Last Updated on 12/24/2019 by Mark Beckenbach
Catch and Release’s new content contributor network is the anti-Unsplash and this is a very good thing for photographers and creatives everywhere.
Stock photography used to be an incredibly lucrative way for photographers and creatives to make good money. The rise of smartphones and everyone having a camera turned the industry sour. As the market became flooded with images, organizations like Unsplash not only stuck the knife in, they twisted it too. Now, a new company called Catch and Release is hoping to change all of that with a new way for creatives to share their work and get paid fairly with their take on a content contributor network. Find out more details after the break.
We know how stock photography sites work. You, as a contributor, take an image, you upload it to the service, and then you get paid if an individual or a company purchases your image. The problem is that services like Shutterstock and Adobe Stock are overloaded with pictures, and they pay very little. Companies like Unsplash don’t pay anything at all for your work, and they give it away for free. This is where Catch and Release enters the fray.
Catch and Release works much like any other stock photography service, but there is a twist. Once you create your account, you add your social media information to your profile. After you have done this, the Catch and Release content contributor network will comb through your images on social media, and if any photos meet the criteria and Catch and release thinks they can be sold to individuals or companies, they will reach out to you for authorization. Once you give the go-ahead, the image will move into the licensing phase, and if a company wishes to use your image, you get paid within 60 days of the sale. Most importantly, you always own the copyright to your work.
Throughout the beta test, Catch and Release has been collaborating with 100 contributors who have produced over 61,000 images and videos for the content contributor network. Each time a contributor posts to their social media accounts, the content is populated into a secure dashboard on Catch and Release, which creates a constantly-refreshed supply of material for advertisers to license. Content from the beta contributors has appeared in commercials for brands for as Nike, NFL, Google, and Apple. Since Catch and Release was founded in 2014, the company has paid out over $2M to contributors in licensing fees. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
What’s the catch? There aren’t any as far as we can tell, and we can guarantee this will be a much better way for you to get your work out there instead of using abominations like Unsplash. For more details about the service, and to sign up for an account, head on over to the official Catch and Release website.