It's not easy to find a place in the stock-art market, but one new entrant looks likely to find a niche with a cooperative business model that returns more license revenue to photographers. October 9, 2013 9:40 AM PDT (Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) Stocksy, a cooperative for photographers in the crowded market selling online stock-art imagery, expects to become profitable in November. Revenue growth of 35 percent each month helped the company achieve the milestone, which Stocksy plans to announce Thursday. Related stories Stocksy aims to bring the soul back into stock photography iStockphoto founder re-enters the market with Stocksy Two factors no doubt helped it to the goal: first, it was founded by Bruce Livingstone, who accumulated lots of stock-art cred starting more than a decade ago when he started one of the powerhouses of online stock-art sales, iStockphoto. Second, the Canadian company has only 10 employees, which means low expenses. Stock-art companies license out photos popular in ads and brochures -- healthy seniors on bikes, earnest doctors with stethoscopes, businesspeople shaking hands, and green lawns with blue skies. Though you will find shots of children blowing dandelions on Stocksy, the company tries to keep the cliches at bay with a relatively small set of photographers and exclusive imagery. Stocksy United founder Bruce Livingstone (Credit: Stocksy) Stocksy's photographer pool has grown from 10 to 400 since its launch in March, with 42,000 images in its library. The company gives half of the royalty payments for each licensed photo to the photographer, considerably higher than conventional microstock firms, and distributes 90 percent of its profits at the end of the year to members of its cooperative. Stocksy still is something of a boutique site, though. Bigger powers in the stock-art business such as Dreamstime, Shutterstock, and iStockphoto have libraries much larger and prices that can go well under Stocky's $10 minimum. And they have other products besides photos, too, including animations, vector illustrations, video, and audio clips.
It's not easy to find a place in the stock-art market, but one new entrant looks likely to find a niche with a cooperative business model that returns more license revenue to photographers.
Stocksy, a cooperative for photographers in the crowded market selling online stock-art imagery, expects to become profitable in November.
Revenue growth of 35 percent each month helped the company achieve the milestone, which Stocksy plans to announce Thursday.
Related stories
- Stocksy aims to bring the soul back into stock photography
- iStockphoto founder re-enters the market with Stocksy
Two factors no doubt helped it to the goal: first, it was founded by Bruce Livingstone, who accumulated lots of stock-art cred starting more than a decade ago when he started one of the powerhouses of online stock-art sales, iStockphoto. Second, the Canadian company has only 10 employees, which means low expenses.
Stock-art companies license out photos popular in ads and brochures -- healthy seniors on bikes, earnest doctors with stethoscopes, businesspeople shaking hands, and green lawns with blue skies. Though you will find shots of children blowing dandelions on Stocksy, the company tries to keep the cliches at bay with a relatively small set of photographers and exclusive imagery.
Stocksy United founder Bruce Livingstone
(Credit: Stocksy)
Stocksy's photographer pool has grown from 10 to 400 since its launch in March, with 42,000 images in its library. The company gives half of the royalty payments for each licensed photo to the photographer, considerably higher than conventional microstock firms, and distributes 90 percent of its profits at the end of the year to members of its cooperative.
Stocksy still is something of a boutique site, though. Bigger powers in the stock-art business such as Dreamstime, Shutterstock, and iStockphoto have libraries much larger and prices that can go well under Stocky's $10 minimum. And they have other products besides photos, too, including animations, vector illustrations, video, and audio clips.
