Archives: July, 2005
Features
Do I need to copyright my images?
This is one of the most frequent questions I hear from photographers (especially after someone has published an image without permission.) The simple answer is… Yes, as a professional you should protect your livelihood by copyrighting all of your images. Many photographers do not register their images because it is a hassle or they have heard that an image is automatically copyrighted. It is true that your images are automatically protected under US copyright law. However, registration offers the following advantages:
1. Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
2. Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of US origin.
3. If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
4. If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
5. Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.
I know what you are thinking – Ugggh!!! Now I have to go through all of that paperwork hassle to register each of my images! One trick to make it easier is to copyright a group of images rather than go through the hassle for just one image. You can submit up to 750 images for registration on one application with one filing fee. All professional artists should place this task into their calendar to copyright their work on a regular schedule (I do it 3 times a year).
For more information the US Copyright office maintains an excellent website that you can visit to learn about registration procedures and keep up to date with copyright law. http://www.copyright.gov
News
Jupiter acquires a few extra moons
Jupiter Media surprised nobody by purchasing PictureArts, another stock licensing company for 63.2 million in cash. This purchase is no doubt part of the effort to catch up to the stock licensing industry leaders Getty Images and Corbis. PictureArts brings along the Botanica, Brand X, Nonstock, iBid, and Foodpix brands. Jupiter Images is now even more established as one of the premiere companies offering commercial images. One has to wonder whether Jupiter will start looking at any of the Editorial wire services at some point. For right now that is one area where Jupiter cannot compete with the Big Dogs (Getty and Corbis).
Jupiter's Press Release
Also reported by PhotoTalk
News
Canon wants you to enjoy your digital SLR
Canon has just launched a new website called "Enjoy Digital SLR Cameras" for users of Canon
digital SLR’s. This website is written more for Prosumers
than Professionals but offers some nice tips for how to shoot better pictures
with a digital SLR. This site may be useful for those who want to brush up
on their skills or are just now making the transition to digital equipment.
Click here for Canon's Enjoy! Digital SLR Cameras website
News
Getty Images hires Editorial Advisor
Getty Images just hired veteran newspaper
photo editor Cole Porter as Getty's senior editorial adviser, a new position charged
with the role of protecting editorial integrity for Getty Images. Cole Porter will
be reporting directly to Jonathan
Klein, Getty's co-founder and CEO.
This is a good step for Getty images to recognize the need for someone to be an advocate for journalistic principles throughout the agency. Cole Porter’s presence should also go a long way to restore Getty’s reputation with news services that have accused Getty Images of putting business concerns ahead of journalism.
Press Release from Getty Images.
Features
Become a reporter for Scoopt
Ever catch the perfect image with your digital camera or camera phone and
wish you could find a way to connect with photo editors who could use the image? Scoopt, a new service allows
you to submit your own breaking news pictures in order to generate licensing
revenue for being in the right place at the right time.
With so many of people armed with camera phones, anyone can take pictures of what is happening around them. It might be worth registering with their site just in case you are walking down the street and catch some hot new celebrities making-out. Simply smile, aim your camera, and say ...Paparazzi!
For more details check out http://www.scoopt.com
Features
Digital Railroad is leaving the station!
Last night I attended a nice presentation by Evan Nisselson
(pictured below) the CEO and Founder of Digital Railroad at the Apple Store in Soho (a geek wonderland!) As reported
last month Digital Railroad received a butt-load of money from investors and
I was anxious to learn more about their current product and where they are
going with all of this cash. Apparently I wasn’t the only one because there
were about 150 people in attendance (most of them appeared to be
photographers).
Evan Nisselson gave a brief demo of his service on the big screen for all to see. After the demo Evan stated “Corbis and Getty represent approximately 40% of all licensing revenue in the stock industry but only represent about 1% of the professional photographers working today. Digital Railroad has created the tools any photographer needs to build their own photo archive with all of the efficiency of the systems employed by the large stock agencies.” Evan claims to have over 160 photographers and more than a dozen agencies currently using his service.
Evan Invited the following photographers who currently use the service to speak.
Ron Haviv - Ron is an excellent photojournalist and showed a nice video featuring images from his trips abroad. Ron extolled the virtues of digital Railroad as an easy to use way to syndicate your work from anywhere in the world.
