Okay, call me crazy but I think one of the best things we could do as an industry is standardize USAGE prices. You’ve heard me say this before and yes, I’m saying it again. To be clear, I’m not talking about Creative Fees, but the Usage Licensing Fee alone. It would make life so much easier for everyone involved in the photography business–photograhers AND buyers–and I think it would actually increase the income for many photographers.
Imagine how much less stress there would be in doing an estimate for a client if you knew that, (totally hypothetically) the one year US exclusive print advertising in national consumer magazine ads up to one page was $25,000–and if your client knew that too. Your Creative Fee would be based on your creative value to the project (a function perhaps of time and effort and experience, and how important your particular creative style is to the project) so that would vary from photographer to photographer, but the variation in total project price between any three photographers would be much less than we see now in estimates(bids).
This would enable buyers to more easily work with the best photographer (creatively) for any given project because they would not have to get past the huge price differences they get now. For example, in the project usage mentioned above, it is completely possible that the Creative and Usage fees (total) would be $35K for one photographer, $25K for another, and $7500 for a third. Try getting that $35K photographer the gig when the cost consultants and the end-client are completely wrapped up in the numbers! Buyers have to fight hard (sometimes) to get the right photographer for the project in these situations!
Of course, this is not how things have historically been done–with standardized numbers. But guess what–today isn’t yesterday and tomorrow demands a new way of working. I think we really have a shot at creating some sort of fair and equitable system now, and we should be putting our heads together to see how we can make this happen…WITH our buying colleagues. Let’s work together to find a realistic solution to these difficult issues of usage pricing so that we can focus our attention on creating great work.
I’ve mentioned before the idea of tying usage prices to media buys–that is still an option I think, but it is only one idea. I am certainly open to others and want to encourage a dialogue on this topic. However, I mean a dialogue on possibilities–not “that’s not the way it worked in the past” or “that’s stupid” or “I should get to charge whatever I want” kinds of comments, please. I’m asking you to open up your minds and brainstorm on forward-thinking ideas. Lots of them won’t work, but if we don’t try to find some solutions now, we’ll (potentially) lose the opportunity to make a significant change for the betterment of everyone in the business.
Oh, and btw, the photo organizations cannot be involved in this sort of talk because of all sorts of potential anti-trust law issues. Don’t get mad at them…it’s not their fault. 🙂
I think it’s a great idea…
But who gets to set the prices?
Ed
“It’s all fun and games until some blurts out the safeword.”
That’s why we need to work together…so that both “sides” find a system that is as fair as possible (and, hopefully, as simple as possible too).
-Leslie
I’m all for this. I for one like to be hired based on my creative skill and vision which I feel is top notch. When I get clients that come to me and their main concern is price I rarely get the gig.
If the prices for usage were standardized, which they should it makes sense, then its more of a matter of choosing the right photographer based on their look and personalities then on price.
I just lost a bid yesterday that would have really helped out in this economy….to a jerk that bid almost eight times less then me. Yes eight times less.
I don’t feel bad when I loose a job simply because my style is not the best fit but when it comes to money its hard for me to compete with Mr. Weekend Photography that shoots for fun and money to buy the next cool lens.
I am for standard usage pricing 100% Leslie. Anything I can do to help out I’m game.
Maybe the people at FotoQuote could be of help making the standards since their software is widely used in the industry.
Challenging but not impossible. Lots of questions to be resolved…
1) How to get everyone from both ‘sides’ on board?
2) How to select the ‘decision makers’.
3) How to select the criteria for ‘creative’ … $25,000 for 1 year mag ad’s if it’s a tin of paint on a shadowless white background???
4) Most of the World is not American and the market is slowly going global. There’s an issue there for sure. I’m getting involved in the early stages a 20 phohographer strong commercial nationwide network group for the UK and as a Londoner the issue of my CODB to the rest of the UK is a genuine one … and this is just one little country.
5) Policing. Sorry to get all heavy but I know of a seriously in-demnad commercial photographer that started out working for zilch but produced top-notch stuff … Now big time and very in demand for top-notch gigs. The ‘maverick’ sector is growing all the time. In a way I’m one of them to a degree – No photo education, no assisting, no nothing, but in biz for 2-and-a-bit yrs and going A-OK. We’re the spawn of digitalisation and the Internet. Essentially, how do you herd cats?
