Getting Whiny About Getty´s $49 Giveaways

Why are these trade associations getting all whiny about the $49 Getty giveaways?

At least the ones that have embraced RF pricing approaches?

Like microstock and subscription stock, the $49 one-price-fits-all is simply another kind of RF. If you have already sold your soul, you do not get to tell the devil what to do with it at some later date.

 

Is anyone paying attention to how the big RF floggers -- the biggest conglomerate image aggregators like Getty, Corbis, Jupiter, et al. -- are conducting their businesses? Are those who continue to deal with them under some kind of illusion the image creator´s welfare is their primary concern?

These experts who have chosen to deal with and get their income from those who are openly shafting their profession have made conscious decisions about how to conduct themselves and have no cause for complaint.

If they raise a ruckus about conditions they have brought on themselves, that needs to be pointed out, both as a reminder to them and a caution to others.

Every RF photographer, in one way or another, is a part of that $49 price, and so are their associations.

 

Criticism from the other side: the unique Carl May/Biological Photo Service on the Stockphoto Network mailing list, compiled and abbreviated from his postings.

 

Comments

[Chris Elsdale]

As you well know it is the application of $49 across RM/RR brands that is the issue here.
Getty already have all their bases covered through istock to Stone+.
It is too much to expect them to care about the business as a whole?
Further more have you stopped to consider the effect this will also have on those who will now have to justify their day rate on jobs when you can get the best of Getty for $49?
This is not an RF issue despite your desire to make it so.

[Jim Batty]

As a relatively recent contributor of RM stock photography to image libraries, Getty has always appeared - in a fuzzy, largely unarticulated way - something of the holy grail. Movements over the past year, though, are sharpening my view into one of relief ... at not being associated with them.