Piclet declares war on big photo stock sites

Piclet, a British organisation for photographers, declared war on the big stock corporations like Getty Images and Corbis. The organisation argues that photographers and users have not seen the full benefit of innovation and investment in stock photography. They call upon photographers to take a stand.

The stand against these big stock companies isn't that strange; they make extreme profits by selling photos that others made. Of course the photographers gave permission to do so and there are certainly photographers that make a good living out of it.

The purpose of their mission is to get photographers a bigger cut of the profits. Currently photographers get as little as 15 percent of the sales price. If you are a high-end photographer this might get up to a maximum of 45 percent. Still a pretty low percentage and an unfair situation that Piclet would like to see changed.

A good initiative, but now there needs to be a company that will do stock photography in a fair way. Stock photography isn't going away, but it can become a more fair way to make money for photographers. The new company will have a hard time becoming big enough to be a good competitor to the current big stock sites. Not an easy task!

You can support the war Piclet is starting by sharing the initiative with your social network.