensed web use, three sizes and prices with no discounts, 240px=$1.00, 360px=$1.50 and 480px=$2.00, monthly payments any amount if revenue is greater than the payment transaction cost, any artist or customer closing an account would be charged a fixed fee of 5% with a maximum of $5.

Other licensed usage for an asset could be arranged directly with the artist.

But then this is only another “what if”     

Many bloggers will already pay for and use legal microstock web sized images to enhance their blog post, others will look for free images online, Google images is also used as a source but many blogger are just not aware of licensing rights and will download copyrighted assets.

This application from PicApp uses fully licensed and legal content, which is a welcome move and in the right direction, but as a service it is not good for the digital artists revenue, if an artists asset was used 100 times over a year in blog posts then a good percentage of these would be web sized legal full commission payment downloads, and the artist would receive ongoing recurring revenue, any dilution of this by a service would be bad.

We already have a web generation where the general view is with the internet that everything is free to use and paid for by advertisements, and this service falls nicely in place, new services like this needs to be turned around to a service where the blogger pays the fee, and the digital artist receives a commission of revenue for each blog use.

A service that can add legal assets into a blog is welcomed providing it provides ongoing revenue and is developed with the interest of the digital artist in mind.   

I have looked in the FAQ, they have line which says: an advertising mechanism to facilitate royalties to the content owners, I have emailed them as I do not know of a licence that will facilitate a royalty based on advertising click troughs, it seems that for Getty where some of the images are held will allowed the blanket use of the images in their library to PicApp, that the stock site "wholly owns", this should be be more clearly stated.

Step 1: Download Microsoft’s Live Writer it will offer you other free products but you can just select the one, if you blog on other sites this application is compatible with many other services.

If you have used Live Writer before then you will know how to create an account, if not the first time you use live writer you will see the following screens.

Choose the Option “Other Blog Service”.

Enter your website address, your username and password when you press next it will validate your account.

Windows Live Writer will detect that you are using Word Press and will download and setup a template theme based on your blog setting.

Save you connection and you are ready to start.

You will now have an empty blog entry ready to go.

Write the title and a leader or summary of your blog, once you have done this select “Split Post” this will add a separator bar with a more.. tag.

Now you can write or paste the text and images, you can also insert an image from the toolbar, this will insert the image into your blog post, you can set a default size based on your blog template.

On the advanced tab for this blog I set the width to “460”, there are other options like word wrap borders etc, you will need to have a play with these to find what matches your style of blogging.

Now in the footer of Windows Live Writer you will need to set a category for this blog post, and also add tags so your blog post will be indexed and found in searches.

At any time if you have not completed your post from the Top Menu you can choose “Save Draft” this saves an unpublished local copy, and this will enable you to change the Article and update it before publishing the article, I have finished so I just press “Publish” and it will transfer the blog post it to the Word Press website.

Visit site at the top right will open the website where you can view your blog, back in Windows Live Writer make any adjustments and re-publish.

The new business already have their software and slick new website ready to go, and they now need customers and content, the customers will not even look at the business unless there is a large amount of quality content, so the first step for the new business is to find appropriate suppliers with artist content.

To advertise to the artists will be both expensive and slow, there is no way to approach artists through the site owned networks and forums of the existing websites, a bit of knowledge or research will lead to several primary options, artists, bloggers forums and social networking as a possible way to generate interest.

Artists

If the new website owners know any of the big existing artists, or can offer incentives to get some of the big players as contributors, then this can add weight when courting new artists and marketing the new website, also with some of the well know artists having their own websites and blog followings, a mention there is more networking.  

Blogger

There are a number of bloggers online that have a large loyal following, so an email with the details about the new website with any new aspects to the business, including the overview of where the new business fits into the existing market, if the new business is successful in getting a mention on one of the large blogs this  can lead to the blog post being feed by RSS Feeds to many other industry specific websites.

Forums

There are several independent forums where the business representatives can join up and get involved, post a new topic about the new business, be seen and get feedback, these forums are quite lively and often give the new business some hard questions to answer, even leading to a change of thought by the new business.

Social Networking

Social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook are fast becoming a business tool for ‘business to business’ social networking, these should not be dismissed as just a social tool, there are many artists using these services to connect to other users, a new savvy business will join up, filter and add a large number of users, they are worth considering if you are not already using them.

When someone adds me on twitter I will follow the link, look at the tweets, visit any associated websites, if I think that the information would be useful to anyone following me on twitter, I then follow them, watch their tweets and re-tweet any good posts, to pass hopefully good information to anyone that is following me.

Artist or Business

As an artist decisions are sometimes made without any business considerations, the new business has a ‘website that looks good, the upload is easy, so lets give it a go’.

