AKELIAN PRODUCTIONS

June 8th, 2008 - Flickr and Getty Images announce a partnership wherby photographers of selected public images on Flickr, identified by the photo editors at Getty Images, will be invited to become part of the Flickr collection on Getty Images.

You can read the full announcements on their respective websites: Getty Images, Flickr.

So what is this going to mean for the stock photography market? More importantly, what consequences is this going to have for the assignment photography market?

“Flickr members have an unprecedented opportunity to establish even more value for their creativity and work directly with a global leader to license their images commercially.”

From the Flickr users’ point of view, this is a great opportunity to monetize from their images but how many Flickr users, even if selected, necessarily want to have their images offered as royalty free, rights ready, or rights managed photographs? Aren’t the majority of Flickr-ers there to share their images with friends and family and not necessarily to profit from it?

And what about the professionals? After watching stock photography take away from their bottom line for years, they are now going to see thousands if not millions of new images get incorporated into the stock photography market. According to TechCrunch [source], as of November 13, 2007, Flickr had approximately 2 billion photos uploaded with 3-5 million new photos getting uploaded daily. I’m sure those numbers have increased immensly since Yahoo’s acquisition of Flickr in March 2005.

Another point to consider is the quality of the files that are available on Flickr. I have my doubts as to whether the average Flickr user shoots with an 16+ megapixel camera that is required for submissions to stock agencies. Is the new Flickr Collection going to limit its offerings to mostly lower resolution files for web and small print usage? I’d be interested in knowing what effect this collection will have on Getty’s current catalog and whether or not a “Flickr” photograph will be priced differently than photographs of comparable file size and quality.

So lastly, with all these new images expected to be available through Getty Images, are we going to see a downward effect on the licensing and usage rates Getty charges? One would hope that at the very least, Getty’s current clients will see a benefit of higher offerings and drop in usage fees.

[Added bonus - there are a lot of interesting and informative comments on Rob Haggart's website aphotoeditor.com where I first read about the Flickr/Getty partnership]