Problems of the Paid Image Market

Unreasonable payment methods by a huge intermediary, the Stock Image Agency

The stock image market, which is largely a paid market and a multi-billion-dollar market, is expected to grow continuously. Ironically, however, unlike the recent growth in market size, revenues of the creators are actually declining. This is due to the rights of the creators not being managed properly. A structure in which the stock image market company has the upper hand over the creators is becoming fixated, giving rise to various problems.

Most large stock image companies are introducing a subscription system to compete against companies providing images for free. This sales method has its perks since numerous people can use quality images at low rates. However, a significant portion of the revenue is taken by the stock image companies as brokerage commissions, and due to the lower price of sold images, the profits of the original creators decrease significantly. In addition, one of the many problems in the current market is that it takes a long time to calculate their profits; for example, it takes about 90 days even on “Shutter Stock,” a leading company in the stock images market. Meaning, users are subject to transaction restrictions due to such payment methods. For these reasons, creators have two choices, namely to look for other agencies which guarantee better treatment, or to simply accept the situation as it is.

Opaque Selection and Pricing System of Upload Image

Today, stock image companies permit users to upload their images only if the images pass their own internal review. Companies implement their own review standards, and creators have to abide by them which can’t help being regarded as irrational since a big portion of stock image company’s profits rely on creators uploading their work. The review procedures take a long time and certain companies often delete photos that has already been approved without proper notice. For these reasons, it is difficult for indie creators and general people to assert the value of their own creations or secure their rights because the market itself starts with an opaque selection criterion.

PIBBLE will aim to solve this problem by transparently disclosing the process of images that are being uploaded which is directly linked to the livelihood of creators and through voting system within the PIBBLE Ecosystem.

Evaporation of rights due to the inability to identify the distribution process of creation

Intellectual properties can be popular stock images with a lot of effort put into them or even popular cartoon characters. Both can steadily make profit unless the creators manually delete them. As a result, the needs of those who work as a full-time stock image creator has increased steadily. While images are valuable assets to many creators, there is virtually no device or system to protect their rights due to the absence of a proper tracking system and no ways to manage unauthorized images.

PIBBLE aims to fix this by using our self-developed image tracking system which was operated for years and we plan to expand the reach of this blockchain solution. PIBBLE will provide a service that offers protection to not only professionals, but even to regular people from copyright infringement which can result in creating profitable models for them.