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A Man Can’t Live on Image Credit Alone

72 points by wicknicks 15y ago

revelation 15y ago
Don’t help to erode the market for high-quality artwork just because you’re not relying on that market to feed yourself. Countless companies run on $0 open-source software. Its responsible for a large amount of the constant innovation happening. And there are still people making a profit on software, quite obviously. It is not destroying a market, it is setting the bar higher for entry.
- ryandvm 15y ago
  Agreed. If you're trying to make a living selling something that is no better than what people give away in their spare time, good luck. It certainly isn't everyone else's responsibility to fix the market.
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    >fix the market There's nothing broken with the market, it's the business model that needs to be fixed. And by fixed, I mean scrapped and replaced by models not dependant on selling non-scarce goods.
mycroftiv 15y ago
I was enjoying this essay and "with" the author all the way until he suddenly swerved into imploring everyone to not give their work away for free, in order to preserve the market value of the work of full-time professionals. This kind of argument has been used a lot against free open source software, and I doubt many readers of HN are very sympathetic to it.
- eroded 15y ago
  Indeed. I'm always surprised how many people believe they should be paid proportional to the amount of time and money that went into their product, regardless of demand. Their work is worth whatever the market will bear.
- sp332 15y ago
  There is a good point in artist circles, that you should never do free work "for exposure". Doing work for exposure is a great way to get more work... for exposure. But I agree he went a bit overboard on this one. Edit: just for those who don't remember, here's the epic Bill Gates incident from the dawn of the software industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
  - timwiseman 15y ago
    I do not think this follows. Linus Torvalds got well-paying work because of his free work on Linux. Of course, Torvalds is an outlier, but Cory Doctorow also does this. It makes sense that the best way to get work in certain fields is to have a reputation. Sometimes the best way to get that reputation is to give away a certain portion of your work.
    - sp332 15y ago
      Right, Torvalds started writing free software for a hobby. But then he got hired to work for a company. He didn't work for some company for free, hoping that some other company would hire him. There's a difference between doing whatever you want for free vs. working for a company for free.
      - MartinCron 15y ago
        Three simple scenarios. Bill Gates Selling software = great! Linus Torvalds giving software away = great! Bill Gates (or anyone) telling Linus Torvalds (or anyone) not to give software away for free = lame!
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    You should only do free work "for exposure" if you want to do free work for exposure. Artists should have a realistic expectation of what value they'll get in exchange for their work, but the "never do it for exposure" advice feels a little one-size-fits-all. The Bill Gates thing is a bit different. He was explicitly selling copyrighted works and other people were copying and/or re-selling that. He never tried to discourage people from making their own software and giving it away for free.
- joshcrews 15y ago
  Open Source work for free AND not giving away photographs 'for exposure' to for-profit businesses are both allowed in the the Should I do this for Free? flowchart http://shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html http://shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    I don't think you interpreting that chart the same way I am.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  I also really hate this argument. I'm what you call a serious amateur photographer. I make images because I love the process of creating and sharing art. Telling me that I shouldn't ever share my work because it erodes the value of others who have an entirely different motive is borderline price-fixing. If you, as an established professional, can't compete with hobbyists and newcomers trying to break in, then you might need to find a different business model.
  - Domenic_S 15y ago
    The sentiment on this thread would be really different if instead of an unnamed calendar, the client was Coke running a $3MM international campaign and offering the author $100. Why is that?
    - mirkules 15y ago
      The discussion is about two different things: 1. The amount of money offered for the author's work 2. Imploring others to not take "lowball" offers in order to preserve a certain pricing/business model. Regarding #1: Everyone is allowed to make any kind of offer, and the author is free to refuse them, just as he did. Photography is a business, and everyone is trying to make a deal to make a buck. If Coke offered $100, that's their prerogative, and it's up to the author to either haggle up higher, or refuse them flatly. Personally, I see no reason why the author was so offended -- the emails weren't rude, they weren't demanding, and the email person "L" was almost apologetic for having only $100 to spend. Since I don't know what company this is, we cannot make assumption on why the author thinks they will sell the calendars for $12.99 (although, there are religious undertones, and my suspicion and speculation is that they will not sell these at a huge profit as the author believes) Regarding #2, that's been covered well. If I want to sell my software at $0.99 per app and it undercuts the competition, great. We saw iOS developers complain that the $0.99 games are undercutting their profits, but it turned out to be a sustainable model. It's not my problem if I give my photos (or product) away for free and undercuts his model.