Stock photography is already big business, and with legislation like SOPA, ACTA and PIPA clamping down on copyright infringement, it will probably become an even bigger business. Little surprise then that Shutterstock, one of the web’s biggest seller of licensed stock photography is boasting the important of being the first business of its kind to reach 200 million downloads.

So successful has Shutterstock been at selling images that its now helping to redefine what images come up in the search results. According to Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO, “Searching the word ‘networking’ used to return images of handshakes and business contacts; now it’s all about online social networking.”

Of course social networking isn’t the biggest reason that Shutterstock makes lots of money selling images. Its biggest download category is cats, with over 400,000 downloads. Graffiti art surprisingly is the second most downloaded category, followed closely by photos of world disasters.

But perhaps what’s most telling about the Shutterstock stats is just how far stock photography has come. That companies can now consider venturing into the stock photography space and look potentially at making money is quite an achievement. Shutterstock’s head start all the way back in 2004 means its positioned nicely to dominate the space for at least the next few years.

(Source: sitetrail.com)

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