An ABC News anchor said, do you know how you could make hundreds from your personal pictures?
Then I said outloud, well it certainly isn’t from submitting them through ABC’s, CNN’s iReport, FNC’s uReport, etc upload portals where it clearly says you will not be paid for your submission. Hahaha! But you do retain the rights to possibly make some money elsewhere.
If you’re thinking about getting into the pro stills business, you may want to wait and see how image sharing platforms develop. ABC News aired the story at the link below demonstrating how ordinary people could make hundreds of dollars by selling their personal random stills when using a service called FOAP. You get $5 and they get $5 for each image. But for FOAP is that a flat rate or $5 times however many companies they represent to re-sell it on the backend? No matter what, they’re counting on volume to supply their revenue stream and that’s hard, if not impossible, to compete with if you’re a lone freelancer.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have paid much attention because it sounded like yet another tech tip of the day but what did get my attention was what the reporter eventually said. After getting into it, he eventually said that big names in business were willing to pay ordinary people for their everyday randomly shot stills capturing unique moments and subjects in their lives to save money by not having to pay professional still shooters. The pictures appear in all types of advertising platforms. It is assumed the expense he was referring to is the typical ongoing licensing fees for stock images. I understand the reality of technology and competition but it is just irritating to hear that said so casually, especially by someone who works in an industry that is infested with that same mentality that may eventually affect his position in the future as well. Platforms like this should also cause serious concern for the NPPA and its members.
The anchor also mentioned that whoever takes a picture, no matter who’s camera it is, they are the owner / copyright holder and not the actual owner of the capture device. So according to that, if a UFO lands or whatever and someone steps behind YOUR unattended camera on sticks, picks it up, or is handed it by you or whoever and shoots the exclusive video or stills of that event, then they can claim the content and all the future revenue. Hahaha!
What do you think about all this?
I don’t know how paralleled the info is in the video and internet report so they may or may not differ because of editing.