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      Probably because humans have a sense of perspective and fairness that isn't always in sync with what a purely rational economic actor would do. Just a guess. Something similar did happen to me. An ad agency found a photo* I had taken and wanted to use it in a campaign. I usually give things away to non-profits, but this was going to be a large-scale thing for a major drug company. I asked what price the person thought was fair and we settled on a reasonable price. Maybe I was lowballed? I don't know and don't really care. It was more than $100, though. I didn't set a nonzero price just because I wanted to protect other artists ability to make money off of their work, I set a price because I thought it would be cool to have some extra money to buy some new camera gear. * The picture in question: http://www.flickr.com/photos/martincron/2208026093/in/set-72157603762050058 http://www.flickr.com/photos/martincron/2208026093/in/set-72...
- wtvanhest 15y ago
  So I implore you to think twice about your actions the next time you are approached with a similar deal. Don’t help to erode the market for high-quality artwork just because you’re not relying on that market to feed yourself. Just because someone chooses to make a fun activity in to a job does not mean that person deserves to get paid for it. If they are not delivering economic value, they don't get paid. I cannot go in to my office and decide that I would rather sit around talking to people than putting in real work which adds value and expect to make my salary. There are types of photography that do pay OK, mainly wedding and event photography. The reason they pay more is because the photographer needs to be contracted to capture a specific image at a specific time. If you decide to be a landscape artist you are competing with every image made ever. This is not a good competitive position to be in and why people will give away their work for free.
  - eli_gottlieb 15y ago
    This is true only if you equate "value" with "property", rivalrous and excludable private goods.
    - wtvanhest 15y ago
      For those not aware, Eli_gottlieb is referring to this 2X2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_good Photos are Rivalrous and Excludable as long as the photographer protects them by not posting full sized images or using watermarks. (see iStockphoto). I do associate value with that property, but that property is limited in value, not due to it not being rivalrous and excludable, but rather because of substitutes.
- Domenic_S 15y ago
  > This kind of argument has been used a lot against free open source software, and I doubt many readers of HN are very sympathetic to it. FOSS is a foot in the door -- how many of us get consulting contracts or even FT jobs implementing or managing that FOSS? FOSS doesn't run itself, unlike a photo that anyone can ship over to snapfish or uprint.
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  The truth, as with many things, probably falls somewhere between the author's stance and yours. The rise of "free" simply represents a new dynamic in the market for artistic works. To be fair, it is a dynamic that places downward pressure on prices, and that's not necessarily great for most artists. But it's a dynamic that the market has created and is absorbing, and so artists must come to terms with it. As an artist, you now have to think very carefully about how to price your work. If you believe your work is of exceptional quality, then by all means, price above the market. Likewise, if you believe your work appeals very specifically to a segment that's willing to pay X price, then go with X price and target that niche. If, on the other hand, your work is fairly generic, of average quality, or generally nothing special to any special groups of people, then making a living as an artist is going to be tough for you. Your choices are to price it to market (which may be $0), or differentiate substantially (enough to bear a nonzero price). Practically speaking, moral arguments on either side are somewhat irrelevant. Instead, what matters is the artist's positioning relative to everyone else. Today, more than ever, you'll have to make yourself special -- or specialized -- if you want to earn a decent living.
- underwater 15y ago
  That's a good point. This is the equivalent of a customer asking a small time developer to give away their proprietary product for free because there are competing open source products. The developer can either rage against open source or change their business model. The photographer can do the same by either a) take photos amateurs can't or won't take or b) take photos to order.
- olalonde 15y ago
  This was discussed at length here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3451145 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3451145
liber8 15y ago
I think Trey Ratcliff (http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ http://www.stuckincustoms.com/) and many, many others, would disagree. The market isn't being "eroded" by people giving away their work. The market was "eroded" by the fact that there are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of people in the U.S. alone who are now skilled enough to regularly take what were once considered "professional" level photographs. There is simply too much supply. If you want to blame someone, blame Canon and Nikon and Olympus and Sigma. Blame capitalism for giving us such unprecedented wealth that huge swaths of the population now have free time to study, scout, take, edit, and publish photos. Don't blame the artists.
- ojbyrne 15y ago
  Actually Trey Ratcliff licences his images CC non-commercial precisely so he can charge (or refuse permission) for this exact specific case.
  - liber8 15y ago