I have some answers and some ??? to these Q’s but for now it’ll be great to hear other peeps ideas.
RE: Simon’s comment
1) Good question. We need to talk to our clients as well as among ourselves. I’m hoping others will promote this message as well.
2) What decision makers? Why not go on a democratic system? Is that possible?
3) Creative doesn’t matter–we are talking ONLY about usage. Creativity does not factor in at all. Creativity factors into the creative fee. The USAGE of “20 insertions in magazines” would be priced the same whether it was a “turd on white” (as a friend used to say) or an elaborate photo-illustration with 5 days of post-production.
4) CODB would be a factor in creative fee, not usage fee.
5) As in all things, there is no great answer, but there are systems like PicScout for policing usage to a greater extent than most people use now.
-Leslie
Cool, some rapid response answers there that largely make sense … but:
1) I agree, dialogue will do the trick here.
2) Feasable, but do cats do democracy? At a certain range of the biz it’s a go’er given enough thought, but how much of a range to make it effective is up for a debate.
3) A tin of paint on a white background with Worldwide, excluusive, all-media, perpetual rights goes for around $50-100 all-in in this (afluent) corner of the globe.
4) As East Londoner’s say … Sorted.
5) With ‘policing’ I may have been a little obscure. I didn’t mean licenses, I meant photographers. It seems to me that there’s an ever growing number breaking into the ad agency end of the biz with no connection to the ‘community’ of photographers gone before them. They’re pricing on a whim and a prayer. They producing hot stuff too. How does this #agreement’ get their co-operation?
This is a fascinating issue … make peep’s aware and get them contributing.
#3…do the East Londoners still say “Bugger!” ’cause that’s what I’m thinking to those numbers!
5) I think we can’t force anyone to join in, or not. What I’m hoping for is a movement, for lack of a better term. Besides, we can’t worry about what others do, we can each only make the choice for ourself to join in or not. I am hoping that others will think “hey! I don’t have to guess any more and that’s better than what I’ve been doing and it will bring me in more money!” (esp. since most under-price).
-Leslie
Leslie,
I’m glad you’re re-addressing this issue. It’s not going to go away. It’s only going to get worse as time goes by with nothing being done. We are in an age of ever-increasing multi-media uses with everybody owning a digital camera. Without some standardization in place, today’s commercial photographer goes virtually unprotected and ends up competing based on proce with his own peers. Something needs to be done. I bailed on this conversation on the ASMP listserv because I couldn’t keep it on track. Too many nay-sayers and disbelievers. However, I haven’t stopped thinking about it and what we might could do to get something started. I’ve been meaning to contact PACA to see if they might be able to help get Corbis, Getty, Digital Railroad, PhotoShelter, IPNStock, etc. to publicize their pricing methods. My current thinking is that in order to standardize, prices must first be publicized. Do you agree?
-Dan
While I think talking to the stock agencies would be helpful, I don’t think publicizing it to everyone at first is the best step. Share it with photographers first, perhaps, or only in a forum where both sides can be fully heard safely, maybe, but if you just put out there “Getty does this” then too many folks will see that as THE way…when it might not be.
-Leslie
I agree in a perfect would it would be nice to at least have a guide what to charge for use. I think there a million dollar Idea in, if a person could join the pricing of Fotoquote and the licensing verbiage of Photobyte. they would have a winner.
Sounds good to me. Where do I join this “organization that can’t be an organization” due to the price-fixing legalities?
Excellent idea and I completely agree with it and would support it 100%. But I see several problems. The first is enforcement. If we can’t get companies like Countrywide to follow the rules on determining income for potential borrowers (see today’s Wall Street Journal) how can this be managed?
Another but much larger problem would be establishing rates for every use in every situation. For example two companies want to use a catalog product shot on the internet. Both are targeting the same market, one is a large publicly owned conglomerate, the other is a small family run business with limited funds. How do you charge usage for this? Is it based upon geographic location of the company? What if both are in New York, one has headquarters, the other is run out of a home office. Is it based on company’s gross revenues or net before taxes? Home builders that are seeing so much red ink versus the small artist jeweler who is making a small but respectful profit? Now what about the photographer is San Francisco, California, who has a studio as compared to the studio in Richlands, North Carolina, think difference in cost of living.
