6. The success of Microstock sites
6.1. What are Microstock sites ?
The definition of Microstock sites could be :
| The online sale of stockphotos under the royalty free principal with micro payments for every sale. |
The 6 largest sites of the moment are :
6.2. Why are they so popular ?
When I searched with google on "Why are Microstock sites that popular" I actually got very few relevant information. I got many results stating that mictostocks ARE popular, but none that I found explains WHY they are so popular. So lets us look into this a little more.
6.2.1. From a designers point of view
Because of the low prices and the RF licenses, no need to tell that Microstock sites are very popular with designers and publishers. There was a whole new market waiting for this kind of model.
Just think about the designers who make websites, brochures and such. I can imagine that they had a hard time in past obtaining the desired images. The traditional royalty based photos were in most cases to expensive for them or the procedure to obtain them was to long, to complex and/or to difficult.
Because of this it was tempting to obtain those pictures in an illegal way (read : just grabbing it from the web). The chance of being caught and punished was very small (especially with web design).
Or the same pictures was used over and over in publications of a certain publisher, very annoying if you bought several books from them.
With the introduction of the RF model, the increased availability of this formula through websites and the low prices, those designers and publishers are less tempted to grab images from the web. They can now download them for a very reasonable price.
6.2.2. From a photographers point of view
The advantage for buyers seems logic, but strange enough also a certain group of photographers benefit from the microstock-model.
Microstock sitesites are much more within range of the amateur photographer than the traditional stock agencies like Corbis, Getty Images or Jupiter Images. Stock agencies often used to have very strict rules regarding image quality,image size and the subject being covered. They also only allowed photographers who could make a decent amount of pictures, and they mostly required exclusivity.
Because of these requirements, especially amateur photographers often couldn't sign up at those big stockagencies. They had a day job and couldn't make the numbers or they just hadn't the right gear which was required to make those high resolution shots.
Microstock sitesites are a lot more flexible. They don't require exclusivity (this is just an option at some) and they don't have a limit regarding the minimum amount of pictures you must submit. So most amateurs will have no problem submitting to these sites.
Traditional stock agencies only accepted CD's or DVD's to submit your pictures (this seems to be changing at the moment). Which can be a little slow. While all Microstock sitesites have an online upload system, which works much more rapid than shipping a DVD by mail.
But Finally, and probably the most important reason, is that micro sites didn't required a certain, prior, commitment to stockphotography or photography as a whole. The traditional stocksites asked for a decent amount of images, in high resolution, of good quality and stock worthy -> This sounds like requirements for a professional or at least an amateur who is very serious with his hobby.
Microstock sites tried to attract everyone who could make a decent image. As often said : "Even a grandmother taking pictures of her grandchildren can contribute to microstock sites". But actually there is a lot of truth is this joke.
A lot of amateurs began submitting to Microstock sites with an attitude like "Let's give it a try, it it doesn't pay of, I lost nothing". But once the saw Microstock sites did pay off, they became more involved and finally became more serious with stockphotography.
Interesting Read : click here for an article on pdnonline.com called "What a dollar can buy" which covers partly the success of Microstock sites.
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