    My point was that he's been successful precisely because he lets people freely use his images under the CC license. It's' more or less the cornerstone of his business plan. His work gets widely distributed and linked back to his site, which helped him build his tribe and sell other products and services.
    - ojbyrne 15y ago
      And my point was that this guy is probably doing the exact same thing (that's how the essay started - talking about letting people use his photos), but isn't happy about it.
- aklemm 15y ago
  This is the correct answer. Photographers--even more than musicians and journalists--are having a terrible time coming to terms with the new world. They seem to think they should be paid for their effort and expertise, rather than based on how much demand there is for that effort and expertise.
178 15y ago
> When’s the last time you saw an image in a calendar or on a urinal cake and said “Gee whiz! I like that enough that I want to track that artist down and send them money!”? That's essentially one of the main problems flattr is trying to solve. Shure, for now it works best online but that will change. I didn't find a real timeline of who flattred what, but this is close: <https://flattr.com/explore> https://flattr.com/explore>. It's basically a list which answers his question, these are all pieces of work of somebody, and they are receiving money from their 'viewers' after the fact, just because they liked it.
shawnjan8 15y ago
I think this comment by Tzctplus sums my feelings on the matter the best: He gets it. The market is saturated, economics 101 says that will drive the price down, in extreme situations the price is close to 0, the mistake many photographers make is to believe that their skill (and they should stop using the word "art" if they are selling, it would be really useful to frame the situation) is still so unique that deserves an imagined level of compensation. Photographers should understand that if they want to make a living it will be thanks to the value added on top of taking photographs, making good photographs is not enough, lots of people can now do that, and most importantly, the market is global and cruelly efficient. The article's poster talks like if the digital photography revolution hasn't happened, people that have not managed to sell value added to potential clients should realize that the first thing in the road to charging something is recognition, which is what the guy of the calendars was offering (how many of you can boast to have had they pictures published in 20000 calendars? That would look great on a CV and would help you in the differentiation from the mass of photographers struggling to make a living from their skill). You are saying below that they can offer compensation, and that is entirely missing the point, as much as I would like to charge $1000 for each picture I take (set your price, the principle is the same) I know there are hundreds, perhaps thousand of chums out there that would like to take half that, one third of that or less. It is funny that you try to use an example below about restaurants without considering the whole picture: qualified chefs, waiters, etc. working in a fancy restaurant are not a dime a dozen, they also will use ingredients which are demonstrably scarce, that is the reason you can't walk there and set your price. Photographers are not in that happy position just by the virtue of their photographs: any photo website, trade magazine (of which are many, yet another hint about the vulgarity of taking pictures nowadays) should be teaching a lesson to anybody holding a camera: your skill is now a commodity, and as such the first step to make a living out of it is brand recognition, which is what was in offer... Once your name is Testino or some other person that is immediately recognizable and iconic, then yeah, feel insulted, before that? Be grateful....
ilamont 15y ago
Welcome to the media revolution. Competing with talented amateur photographers who will work for free or very little money -- as well as publishers who are working on crazy-thin margins -- is only the tip of the iceberg for professional photographers. There's also the issue of empowered consumers who demand choice (whether it be custom calendars or altering the artwork in some way that suits them) and the rise of photorealistic computer-generated imagery. It sucks that the professional media industry (including film studios, journalists, record labels, broadcasters, photographers, magazine publishers, etc.) no longer have the control and fat margins of yesteryear. It's a new world. Evolve with it, find a niche, or move on.
tjr 15y ago
Is there really a market for selling 20,000 copies of a landscape photo calendar? If so, maybe photographers should get into the business of creating these themselves, and keeping all of the money rather than a tiny fee?
- jeffesp 15y ago
  I thought the same thing. The unknown that I came up with was distribution channels. How would I get these great calendars that I created into the hands of the people? Certainly not unsolvable, but much more work and much more risk (up front capital) than just creating a calendar.
  - tjr 15y ago
    For that matter, I'd be pretty happy if I could sell 200 copies of a calendar at ~$10/profit on each one. Hardly a full-time business, but it would turn my money-sucking photography hobby into something that covers buying some new equipment.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    The thing about that is that you would be competing with a company that is entrenched but properly doesn't "dig" tech at the level people here do -- and that can be used against them because the internet is the greatest single distribution channel ever conceived. The biggest issue is that these a Christian theme calenders so they will be purchased by little old ladies who are afraid to use their credit cards on the internet, because the hackers might get it and steal their identity.
