Dan Robinson
EF5
Watermarks and "not for broadcast" overlays originated from a time when photographers mainly had to worry about TV outlets/productions or major publishers taking your video without permission or payment. Now, those relatively infrequent TV and major media incidents pale in comparison to viewership & revenue the social media corporations make on that content.
Even today, the practice of giving away photos and video to commercial entities in exchange for the "exposure" is (rightly) still near-universally derided among professional, semi-pro and even hobbyist photographers. Despite that, everyone from amateurs to big-name photographers post their best work on social media, where the likes/shares/retweets are the "payment in exposure" of today.
The platforms - which are some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world - generate *all* of their revenue from this very thing. It makes any big-name production company sneaking 5 seconds of unlicensed video into a TV show (the type of thing that would, justifiably, bring out the pitchforks among photographers) look infinitesimally small by comparison.
I'm struggling to understand how this is happening. Are the big-name photographers getting something of tangible value out of that transaction, or have they been completely duped by the dopamine intoxication of likes and shares? If it's the latter, we're witnessing a subversion of an entire industry on a scale rarely seen in history.
The point isn't against sharing of photos and videos, there's nothing wrong with that. It's voluntarily allowing a powerful mega-corporation to do what any professional worth their salt would never consider doing under any other circumstance.
These days, the "big break" for a photographer isn't getting published in a big TV show or magazine - it's going viral online. The money made on a super-viral piece of content today dwarfs what a National Geographic or Discovery license from the 1990s or 2000s was. These days, you're never going to see anything better revenue-wise than a monetized video that gets views in the 8 figures or more. But that's the very thing being given away to the social media platform en masse by *everyone*. Even if you've never had anything go crazy viral, you're part of the collective revenue stream for the platforms that nickel-and-dime every cent of value that your content has.
All of the reasons I've heard to justify this are exactly what photographers were told before by shady companies trying to get us to give our work away in the past: "You're going to get great exposure and name recognition", "So many people will enjoy seeing your work and get a chance to appreciate it", "That's just the way we do things now". We're all falling for it, I have repeatedly myself.
I don't even want to share/retweet fellow photographers' works now because all I can see is the "cha-ching" that the platform reaps with every share.
If I'm way off base here, someone set me straight. Why are we giving these companies *everything*?
Even today, the practice of giving away photos and video to commercial entities in exchange for the "exposure" is (rightly) still near-universally derided among professional, semi-pro and even hobbyist photographers. Despite that, everyone from amateurs to big-name photographers post their best work on social media, where the likes/shares/retweets are the "payment in exposure" of today.
The platforms - which are some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world - generate *all* of their revenue from this very thing. It makes any big-name production company sneaking 5 seconds of unlicensed video into a TV show (the type of thing that would, justifiably, bring out the pitchforks among photographers) look infinitesimally small by comparison.
I'm struggling to understand how this is happening. Are the big-name photographers getting something of tangible value out of that transaction, or have they been completely duped by the dopamine intoxication of likes and shares? If it's the latter, we're witnessing a subversion of an entire industry on a scale rarely seen in history.
The point isn't against sharing of photos and videos, there's nothing wrong with that. It's voluntarily allowing a powerful mega-corporation to do what any professional worth their salt would never consider doing under any other circumstance.
These days, the "big break" for a photographer isn't getting published in a big TV show or magazine - it's going viral online. The money made on a super-viral piece of content today dwarfs what a National Geographic or Discovery license from the 1990s or 2000s was. These days, you're never going to see anything better revenue-wise than a monetized video that gets views in the 8 figures or more. But that's the very thing being given away to the social media platform en masse by *everyone*. Even if you've never had anything go crazy viral, you're part of the collective revenue stream for the platforms that nickel-and-dime every cent of value that your content has.
All of the reasons I've heard to justify this are exactly what photographers were told before by shady companies trying to get us to give our work away in the past: "You're going to get great exposure and name recognition", "So many people will enjoy seeing your work and get a chance to appreciate it", "That's just the way we do things now". We're all falling for it, I have repeatedly myself.
I don't even want to share/retweet fellow photographers' works now because all I can see is the "cha-ching" that the platform reaps with every share.
If I'm way off base here, someone set me straight. Why are we giving these companies *everything*?