If you are an artist contributing your assets to an online agency then you are a business and need to consider this in more depth when uploading your assets to a new business and make business decisions that will in the longer term benefit you.

Business Decision

As an artist you need to make a decision based on the business factors not on the look and feel of a website, it is a new business so you do not know if it will gain a market position or when, so how can you make an informed decision on contributing.

First step is to ignore the website hype and look for solid information, ask the representatives some searching questions in the forums or by email, take all the information then collate into a risk assessment.

Assessing the Risk

Every time you join a new venture there is the risk to your business, this requires calculating two components, the magnitude of the potential loss to your business and the probability that the loss will occur.

You might think that there is no risk to your existing business by contributing to a new business, so what are the elements that could make a potential loss to your existing business.

First steps are not to jump in but gather as much information about the new business that wants your assets, ‘the fact that the website is slick and the owner is a nice guy is not enough’, who is running the business and what are their industry and business background and credentials, it is a business so how sound is it, where is the financial backing for the business coming from, what skills do they have in house, most important is where are the new customers coming from to support the new business.  

If you are happy with the new company management structure, it’s financial standing and targeted markets, then you need to look at the impact on your own business, if you already contribute to other agencies is this new business going to directly compete for the same customers, do you have capacity and time to upload or would this time better spent protecting and expanding your existing business with the established agencies where you contribute.

Will your existing assets be devalued on the new website via an affiliated agency, will your assets be competing on different sites at a higher or lower price point, will spreading the same assets to another website devalue your assets by giving a lower price point and return, lower sales prices do not mean that the new business will do well there has to be a unique selling point.

The sting in the tail is the probability that a loss will occur, it takes over two years to get a small foothold in the industry, does this new business have the financial resource to survive for the next few years, as there is already a saturation of new businesses with many having tried and failed, many by using the same model as the main businesses, so what in your opinion is different with this new business that will make it stand out to buyers and contributor so it should survive. 

In a nutshell do you thinks the possible gains from contributing to this new business venture out weigh the costs and risks.    

I will have missed many points, feel free to add via the blog feedback

A reply to my comment had the following text, “Also, this is just my view, but I think you weaken your argument any time you use the word “fair”. It’s a capitalist market so the forces of supply and demand are what determine reward.”

Fair Trade

All stock imaging websites start or started with a “Fair Trade Concept”, courting the artists with phrases like, “built by photographers for photographer”, “you talk and we will listen”, “we believe the artist  deserves a bigger share”, “we operate a fair trade policy” etc:

These well meant ideals do not translate well into business decisions, as costs grow the stocksite have to adjust to compete or just to survive, and the fair trade ideals suffer, Venture Capital is raised and the financial interest of the investors take priority.

When a new website is launched it is meet with an inevitable apathy from established artists, seeing promised high percentage returns is meet by “I will wait and see”, “When you have a Customer base I will join”, “Been there done that”, “Another website that will fail”, “What is your unique selling point?”

The new website will get artist to upload but not the ones they need for their business, they then find the quality of what is being uploaded is not what was expected, inspection is a manual process which has to be paid for from zero revenue, the website owners have often not factored in the cost of high levels of rejection, often they halt uploads while looking for funding, some fail without ever really going to market in any big way, this strengthens the position of the big stock sites.

With proper backing from the start could the new websites have delivered 50% commission when the big sites pay 20% – 40% and how, the answer it is possible, if established artists had “bit the bullet” and contributed from day one, then the costs of rejections would be lower and time to market much quicker, the older sites paying the lower commission may not have embraced newer cloud technology which has a “pay as you grow policy”, this can cut running costs by a large amount and allow the website to grow easily, back in 2007 SmugMug saved 1 million using Amazon Cloud technologies.

If running and growth costs are minimal the the Customers base grows organically over time, the “Fair Trade” concept may survived.

Chickens and Eggs

What does a new stocksite need to please everyone, customers will not come if their are no assets to view, the artists will not upload if their are no customers and potential sales revenue, so it will always be a “chickens and eggs” leap of faith, the artists at the moment are not organised enough to throw their combined weight behind a new high commission website, so uploading and growth is sporadic.

The artist may have their eggs in several baskets and transport these to market as an individual, if these artist got together under a single umbrella and contributed to the new website as an alliance or group they would have a better platform for bargaining and communication, and may see one of the new start-ups succeed.

An artist that has their eggs in one basket needs to be careful that they do not trip-up, many of the traditional stock photographers have seen revenue cut due to microstock some have spread their eggs to compensate, other are left with a basket of unwanted eggs, another model will emerge and affect the microstock revenue sooner or later, that is the way of the internet always evolving.