  - kaybe 15y ago
    Many art websites offer the service (eg deviantart [1]) - the artist creates the pages, they print and ship it and profit is shared. Of course you can argue about the share model (at deviantart, 20% by default for the artist; you can set a higher price if you're a premium member and pocket the difference), but the business model is there. [1] http://shop.deviantart.com/?qh=product:gifts/calendars&utm_source=prinsthop&utm_medium=mainheader_calendars&utm_campagin=artgiftsheader http://shop.deviantart.com/?qh=product:gifts/calendars&u...
mistercow 15y ago
> When’s the last time you saw an image in a calendar or on a urinal cake and said “Gee whiz! I like that enough that I want to track that artist down and send them money!” Well, I'm not in any business that has much need of the kind of photography you find in a calendar or on a urinal cake. But if I were, then yeah, if I saw a really nice photo in a calendar, I might give the photographer a call. Also, if I were a photographer building a portfolio, I might be happy to have a calendar with my work in it, alongside proof that it was indeed my work. That's not to say that people who want free stuff in exchange for publicity aren't going to overstate the value of that publicity, of course. As a general rule, if someone offers to give you X in exchange for Y, they are probably going to try to get you to think X is worth more than it is, that Y is worth less than it is, or both.
AznHisoka 15y ago
If the ecosystem is such that people are giving you low-balling offers, don't blame the ecosystem. You are not the one that decides whether your skills and products are a commodity - the market does.
swang 15y ago
Is everyone saying that `the lowball offers come because of the market and that he should just accept it` not a developer? I am often surprised how little sympathy photographers get in places like HN. Yes, it is way easier to take photographs as the cost of learning has dropped significantly. But that doesn't mean that there aren't photographers who make great pictures and should get paid, especially if the company that wants to use it is a big enough company to have a budget to sell 20,000 calendars. I disagree with the notion though that anyone can reproduce the photos he took (assuming the header image is one he did take) without investing a significant amount of time and resources into learning about photography. It's not as though he went into the mountains, waited for near sunset and then snapped the photo and went home. It obviously took some degree of planning and effort to do. I like to think I'm at least a decent photographer but I can tell you that even though I have equipment that was probably unimaginable in the 90s, I'm far from being able to take pictures of that kind of quality. I know most software developers _hate_ it when clients quote them something like $100 to redesign an online store and I hear this argument all the time: "If the programmer in some third world country can do it for $100, why can't you? That's what the market bears." Because what you're giving them at least (hopefully) is some quality engineering and your previous experiences that is worth more than what the $100 that other developer is charging. If that company doesn't want to pay $X for the photographer's picture, it's very simple, they don't have to use it. If a client doesn't want you to pay $Y for an online store, they don't have to hire you. I don't get why there is always a big backlash against the photographer in these articles who are trying to make some money just like the rest of us. It's not as though he is scamming anyone.
- ceol 15y ago
  > especially if the company that wants to use it is a big enough company to have a budget to sell 20,000 calendars. This is what I don't get. The budget for the images— the reason people would buy the calendar in the first place— was so outrageously low.
- frobozz 15y ago
  > I don't get why there is always a big backlash against the photographer in these articles ... I believe that it is because they often close by exhorting everyone not to give away photos for free, or sell them for third world prices. They assert that hobbyists and part-timers are at fault for destroying the careers of those photography professionals that rely on image sales to put food on the table. Just as you are free to decline a $100 offer, I should be free to accept it. Similarly, you should be free to attempt to persuade potential clients that your $1000 service or item is ten times as good as my $100 service or item. What is inappropriate is if you tell me that I shouldn't charge $100 because you're trying to make $1000 out of the deal.
Uchikoma 15y ago
The guy seems not to understand business properly. If he thinks people have $240.000 in their pocket after selling the calendars, he's misguided. If money was that easy to be made with calendars, everyone would do it (I'd assume printing costs are higher, designers have to be paid, most calendars probably will not sell and offered for $1 at in February 2013, ...)
Uchikoma 15y ago
There is a lot talk of devaluing the work of artists in the comments by selling cheap. At the same time those people are buying cheap stuff from Chinese factories. Perhaps someone tell the Chinese workers that they devalue the value of factory work. But I'd guess it's only a problem if oneself is harmed.
Uchikoma 15y ago
I don't think that there are that much more DSLR photographers now than were in the past. Just as journalists, photographers now start to see that what people paid for was actually distribution not for content. Many people had SLRs in the 70s and 80s, but no access to the market or any exposure or any means to create large prints. Now that the internet created a new market place and delivery plattform, the distribution part broke down.

