JESSICA BERMAN-BOGDAN> President, Global ImageWorks
KRISTL DATE-DOPPS>Director of product marketing, film, Getty Images
PAULA LUMBARD>Founder/CEO, FootageBank HD
JAN ROSS>Senior vice president, BBC Motion Gallery
KEVIN SCHAFF>CEO, Thought Equity
GARY SHENK>Senior vice president, images, Corbis
JOCELYN SHEARER>Director of worldwide sales, National Geographic Digital Motion

Boards: The subscription/micropayment models popularized by iStockPhoto and the 'crowdsourcing' phenomenon, where material is contributed from the audience at large as opposed to a select group of photographers/filmmakers, are beginning to emerge in the stock footage realm - what impact do you think they'll have?
Jocelyn: Obviously we've created "vending machine" models and online models to somewhat commoditize and lower overall costs and raise margins. It's going to happen even more quickly than perhaps we'd imagined, because of these new multiplatform and rich media. And that segues nicely into the subscription and micropayment model question, where you're going in the direction of 'Okay, multimedia has changed the way people consume moving content - what does that mean in terms of the economics of it?'

Jan: What does that mean in terms of the unfiltered access to it as well? We as professionals are looking at making sure what we're offering is cleared and has no rights issues, but there's a new culture, if you will, arising - I think there's room for both the mainstream and independent markets but the issue is can these parallel cultures exist with this unfiltered access that's going to create a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace in terms of use and rights.

Kevin: I think they can both exist - it's a matter of timing. Look at the fact of accessibility - today, you can get millions of photos online that can be submitted by both cultures, but you can't get that with footage even with the top libraries... the largest online library is only a few hundred thousand clips. So if you're looking at the volume of people and the cost associated with driving things like subscription sites, the accessibility in professional footage isn't even there yet, and that market will have to mature a little more before you see subscription sites take off more effectively. With photography... your barriers to cameras, storage, metadata and bandwidth are all significantly lower than what it takes to produce high-end footage.

Kristl: Getty Images recognizes and embraces the importance of social media and we see it as the ability to serve all markets at all price points that will drive market growth for the whole imagery industry. The subscription/micropayment model creates a gateway to get a whole different market interested in using imagery in a licensed way that they might not have thought about before. There's a market that could be tapped through this affordable new model, and that will help us at the top end as well.

Gary: If you look on the photo side, there are two big impacts of the micropayment model - number one is there's pricing pressure at the high end. It's a business model that in and of itself is sustainable but it's definitely going to impact the 'traditional' stock business. Even if it doesn't displace the customer, it creates the perception of a lower price point. Secondly, I do think it's a viable market for a different type of customer. The quality tends to be lower. That's not always the case but as you apply it to footage the quality dimension can play out in many different ways - the way the content was shot, the quality of how it's digitized. There's definitely going to be the market for that type of customer at a lower price point, and I would see that market as a growth opportunity.

Paula: For us, the subscription model has been put into place in relation to people licensing materials on an ongoing basis for television programs or that sort of thing. So our subscription clients are not necessarily someone working at home on their iMac... For footage to be deliverable in a micropayment venue, [such as] the fully uncompressed high definition materials we work with, the technology that's going to underlie the delivery of that still is in play.

Jan: I think the important thing we're asking here is 'What is it that people want?' And I think it's a little short-sighted to try to say any more what that is. We're at an intersection between the commercial and the non-commercial worlds... There are an infinite number of niche markets now. And that's the exciting part of it - like everyone says, that's going to grow the [overall] market.

Jessica: The thing that I think validates a lot of what we do as commercial archives is there's such an overabundance of images as a result of all these new people putting all this content out there. It helps to have a place to sort it out, to think it through or to trust, and not get lost in the quagmire of choices.

Boards: With the Internet-based model, we're hearing terms such as 'vending machine' and 'jukebox' applied to describe how business is conducted with the end user. What do you perceive to be the downsides and advantages of the Internet-based footage house, and how has your company adapted to doing business via the Net?

Paula: I think all of our companies mutually have the ability to touch [clients] personally or to touch technically. Everybody has sales people that are very well-trained and personable and build relationships. The areas where a solely online relationship tends to be beneficial are when you're dealing with people in different time zones, or people who really value that form of communication.