Image syndicates are essentially, third party agencies controlling, buying and selling the work of creative people for a premium.
It’s a perfectly respectable and highly successful business model but I would argue that in the long term, this relationship crushes a great deal of creative innovation, ensures the business status quo is unchallenged and is not in the long term interests of its customers.
(Can anyone spot the wounded artist in all this? 🙂
I would cite as an example of this what has happened to the work of print photographers whose trade has been decimated by the emergence of the stock picture library. Prices per unit (picture) have been wrecked and it is increasingly rare for independent providers to work in the media at all now.
And as far as I can see, the same thing is now happening to illustration and drawn products.
The trend really started in the UK with the emergence of large scale agencies based on the photographic model – of these the best known one to me is Cartoonstock run by the kind and extremely cartoon friendly Joel Mishon.
He and I have a friendly disagreement about this, he argues that any sale of a cartoon is good – and he has a point, up to a point. Indeed cheap sales of drawn imagery should be encouraged to low level publications, local magazines, newsletters and so forth. However, in doing this, it also allows big businesses to procure high quality content for a relative pittance.
Of course, they aren’t going to refuse that, but this slowly destroys the market for anyone talented, keen (and stupid) enough to try and break into large traditional media markets which used to pay for high quality and original content.
What do you think?
A very difficult question.
I use photographic libraries as most of what I do are ‘mash-ups’ and for paid work I have to make the images squeaky clean copyright-wise.
Of course mash-ups can’t go into cartoon libraries for a couple of reasons :
1. They don’t qualify, or many would say they don’t and I suppose I don’t disagree with this.
2. Usage fees – Anyone buying the mash-up would have to pay a usage fee to the image library again.
It’s not economical and certainly doesn’t fit the business model.
Are stock cartoon libraries a good thing ?
Yes….and no.
There are plenty people out there with incredible drafting skills who don’t get a look in.
However, drafting skills don’t make a good cartoon, a great idea makes a great cartoon and it helps if it can be conveyed in a way that is clear and entertaining.
But, for those that, from time to time, hit the nail on the head, I suppose a cartoon library can provide some much needed (extra) income.
However, the users of a cartoon library, while trawling around for the right image, have access to many different styles.
Why should a website or publication that lives off brand consistency, choose to offer its readers a constantly changing variety of styles in its regular cartoon slot.
If they cherry-pick what is right for the moment, they could be using a host of different cartoonists.
If the publications decide on continued use of one cartoonist’s work, then surely that cartoonist can choose to renegotiate a direct contract and, say, pay a small proportion of the new fee to the stock library for a set period of time/number of images.
This would acknowledge the library’s showcasing of the cartoonist’s work (if it is clear that it was the library wot dun it).
The library benefits for a while financially but, as band managers realise, once a certain level of success is reached, then they have to let go.
Additionally, the more of these successes, the more the library becomes a destination for clients and users, so it benefits in the long term as well.