72 points by wicknicks 15y ago

Don’t help to erode the market for high-quality artwork just because you’re not relying on that market to feed yourself. Countless companies run on $0 open-source software. Its responsible for a large amount of the constant innovation happening. And there are still people making a profit on software, quite obviously. It is not destroying a market, it is setting the bar higher for entry.

ryandvm 15y ago
Agreed. If you're trying to make a living selling something that is no better than what people give away in their spare time, good luck. It certainly isn't everyone else's responsibility to fix the market.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >fix the market There's nothing broken with the market, it's the business model that needs to be fixed. And by fixed, I mean scrapped and replaced by models not dependant on selling non-scarce goods.

mycroftiv 15y ago

I was enjoying this essay and "with" the author all the way until he suddenly swerved into imploring everyone to not give their work away for free, in order to preserve the market value of the work of full-time professionals. This kind of argument has been used a lot against free open source software, and I doubt many readers of HN are very sympathetic to it.

eroded 15y ago
Indeed. I'm always surprised how many people believe they should be paid proportional to the amount of time and money that went into their product, regardless of demand. Their work is worth whatever the market will bear.
sp332 15y ago
There is a good point in artist circles, that you should never do free work "for exposure". Doing work for exposure is a great way to get more work... for exposure. But I agree he went a bit overboard on this one. Edit: just for those who don't remember, here's the epic Bill Gates incident from the dawn of the software industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
- timwiseman 15y ago
  I do not think this follows. Linus Torvalds got well-paying work because of his free work on Linux. Of course, Torvalds is an outlier, but Cory Doctorow also does this. It makes sense that the best way to get work in certain fields is to have a reputation. Sometimes the best way to get that reputation is to give away a certain portion of your work.
  - sp332 15y ago
    Right, Torvalds started writing free software for a hobby. But then he got hired to work for a company. He didn't work for some company for free, hoping that some other company would hire him. There's a difference between doing whatever you want for free vs. working for a company for free.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      Three simple scenarios. Bill Gates Selling software = great! Linus Torvalds giving software away = great! Bill Gates (or anyone) telling Linus Torvalds (or anyone) not to give software away for free = lame!
- MartinCron 15y ago
  You should only do free work "for exposure" if you want to do free work for exposure. Artists should have a realistic expectation of what value they'll get in exchange for their work, but the "never do it for exposure" advice feels a little one-size-fits-all. The Bill Gates thing is a bit different. He was explicitly selling copyrighted works and other people were copying and/or re-selling that. He never tried to discourage people from making their own software and giving it away for free.
joshcrews 15y ago
Open Source work for free AND not giving away photographs 'for exposure' to for-profit businesses are both allowed in the the Should I do this for Free? flowchart http://shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html http://shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html
- MartinCron 15y ago
  I don't think you interpreting that chart the same way I am.
MartinCron 15y ago
I also really hate this argument. I'm what you call a serious amateur photographer. I make images because I love the process of creating and sharing art. Telling me that I shouldn't ever share my work because it erodes the value of others who have an entirely different motive is borderline price-fixing. If you, as an established professional, can't compete with hobbyists and newcomers trying to break in, then you might need to find a different business model.
- Domenic_S 15y ago
  The sentiment on this thread would be really different if instead of an unnamed calendar, the client was Coke running a $3MM international campaign and offering the author $100. Why is that?
  - mirkules 15y ago
    The discussion is about two different things: 1. The amount of money offered for the author's work 2. Imploring others to not take "lowball" offers in order to preserve a certain pricing/business model. Regarding #1: Everyone is allowed to make any kind of offer, and the author is free to refuse them, just as he did. Photography is a business, and everyone is trying to make a deal to make a buck. If Coke offered $100, that's their prerogative, and it's up to the author to either haggle up higher, or refuse them flatly. Personally, I see no reason why the author was so offended -- the emails weren't rude, they weren't demanding, and the email person "L" was almost apologetic for having only $100 to spend. Since I don't know what company this is, we cannot make assumption on why the author thinks they will sell the calendars for $12.99 (although, there are religious undertones, and my suspicion and speculation is that they will not sell these at a huge profit as the author believes) Regarding #2, that's been covered well. If I want to sell my software at $0.99 per app and it undercuts the competition, great. We saw iOS developers complain that the $0.99 games are undercutting their profits, but it turned out to be a sustainable model. It's not my problem if I give my photos (or product) away for free and undercuts his model.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    Probably because humans have a sense of perspective and fairness that isn't always in sync with what a purely rational economic actor would do. Just a guess. Something similar did happen to me. An ad agency found a photo* I had taken and wanted to use it in a campaign. I usually give things away to non-profits, but this was going to be a large-scale thing for a major drug company. I asked what price the person thought was fair and we settled on a reasonable price. Maybe I was lowballed? I don't know and don't really care. It was more than $100, though. I didn't set a nonzero price just because I wanted to protect other artists ability to make money off of their work, I set a price because I thought it would be cool to have some extra money to buy some new camera gear. * The picture in question: http://www.flickr.com/photos/martincron/2208026093/in/set-72157603762050058 http://www.flickr.com/photos/martincron/2208026093/in/set-72...
