Online photography: massive use and a changing industry

Estimated at around 1.4 billion euros in 2019, the photography market can be structured around four major market segments:

• social photography (weddings, births, etc.) and services for individuals (automatic printing terminals, online or physical printing services, etc.) account for almost 40% of the total market;
• product, concept or service illustration photography accounts for 30% of the total market;
• artistic photography and public commissions account for 20% of the total market. Within this segment, public commissions represent an important outlet for supporting creativity and diversity: they account for almost 100 million euros, or 38% of this segment and 7% of the total market;
• finally, news photography, i.e. journalistic photo production, represents only 10% of the market. Considered a highly rewarding activity for most photographers, this segment is also the one that is experiencing the most financial pressure at all levels of the value chain.

Taken as a whole, the photography sector has undergone profound changes since the early 2000s and the development of digital technology.

The proliferation of online media, as well as the development of digital marketing and e-commerce, have greatly increased the need for visual content. What's more, the development of social networks has led to a major increase in the flow of photographs in circulation. Today, images are increasingly numerous and massively shared.

The photography market has undergone significant development, with shrinking budgets, the weakening of traditional players and the emergence of new players such as online micro-stock platforms, where photographers sell their images for significantly less than traditional image banks, with a commission ranging from 20% to 60% of the sale price, or more recently, matchmaking services between professional customers and photographers.

Of the three segments of professional photography commercially exploited by third parties (art photography, information photography and illustration photography), illustration photography is the largest and most dynamic, in response to digital needs, accounting for around 30% of the overall market.

At the same time as market developments, the profession of photographer itself has undergone profound changes, in line with the reconfiguration of the market and the development of digital cameras and smartphones. On the one hand, this drop in entry-level costs, coupled with the creation of new statutes, in particular that of autoentrepreneur, has democratized the profession, but on the other, it has also contributed to the precariousness of the photographer's activity, as budgets have shrunk.

While the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the sector is undeniable, it still seems difficult to identify any long-term structural impacts. Rather, the health crisis seems to be acting as a catalyst for underlying trends that are already in place, with a strengthening need for content, a trend towards cost-cutting and pressure on prices, particularly in the illustration and news photography segments.

Given the difficulties facing the sector, the challenges of protecting and monetizing works are becoming increasingly important (1). The missions entrusted to Arcom, as part of the transposition of Article 17 of Directive 2019/790, to evaluate technical identification measures are in line with this objective of better tracing of works, enabling fair remuneration of creators.

1. The development of tools enabling better tracing of works is within the scope of Laurence Franceschini's notices, in her Report on financing the production and diffusion of photographic works, March 2022.

Social networking, coupled with the widespread, everyday use of smartphones, has led to a major increase in the flow of photographs in circulation. Today, images are increasingly numerous and massively shared, contributing to the desacralization and trivialization of photography, with the result that photography is less and less perceived as a copyrighted work.

Commonplace uses

While some Internet users may adopt artistic practices, and thus perceive photography as a work of art, this is not the case for the vast majority, who produce and show photos as a simple conversational medium - vacation snaps, immediate, spontaneous photos, and so on. The relationship to photography, more than to any other type of work, is also more passive: accessing, and even consuming, photos is a commonplace act.

For example, smartphone users tend to accumulate a very large number of photos without ever sorting or tidying them. What's more, there is a clear difference in practices between the generations, with younger people more inclined to store photos on clouds, while older people remain attached to having them "nearby" directly on a computer or external hard drive.

There are three main types of consumption: entertainment consumption, which consists of accessing photographs via a news feed with no a priori criteria (with the exception of criteria implicitly programmed into the user's account: profiles followed, dominant themes, etc.), "inspiration" consumption, which consists of accessing photographs via a news feed with no a priori criteria (with the exception of criteria implicitly programmed into the user's account: profiles followed, dominant themes, etc.).), "inspiration" consumption, targeting a broad theme to find ideas (for decoration, creative hobbies, or images to illustrate a presentation, etc.) and "selection" consumption, as part of a search for images for a specific purpose (illustrating documents, for example) with specific keywords.

What these three categories have in common, however, is the sheer multiplicity of supplies available to Internet users. Whether on social networks, for entertainment or inspiration, or on image banks or Google Image for specific searches, Internet users can access a profusion of images, often free of charge (with the exception of image banks), resulting in a loss of value, both symbolic and material, for photography.

In the vast majority of cases, buying a photo for personal or academic use remains inconceivable: a multitude of photographs accessible via search engines makes paying for them seem "absurd" or "ridiculous".

In the professional arena, the willingness to pay is greater, particularly among professionals, which can be explained by :

• the perception of greater risk in the event of copyright infringement ;
• a significant time saving, as the use of a paying model avoids the need for time-consuming searches for free / royalty-free photographs.

Different representations of royalties

Representations of copyright in photography differ from those associated with other cultural goods - such as films or music. Indeed, looking at a photo is not put on the same level as listening to music or watching a film (a gesture deemed too banal to be subject to restrictions, and perceived as impossible to control by public authorities).

