This Month in Microstock – July 2008
Posted by Lee TorrensBy far the biggest news in July was the Getty Images and Flickr deal. Technically it’s not microstock news as the images that will be sold as a result of the deal will be sold at macrostock prices. However, the news did rule out the possibility of Flickr becoming any immediate threat to the microstock market.
July was about to pass by without too much controversy until details of the StockXpert Photos.com program provided contributors with more evidence that the sky is indeed falling. The outcome remains undetermined, though contributors will be heard during today’s conference call.
Shutterstock became the first agency to pass the 4 million images milestone.
PicNiche launched their keyword popularity tool and later released a page showing the niche searches with the highest scores.
Posted July 31st, 2008 by Lee Torrens
Hi Lee,
I’m confused about photography of artwork, like this one of yours at SS:
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-13207879-large-metal-flower-sculpture-located-in-recoleta-buenos-aires-argentina.html
Is this artwork copyright protected, or does your “interpretation” of it make it your work even though it is a photo of someone elses? Thanks.
Hi Peter,
Yep, it can be quite confusing. Generally speaking, you need a property release to sell photos of art, and some properties are explicitly protected: http://www.microstockdiaries.com/protected-property.html
In this case the art is in public and they haven’t made any attempt to register it as protected, so I continue selling my photos. If the owner contacted me, I’d immediately take down the photos as a courtesy. This has happened in the past with photos of the Remembrance Shrine in Melbourne.
Perhaps others can contribute more specific knowledge of copyright law in this case.
-Lee