wtvanhest 15y ago
So I implore you to think twice about your actions the next time you are approached with a similar deal. Don’t help to erode the market for high-quality artwork just because you’re not relying on that market to feed yourself. Just because someone chooses to make a fun activity in to a job does not mean that person deserves to get paid for it. If they are not delivering economic value, they don't get paid. I cannot go in to my office and decide that I would rather sit around talking to people than putting in real work which adds value and expect to make my salary. There are types of photography that do pay OK, mainly wedding and event photography. The reason they pay more is because the photographer needs to be contracted to capture a specific image at a specific time. If you decide to be a landscape artist you are competing with every image made ever. This is not a good competitive position to be in and why people will give away their work for free.
- eli_gottlieb 15y ago
  This is true only if you equate "value" with "property", rivalrous and excludable private goods.
  - wtvanhest 15y ago
    For those not aware, Eli_gottlieb is referring to this 2X2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_good Photos are Rivalrous and Excludable as long as the photographer protects them by not posting full sized images or using watermarks. (see iStockphoto). I do associate value with that property, but that property is limited in value, not due to it not being rivalrous and excludable, but rather because of substitutes.
Domenic_S 15y ago
> This kind of argument has been used a lot against free open source software, and I doubt many readers of HN are very sympathetic to it. FOSS is a foot in the door -- how many of us get consulting contracts or even FT jobs implementing or managing that FOSS? FOSS doesn't run itself, unlike a photo that anyone can ship over to snapfish or uprint.
jonnathanson 15y ago
The truth, as with many things, probably falls somewhere between the author's stance and yours. The rise of "free" simply represents a new dynamic in the market for artistic works. To be fair, it is a dynamic that places downward pressure on prices, and that's not necessarily great for most artists. But it's a dynamic that the market has created and is absorbing, and so artists must come to terms with it. As an artist, you now have to think very carefully about how to price your work. If you believe your work is of exceptional quality, then by all means, price above the market. Likewise, if you believe your work appeals very specifically to a segment that's willing to pay X price, then go with X price and target that niche. If, on the other hand, your work is fairly generic, of average quality, or generally nothing special to any special groups of people, then making a living as an artist is going to be tough for you. Your choices are to price it to market (which may be $0), or differentiate substantially (enough to bear a nonzero price). Practically speaking, moral arguments on either side are somewhat irrelevant. Instead, what matters is the artist's positioning relative to everyone else. Today, more than ever, you'll have to make yourself special -- or specialized -- if you want to earn a decent living.
underwater 15y ago
That's a good point. This is the equivalent of a customer asking a small time developer to give away their proprietary product for free because there are competing open source products. The developer can either rage against open source or change their business model. The photographer can do the same by either a) take photos amateurs can't or won't take or b) take photos to order.
olalonde 15y ago
This was discussed at length here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3451145 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3451145

liber8 15y ago

I think Trey Ratcliff (http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ http://www.stuckincustoms.com/) and many, many others, would disagree. The market isn't being "eroded" by people giving away their work. The market was "eroded" by the fact that there are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of people in the U.S. alone who are now skilled enough to regularly take what were once considered "professional" level photographs. There is simply too much supply. If you want to blame someone, blame Canon and Nikon and Olympus and Sigma. Blame capitalism for giving us such unprecedented wealth that huge swaths of the population now have free time to study, scout, take, edit, and publish photos. Don't blame the artists.

ojbyrne 15y ago
Actually Trey Ratcliff licences his images CC non-commercial precisely so he can charge (or refuse permission) for this exact specific case.
- liber8 15y ago
  My point was that he's been successful precisely because he lets people freely use his images under the CC license. It's' more or less the cornerstone of his business plan. His work gets widely distributed and linked back to his site, which helped him build his tribe and sell other products and services.
  - ojbyrne 15y ago
    And my point was that this guy is probably doing the exact same thing (that's how the essay started - talking about letting people use his photos), but isn't happy about it.
aklemm 15y ago
This is the correct answer. Photographers--even more than musicians and journalists--are having a terrible time coming to terms with the new world. They seem to think they should be paid for their effort and expertise, rather than based on how much demand there is for that effort and expertise.