These are the questions that have to be resolved before a standard is determined otherwise it will become as complicated as our tax code.
Now think of these questions on a global level. No reason a photographer in China or India couldn’t shoot those items, Fedex and UPS ship globally.
Since the world has become a global marketplace everyone is now facing similar problem in their industry.
Over simplifying, I’m sure (because the fees would almost certainly have to vary between different communities, however it seems like a published guidebook that was promoted well enough to the photographers would be all it takes. I mean, you have something as simple as Kelly’s Blue Book telling almost everyone (in the US anyway. Not sure what it’s like in Canada and elsewhere) what a car is worth. The problem here I think still is competition. With cars, you can go get a nearly identical car from someone else, however with photography, it would be too easy for a photographer to know what the accepted standards are, and go behind the other photographers backs and undercut a little on that end… it’s amazing how a client will spend 10 grand on a project, and if you tell them you’ll knock $500 off this part of the process, suddenly they feel like they’re getting the best deal in the world.
One thing I’d like to make clear is that there is no perfect solution. We’ll never get it “right.” This is important–if we let things like the fact that there are potentially an infinite number of potential uses and therefore whatever evolves will be imperfect get in our way, we’ll never even try.
To get to Charlie’s point, I think that some sort of calculable system will cover most of these situations. In one of my podcasts I discussed a pricing matrix for situations like these. Perfect? Hell no, but maybe it’s a start.
-Leslie
I love FotoQuote and FotoBiz because they have a range of prices for each use. It’s cool that on PhotoShelter a buyer can dial in their usage to get a quote.
While I I think FotoQuote it great I worry that if we all use FotoQuote and ONLY use the middle suggested price, that we would be messing up the average and bringing down the price of usage.
I’ve often thought it would be nice if clients knew where I was getting my usage rate so they could check the rate themselves and 1) know that I’m in line with others. 2) Be able to check the rate themselves when they want to relicense an image (so they don’t think I’m gouging them).
The problem with applications like FotoQuote is that they are based on surveyed data (who knows what level of photographer is responding to the survey) and the numbers are generally much lower than I think they should be. For example, look at billboard rates and look at how much the placement costs for that media–the usage prices are too low. Same for HindsightLTD’s Price Guide. Are they better than nothing? Yeah, I guess, but they shouldn’t be looked at as a standardized system as that would be shooting yourselves in the foot. -Leslie
Leslie – great idea! I’m not sure of the collaborative effort on this though since I’m sure the opinions are going to be all over the place. But I think it’s an interesting starter dialog for everyone out there. I wrote about your post on my blog as well, with a link of course. I think there are so many different usage scenarios out there to try and piece together a fair standard price for. It reminds me of stock photo usage (somewhat) – commonly used at Getty, although sometimes the pricing on stock is so high (which sometimes helps my argument to shoot original work). I’d love to see what people say and think on this.
Thanks for a great topic.
Leslie – I’ve heard this one many times and each time I had the same reaction: “hmmmm, I’d love to sit on a panel to discuss the ups and downs, in and outs on this one. It sounds pretty good to me but I’d like to know more.
WHat will the magazines think about this, will it hurt or help?
How do art buyers think it will work?
What would be the penelties for clients or photographers who don’t follow the standards?
Ya know – questions like that.
My knee jerk reaction says that it could be a really good thing but let’s find all the hidden curves.
As it stands now, I try my best to make the use rights as transparent as possible for my clients. I keep it consistent with rules and prices and choices. THe creative fee fluctuates as a function of time and value added.. Let’s get a panel together.
I’m thinking the people over at PLUS need to be brought into this discussion…
Editorial is based simply on standard placement charges. Have fees for placement gone up? I think if clients start getting the idea that numbers are fixed then they will stay that way. Why would an agency not want to work with a photographer who has a reasonable day rate but comes in under the actual placement fee? They get the difference and then mark that up, right? Do clients know for sure what they have actually paid to the photographer thru the agency? I see no incentive what so ever from an agency owner’s point of view to give away such a dynamic center of potential profit. What do they pay the art buyers for? Do their jobs. Good luck with this one. The money left on the table is invisible to many and it’s not the ad agencies who don’t see it sitting there.