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Infringements of Stock Images
and Lost Revenues
September 2007
Introduction
Nearly all aspects of the stock photography business have been transformed in the past decade. Film-based capture and overnight delivery of analog images have been replaced by digital images and electronic delivery. High-speed databases and broadband internet connections have made it easy to market, sell and deliver images anywhere in the world- all with the press of a button.
In addition, the internet has brought a major shift in how and where images are used. Print uses are declining and new media uses-such as online and portable devices-are proliferating. In the future, the stock photo industry will rely more heavily on revenues from these new media formats and non-traditional licensing models.
Along with the opportunities of the new digital age, significant challenges for the stock industry have also emerged. One challenge in particular is not yet fully appreciated, although we think this challenge also creates an opportunity for photographers, image distributors and industry groups to create new customers, new markets and new revenue streams.
Easy online access to millions of stock images has also made them extremely susceptible to theft and misuse. With just a click and a drag, users can move a digital file from any web site onto their desktop-without payment or license. Although images sourced this way are typically low-resolution, they are often good enough. High resolution is traded for an unbeatably low price-free.
In addition to outright piracy, digital media have also increased the potential for legitimately licensed images to be used outside the scope of the original license. Once downloaded, image files can be easily repurposed and redistributed to other users. File names are commonly changed and identifying metadata is stripped or altered, making these images vulnerable to misuse.
This paper addresses how and why the stock photo industry is subject to this theft; we also try to gauge the size of the problem. We describe what is being done now, obstacles to overcome, and suggest additional steps to minimize piracy of stock images, protect our copyrights, and maximize revenue opportunities for photographers and the distributors of their images.
The Size of the Problem
To learn more about the extent of the infringement problem, the Stock Artists Alliance teamed up with PicScout, a company that uses advanced visual recognition technology to track images on the web. Starting with a repository of copyrighted images, PicScout crawls the web to find matches and the technology is able to reliably identify unauthorized usages.
In 2003, SAA became aware that PicScout had begun searching commercial web sites for the Rights Managed images of several major stock collections and uncovered a shocking rate of abuse-nine out of every ten images they found were unauthorized uses.
This suggested a staggering loss of potential licensing revenue to those companies-and to copyright holders. PicScout further observed that these infringements could be classified into two general categories-inadvertent misuse and intentional theft. While some customers exceeded legitimate licenses, a large fraction of cases they reported were blatant infringements.
It is difficult to know how to interpret the real-world significance of this startling finding since many infringing uses cannot practically be converted into new licenses-yet. But these practical difficulties have not stopped many stock distributors, archives, and some individual photographers from aggressively pursuing some of the worst offenders, often with real revenue gains as the result.
Public records indicate the largest stock distributors today convert many infringers into paying customers and generate millions in revenue that used to go uncollected. Mid-sized and smaller archives too have reported significant revenues recovered by pursuing leads.