178 15y ago

> When’s the last time you saw an image in a calendar or on a urinal cake and said “Gee whiz! I like that enough that I want to track that artist down and send them money!”? That's essentially one of the main problems flattr is trying to solve. Shure, for now it works best online but that will change. I didn't find a real timeline of who flattred what, but this is close: <https://flattr.com/explore> https://flattr.com/explore>. It's basically a list which answers his question, these are all pieces of work of somebody, and they are receiving money from their 'viewers' after the fact, just because they liked it.

shawnjan8 15y ago

I think this comment by Tzctplus sums my feelings on the matter the best: He gets it. The market is saturated, economics 101 says that will drive the price down, in extreme situations the price is close to 0, the mistake many photographers make is to believe that their skill (and they should stop using the word "art" if they are selling, it would be really useful to frame the situation) is still so unique that deserves an imagined level of compensation. Photographers should understand that if they want to make a living it will be thanks to the value added on top of taking photographs, making good photographs is not enough, lots of people can now do that, and most importantly, the market is global and cruelly efficient. The article's poster talks like if the digital photography revolution hasn't happened, people that have not managed to sell value added to potential clients should realize that the first thing in the road to charging something is recognition, which is what the guy of the calendars was offering (how many of you can boast to have had they pictures published in 20000 calendars? That would look great on a CV and would help you in the differentiation from the mass of photographers struggling to make a living from their skill). You are saying below that they can offer compensation, and that is entirely missing the point, as much as I would like to charge $1000 for each picture I take (set your price, the principle is the same) I know there are hundreds, perhaps thousand of chums out there that would like to take half that, one third of that or less. It is funny that you try to use an example below about restaurants without considering the whole picture: qualified chefs, waiters, etc. working in a fancy restaurant are not a dime a dozen, they also will use ingredients which are demonstrably scarce, that is the reason you can't walk there and set your price. Photographers are not in that happy position just by the virtue of their photographs: any photo website, trade magazine (of which are many, yet another hint about the vulgarity of taking pictures nowadays) should be teaching a lesson to anybody holding a camera: your skill is now a commodity, and as such the first step to make a living out of it is brand recognition, which is what was in offer... Once your name is Testino or some other person that is immediately recognizable and iconic, then yeah, feel insulted, before that? Be grateful....

ilamont 15y ago

Welcome to the media revolution. Competing with talented amateur photographers who will work for free or very little money -- as well as publishers who are working on crazy-thin margins -- is only the tip of the iceberg for professional photographers. There's also the issue of empowered consumers who demand choice (whether it be custom calendars or altering the artwork in some way that suits them) and the rise of photorealistic computer-generated imagery. It sucks that the professional media industry (including film studios, journalists, record labels, broadcasters, photographers, magazine publishers, etc.) no longer have the control and fat margins of yesteryear. It's a new world. Evolve with it, find a niche, or move on.

tjr 15y ago

Is there really a market for selling 20,000 copies of a landscape photo calendar? If so, maybe photographers should get into the business of creating these themselves, and keeping all of the money rather than a tiny fee?

jeffesp 15y ago
I thought the same thing. The unknown that I came up with was distribution channels. How would I get these great calendars that I created into the hands of the people? Certainly not unsolvable, but much more work and much more risk (up front capital) than just creating a calendar.
- tjr 15y ago
  For that matter, I'd be pretty happy if I could sell 200 copies of a calendar at ~$10/profit on each one. Hardly a full-time business, but it would turn my money-sucking photography hobby into something that covers buying some new equipment.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  The thing about that is that you would be competing with a company that is entrenched but properly doesn't "dig" tech at the level people here do -- and that can be used against them because the internet is the greatest single distribution channel ever conceived. The biggest issue is that these a Christian theme calenders so they will be purchased by little old ladies who are afraid to use their credit cards on the internet, because the hackers might get it and steal their identity.
- kaybe 15y ago
  Many art websites offer the service (eg deviantart [1]) - the artist creates the pages, they print and ship it and profit is shared. Of course you can argue about the share model (at deviantart, 20% by default for the artist; you can set a higher price if you're a premium member and pocket the difference), but the business model is there. [1] http://shop.deviantart.com/?qh=product:gifts/calendars&utm_source=prinsthop&utm_medium=mainheader_calendars&utm_campagin=artgiftsheader http://shop.deviantart.com/?qh=product:gifts/calendars&u...

