Update: This Qtrax announcement appears to be a hoax (here).

… are photos next? TechCrunch is reporting on a new free and legal P2P downloading service (here) with 25 million songs (itunes has 6 million). It’s called Qtrax and they’ve signed all 4 of the major music labels to somehow allow free music sharing in exchange for advertising (They missed their intended launch time of midnight last night so there may be problems with the labels).

A quick read through the comments and it looks like there will be ads playing before or after the music… not unlike how radio works. Will the same eventually happen to photography where photos download with ads loaded around them just like in newspapers and magazines?

I know Mochila, Jamd (Getty), Britepic, PicApp, and others are experimenting with this idea but I’m almost certain it benefits the advertisers, distributors and not the content creators so that will certainly limit the quality of material available.

I’ve got no problem looking at ads or paying a fee to receive content but I refuse to believe that the future of content distribution will be the same as it is now with middlemen controlling everything and consumers paying them for access. Why wouldn’t the more efficient model where content creators reach the consumers directly become the eventual solution?

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11 Comments

  2. “Everything is free now,
    That’s what they say.
    Everything I ever done,
    Gotta give it away.
    Someone hit the big score.
    They figured it out,
    That we’re gonna do it anyway,
    Even if doesn’t pay.”
    -Gillian Welch

  3. There’s probably more of a demand for good ad placement then there is for good imagery, so I wouldn’t doubt that a model would emerge that’s supported solely on advertising, and that, furthermore, the content creators would get the short end of the stick.

    “Good enough” imagery is less than a dime a dozen. Particularly when it comes to the web. Photo sharing sites such as Flickr, photo.net, and others would have enough content alone to do the job. And of course those sites also have more than enough reasonably talented photographers willing to give their work away for compensation as low as zero.

  4. Giving away photos (and writing) ‘for free’ (advertising) is nothing new. Magazines have been doing that for decades. As noted, giving music away ‘for free’ (on the radio) is nothing new either. The Internet is just a new place to do old things in a new way. OK, perhaps a few new things.

    Should photographers and writers get into the business of publishing for advertising directly? Many do (blogging, web sites, etc.).

    Is this the future? I’m sure it is, but only in part.

    I still believe that mass market distribution, funded by advertising is not the only (or best) model for artists. Subscription and fee based publishing is alive and well. Further fine art printing and limited edition publishing, enabled by new printing technology, and supported by internet marketing should be a great opportunity.

    Should be; we’ll see.

  5. I have wondered how long it would be before photos would be free, supported by embedded watermark advertising or something equally repulsive.

    The flaw with this (apart from the fact it’s shit) seems to be that publishers would resist losing their control and revenue derived from inflicting ads. so you’d have to pay them to publish photo’s containing ads. But it’s only a matter of time before photographers are bidding for bylines anyway in their endless pursuit of fame and jam tomorrow.

    So, who’s going to be the first to market with a library that runs on sponsorship money and pays publishers whilst charging photographers for the privilege of having their work ruined? It’s the future, for sure.

  6. The $8 billion… $12 billion… $28 billion adult industry (depending on whose numbers you believe) has already been brought to its knees by free content available on the web. And who, more than anyone else, is taking it in the shorts? The content creators. Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!

  7. The better question is, do people still get paid to play music? Yeah. Are there musicians that aren’t ultra famous but still make a living? Yep. There aren’t many, but there have never been very many musicians getting paid.

    Will paid photography go away? Doubtful. Why do I say that? Because great photography still sells, a lot, and the free stuff generally isn’t great photography, or even good photography. It’s usually tired, over-done, lame, and gimmicky.

    So if your work is tired, over-done, lame, and gimmicky, you may not be getting paid to continue taking pictures soon.

  8. Is advertising really worth that much to the music industry? Is it worth that much to everyone else? I don’t understand that concept. If it weren’t for the fact that I am a photographer, I wouldn’t ever look at advertising. Period.

    And I know, “they” say no matter what, no matter the scale, advertising plays a role in what I buy. Honestly, what my friends and peers are doing plays a much bigger role than that twenty floor advertisement off Overland Ave in Beverly Hills.

    Actually, I don’t make enough money to have enough disposable income to buy anything unrelated to making more money, so it doesn’t work for me period.

    As for musicians, they make all their money on ticket sales and merch. CDs were never the major source of income. I love how whiny the music industry has become. I’ll never forget when I watched a Warner Bros employee look us in the eye and say, “We don’t have a budget for any shoots. We have no money for photography.” Really? Warner Bros? No way!

  9. This is some what unrelated, but we are moving away from charging per print model for our wedding sales. Because all of our brides receive there negatives we now put all of the photos online and charge cost for people buy prints and encourage file sharing. We have seen a large increase in wedding sales. I’d much rather sell $3500 wedding packages than $5 prints.

  10. while qtrax seems to have problems you can already listen to full length tracks on last.fm….

    and we should just realise that there are three major markets for photography:
    – general usage to illustrate. based mainly on stock.
    – exclusive usage. arts, advertising, editorial and news.
    – private usage. family and friends.

    i guess only the first one will be killed by cheapo or free internet stuff. the other two will always keep photographers in working condition. because you cant find a photo of any real news event on the internet and you cant buy stock of a wedding, at least not yours. and those are the pictures that matter most to most people. them doing something and getting a good picture of it.

  11. Advertising will kill culture. I don’t want to download songs with ads tagged onto them. Remember VHS tapes? I used to record movies from the TV and pause the recording during the ad breaks. Remember the internet when there were no huge flasing banners and pop up ads squeezing the content? Utilising people’s creative industry to sell people luxury goods: What a waste….

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