This is why Internet users tend to feel that, when it comes to photography, the main purpose of copyright is to control "commercial uses", uses which a priori require specific precautions (which are rarely well known, even among people using photographs in a professional capacity).

As long as a use is not "commercial", the use of photographs online seems fairly free, provided that the uses remain "reasonable" or "non-abusive". These notions are part of a practical logic for Internet users: they allow for highly subjective assessments of what can or cannot be done with photographs found online, according to a rather permissive tendency.

The Internet users we interviewed as part of our study admit to feeling poorly informed on the subject of royalties. However, this feeling does not translate - or very rarely, in the case of certain specific profiles - into efforts to learn and adopt good practices. Two phenomena come into play here:

• the diffuse but very present impression that the rules of copyright would be complex (insofar as these rules seem to come under the control of so many factors: audience, type of use, type of photography, etc.) ;
• the very real feeling that copyright rules could complicate current or everyday use (insofar as a better level of information could result in uses that are more restricted, more complex and more time-consuming than current private practices ).

The interviews reveal a significant gap between professional practices and private use:

• in the first case, Internet users are quite willing to adopt the right gestures (apart from the question of photo credit, which is problematic because it interferes with the layout of documents, most bad behavior is due to a lack of understanding of royalties);
• on the other hand, there is little willingness on the part of individuals to make additional efforts to better respect royalties, as long as this notion does not appear more explicitly on photographs found online. Individuals don't want to have to bear the cost of searching for information about a photograph: from their point of view, the restrictions associated with a photo should be mentioned upfront, directly by the platforms, following the same model as the alert messages pointing out shocking content on Instagram, for example. In short, the information should be available without requiring any particular action on their part (asking the author, browsing the metadata, etc.).

In a context where the profusion of photographs available online contributes to the devaluation of photography in general, there is still a major effort to be made in terms of awareness raising among Internet users regarding respect for copyright in photographic works.

A large majority of French Internet users search for photos on the Internet, with social networks the preferred medium

79% of Internet users aged 15 and over search for photos on the Internet, and 29% do so every day or almost every day. This practice is particularly common among 15-34 year-olds (93% search for photos on the Internet), and less so among the over-65s (60%).

Search engines and social networks are the services most frequently used to search for photos online. 72% of French Internet users search for photos using search engines, and 64% using social networks. Google is by far the most widely used search engine (60% of Internet users use it to search for photos online), while Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are the most browsed social networks for this purpose (36%, 30% and 27% use respectively). Search engines are favored for their breadth of supply, particularly of royalty-free photos. Social networks stand out for their supply of original, up-to-the-minute photos.

Image banks, museum and gallery sites, and news agency sites are used to a lesser extent, at 45% and 41% respectively. For consumers, the main advantage of these services is that they offer high-resolution photos.

Searches mainly for private use, and for free photos

By far the most frequent online photo searches are carried out in the private sphere: 76% of French Internet users search for photos in this context, and 49% exclusively. At the same time, 27% of Internet users search for photos in a professional managerial context, 9% in an academic one, and only 3% in one of these two contexts exclusively.

Only 19% of Internet users looking for photos online use paid services. This propensity to pay is higher for those searching in a professional manager (35%) and for Internet users who do a search every day or almost every day (34%). It is also higher among 15-34 year-olds (27%).

Photographs massively shared online

The online sharing of personal photos is widely democratized among Internet users: 69% of Internet users share personal photos online, and 65% do so on social networks.

The publication of photos found on the Internet is a widespread practice, with 53% of all Internet users sharing photos previously found on the Internet, or 67% of Internet users looking for photos on the Internet. Of these, 27% do so at least once a week.

Social networks are the leading sharing platforms, with 58% of French Internet users looking for photos on the Internet sharing them on this type of service. 48% share via instant messaging and 46% via email. Other services (cloud platforms, websites or Internet platforms) are used less frequently, but by the most regular users.

The nature of the audience differs according to manager and frequency of publication:

• in private and academic managers, publications are primarily aimed at restricted targets only (59% and 55% respectively);
• in professional settings, the target audiences are broader (56% of publications are aimed at a mixed audience, both restricted and wider).

Internet users who rarely share photos on the Internet, and those with little or no interest in photography, tend to limit themselves to a restricted audience.

Practices perceived as mostly legal, but little knowledge of photography-related royalties

Of those who publish photos found online, the majority (62%) consider their use to be exclusively legal, but 38% consider their use to be unlawful at least occasionally, and 18% consider their use to be unlawful on a regular basis. This use seems to be the preserve of insiders: 58% of photographers and 54% of those who publish every day or almost every day claim to do so at least occasionally on an unlawful basis. Conversely, 81% of those who publish less than once a week report exclusive legal use.

Knowledge of photographic royalties is relatively low among Internet users, with only 40% claiming to be familiar with them. This self-assessed level of knowledge is higher among Internet users who share photos every day or almost every day (78%) and photographers (69%). It is also higher among younger users: 45% of 15-34 year-olds feel they have a good knowledge, compared with 16% of those aged 65 and over. 72% of Internet users who say they publish unlawfully on a regular basis consider themselves to have a good knowledge of copyright, compared with 47% of those who say they publish exclusively legally.