mistercow 15y ago

> When’s the last time you saw an image in a calendar or on a urinal cake and said “Gee whiz! I like that enough that I want to track that artist down and send them money!” Well, I'm not in any business that has much need of the kind of photography you find in a calendar or on a urinal cake. But if I were, then yeah, if I saw a really nice photo in a calendar, I might give the photographer a call. Also, if I were a photographer building a portfolio, I might be happy to have a calendar with my work in it, alongside proof that it was indeed my work. That's not to say that people who want free stuff in exchange for publicity aren't going to overstate the value of that publicity, of course. As a general rule, if someone offers to give you X in exchange for Y, they are probably going to try to get you to think X is worth more than it is, that Y is worth less than it is, or both.

AznHisoka 15y ago

If the ecosystem is such that people are giving you low-balling offers, don't blame the ecosystem. You are not the one that decides whether your skills and products are a commodity - the market does.

swang 15y ago

Is everyone saying that `the lowball offers come because of the market and that he should just accept it` not a developer? I am often surprised how little sympathy photographers get in places like HN. Yes, it is way easier to take photographs as the cost of learning has dropped significantly. But that doesn't mean that there aren't photographers who make great pictures and should get paid, especially if the company that wants to use it is a big enough company to have a budget to sell 20,000 calendars. I disagree with the notion though that anyone can reproduce the photos he took (assuming the header image is one he did take) without investing a significant amount of time and resources into learning about photography. It's not as though he went into the mountains, waited for near sunset and then snapped the photo and went home. It obviously took some degree of planning and effort to do. I like to think I'm at least a decent photographer but I can tell you that even though I have equipment that was probably unimaginable in the 90s, I'm far from being able to take pictures of that kind of quality. I know most software developers _hate_ it when clients quote them something like $100 to redesign an online store and I hear this argument all the time: "If the programmer in some third world country can do it for $100, why can't you? That's what the market bears." Because what you're giving them at least (hopefully) is some quality engineering and your previous experiences that is worth more than what the $100 that other developer is charging. If that company doesn't want to pay $X for the photographer's picture, it's very simple, they don't have to use it. If a client doesn't want you to pay $Y for an online store, they don't have to hire you. I don't get why there is always a big backlash against the photographer in these articles who are trying to make some money just like the rest of us. It's not as though he is scamming anyone.

ceol 15y ago
> especially if the company that wants to use it is a big enough company to have a budget to sell 20,000 calendars. This is what I don't get. The budget for the images— the reason people would buy the calendar in the first place— was so outrageously low.
frobozz 15y ago
> I don't get why there is always a big backlash against the photographer in these articles ... I believe that it is because they often close by exhorting everyone not to give away photos for free, or sell them for third world prices. They assert that hobbyists and part-timers are at fault for destroying the careers of those photography professionals that rely on image sales to put food on the table. Just as you are free to decline a $100 offer, I should be free to accept it. Similarly, you should be free to attempt to persuade potential clients that your $1000 service or item is ten times as good as my $100 service or item. What is inappropriate is if you tell me that I shouldn't charge $100 because you're trying to make $1000 out of the deal.

Uchikoma 15y ago

The guy seems not to understand business properly. If he thinks people have $240.000 in their pocket after selling the calendars, he's misguided. If money was that easy to be made with calendars, everyone would do it (I'd assume printing costs are higher, designers have to be paid, most calendars probably will not sell and offered for $1 at in February 2013, ...)

Uchikoma 15y ago

There is a lot talk of devaluing the work of artists in the comments by selling cheap. At the same time those people are buying cheap stuff from Chinese factories. Perhaps someone tell the Chinese workers that they devalue the value of factory work. But I'd guess it's only a problem if oneself is harmed.

Uchikoma 15y ago

I don't think that there are that much more DSLR photographers now than were in the past. Just as journalists, photographers now start to see that what people paid for was actually distribution not for content. Many people had SLRs in the 70s and 80s, but no access to the market or any exposure or any means to create large prints. Now that the internet created a new market place and delivery plattform, the distribution part broke down.