IStock

IStockphoto is an international site for royalty-free photos, illustrations, video and audio files.

History

The company was founded by Bruce Livingstone in Calgary, Canada, in May 2000. Originally iStockphoto was a free site for the exchange of stock photos. After initial successes iStockphoto used a system for payment of small amounts ( " micropayment " ) and thus became the first micro- stock agency, could be legally for a dollar already licensed for editorial and advertising purposes in the photos.

On February 9, 2006 iStockphoto was acquired for 50 million U.S. dollars by Getty Images, the world's largest picture agency group. Since then, the different offers the classic agency were supplemented mutually with the microstock model gradually. So can bring images without further testing at Getty Images successful iStock photographers and common platforms were created for secondary marketing of artwork.

The original model, provide images for a dollar was repeatedly adjusted over the years to offer the newly created market of small and medium-sized users a wide selection at comparatively low prices can. The prices are differentiated today by the size of the required image and after the effort that has gone into the production of the images. Artistic quality images can easily cost 100 Euros or more, therefore, today, while a wide range of pictures in Webgrößen is available for one or two euro still.

As a privately held company iStockphoto announces no official sales or profit figures. As part of the acquisition by the investment firm Hellman & Friedman iStockphoto CEO Bruce Livingstone for the year 2007 was, however, a turnover of $ 71.9 million known, of which 20.9 million were paid to artists. According to Getty CEO Jonathan Klein iStockphoto has achieved a turnover of 200 million dollars in 2009, an increase of 40 % over the previous year.

IStockphoto represents as an agency photographers, illustrators, videographers and audio artists from around the world. In the early years iStockphoto recruited many artists in the context of his own clients as well as enthusiastic amateurs, the volume and quality for inclusion in the classical picture agencies was often not sufficient. The higher-priced stock agencies had often non-transparent and lengthy recording procedures during iStockphoto enabled a simple application over the Internet.

Around the site itself also formed an artistic community in which many artists were able to develop their talents by helping others quickly. The concrete and rapid feedback of image editors ( " inspectors " ) helped in improving the quality, so that was introduced from ca 2004/ 05 increasingly more professional image material in the agency.

Royalty payments to artists

The artists at iStockphoto will each receive a share of the royalty income earned for her artwork. In the early years, the artists were paid for 20% of monies received.

After the first competitor appeared in the microstock market, led iStockphoto a system of ranks ( " cans " ) a well as a distinction between artists who offer their material exclusively through iStockphoto and the non- exclusive artists, are licensed through various agencies whose images can. Non-exclusive artists continue to receive this the original 20 % share, regardless of their rank. Exclusive artists receive shares of between 25 and 40% of revenue, depending on the number of images already sell. For the first stage, the right to exclusivity, later 250 sales were initially 500, are required. More levels are reached after 2,500, 10,000 and 25,000 sales.

In September 2010, iStockphoto announced that the participation of the artist is no longer calculated in the future to the past sales, but only to the sales of each previous and the current year. At the same time reductions in investments have been announced. Depending on the sales stage to receive non-exclusive artists as of January 2011, only 15 to a maximum of 20 percent of the revenue from their images. Exclusive artists receive between 25 and 45 percent for the classic microstock collections. In the higher-priced collections, investments for exclusive artists will be reduced to 22 to 28 percent.

By his own admission iStockphoto pays currently (as of October 2010) per week about 1.7 million U.S. dollars to artists worldwide

Criticism

IStockphoto has opened access to good images with the micro- stock market new customer groups. Due to the increasing penetration of the Internet and easier ways to use four -color prints in small editions for advertising and promotional material, the demand of high quality images. Same time, many customer groups were not able to spend four figure sums for photos of classic picture agencies.

However, a general devaluation of photography was feared by some photographers through the creation of this new low-cost segment. The publicly available, access to commercial images from just one euro has led to price pressure on the classic product and commercial photography. At the same time, the micro stock agencies conquered also reinforced shares in old customer segments of higher-priced agencies. This provides an additional source of income of professional photographers in their traditional business environment has been put under pressure.

Undeniably iStockphoto is simultaneously many artists are given the opportunity to earn a regular income from a second job. Over the years, the number of artists who produce exclusively for iStockphoto material has risen steeply. However, it is unclear whether the number exceeds that of photographers who have suffered through the changes in the business model losses. It seems likely that at least in the industrially advanced countries photographers have tended to decline in business volume, while artists have benefited example from Eastern European countries from the global use of the Agency images.