Photographers/Artists Need to Eat Too!

Peter Sargent | April 20, 2007, 04:39 PM

Since the start of the year, PhotoShelter and Digital Railroad have combined to announce more than $14M in raised capital. Both provide a marketplace (similar to that of Getty) facilitating the buying and selling of stock photos. Each of them has some interesting service features (for buyers and sellers alike) and a growing library (Digital Railroad is still in beta), that I’ll try to find time to get into next week.

But, one thing that struck me about Digital Railroad is the revenue split they have with sellers. It’s been reported that artists keep 80% of all revenues from their images, while Digital Railroad keeps the other 20%. The standard revenue share at images marketplaces tends to be around 40% (artist) and 60% (marketplace), and even worse (for the artist) at stock footage sites (as high as 15%/85%). Artists have begrudgingly accepted these 40-60 terms from major marketplaces like Getty and JupiterImages, so the 80/20 split offered by Digital Railroad (while admittedly also charging subscription fees to artists for managing their collection at the site) could be a sign of things to come. Now that new entrants continue to flow into the stock images market, artists have greater choice of channels through which to sell. While I suspect Getty and others are hardly planning major changes in their arrangements with artists, the pressure is mounting. And, I can't see Getty and others actually RAISING prices in such a market.