Jack Reznicki - Jack is a commercial photographer who uses the Digital Railroad system as a way to reach new customers. Jack reported that he loves coming into work in the morning to see e-mails from customers who saw his Digital Railroad archive and are looking to license images or hire him for assignment work.
Marcel Saba - Marcel is a veteran of the industry and has selected Digital Railroad to manage the archive for his new agency Redux Pictures. Marcel said that when he started Redux Pictures he was looking for two things, Price and reliability. “Digital railroad offers an excellent solution with all of the tools of a big agency but not the big costs.”
After reviewing Digital Railroad it became clear that most
of the features of the service are geared towards photojournalists and
editorial photographers. That said, commercial photographers will likely find
the service covers nearly all of their needs and maybe a few things they don’t
need. The one thing that seemed to be missing from this solution is e-commerce capabilities. Evan stated
that very soon they will offer this and several other features (thanks to the
new investor money – no doubt). One thing was clear however from this presentation,
Evan and Digital Railroad are off to a great start and
with hard work (and maybe a bit of luck) Digital Railroad could become a major force in the industry.
Features
Adobe Creative Suite 2 on Tour
Last week I attended a seminar offered by Adobe titled “In Depth Look at Adobe Creative Suite 2” conducted by Noha Edell (Bus. Dev. Manager for Adobe) and Chris Converse (a designer hired by Adobe). I have been an active user of Photoshop for more than a decade and I was a bit skeptical about the improvements over CS1. Let me just say that during the ½ day seminar I was constantly on the edge of my seat as one amazing new feature was unveiled after the other.
From my notes here is what I found most interesting.
Adobe Bridge As you know the biggest improvement with the new Creative Suite is the Bridge. This program is basically a viewing program that allows you to view all of your adobe images and projects. The Bridge also has the Stock Licensing industry reeling because Adobe has incorporated a stock photo service that allows the user to search for images directly from the Bridge. The biggest problem here is that Adobe only has a few providers at this time (let’s hope they add more soon). Also, the Bridge has a built-in RSS reader which seems pretty handy.
Adobe Photoshop The new features in Photoshop are freakin awesome! The most impressive by far is the Vanishing Point tool which allows you to define the Vanishing Point in any image to give you an amazing amount of perspective control when manipulating the image. Also interesting is the Healing brush, Lens correction tool, and Smart Objects. There is also a new feature called Smart Sharpening that will sharpen only the focused part of an image without messing with the soft focused parts of the image.
Adobe has clearly hit a home-run in my opinion with the new creative suite and everybody at the conference felt like it was the Fourth of July as we watched the fireworks light up the screen. It’s definitely worth the cost of the upgrade. Adobe is offering a discount for those who attended the conference at http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/rebate.html
News
Hachette Filipacchi hooks up with Imagestate
Imagestate announced that it has signed a distribution deal with Hachette Filipacchi Photos, a subsidiary of Hachette Filipacchi Media (one of the world's leading magazine publishers).
Under the terms of the agreement, Imagestate is the exclusive agent for Hachette Filipacchi Photos in North America and the UK including Hachette Illustration, Hoa-Qui, Jacana, Top, Explorer and Rapho. Hachette Filipacchi Photos has also agreed to distribute photography from Imagestate's collections in France.
News
Corbis Acquires Image 100 and launches rf SHOP
In an effort to secure its position as the number two stock image provider Corbis has taken steps to ensure it does not lose customers looking for RF images. Corbis has acquired Image100 giving Corbis 40,000 wholly-owned images (uhhh...Subscription...Gesundheit) from one of their most successful contributors. Corbis also announced the launch of rfSHOP (http://www.corbis.comrf) where customers can find RF images from Corbis along with new content from Jupiter Images, MedioImages, and Blend Images. One question is whether Corbis will pull the Image100 images from Getty. Also, there has been speculation that Getty may stop representing the PictureArts images now that it is owned by Jupiter. Stay tuned in the coming months to see whether Getty Images, Corbis, and Jupiter Images learn to work together as partners or battle with each other for exclusive content. (The saga continues…)
More on this from the following sites
Stock Asylum
Phototalk
Photo Archive News
PDN
Features
The toys on my desk
I recently came across a website called Lego Serious Play. This website confirms something that I think most of us already knew. Playing at work with your co-workers stimulates creativity and helps develop relationships. At my desk I don’t have any lego's
1. Nerf Dart Gun Pen (great for a boring meeting).
2. Battery Powered Shocking Pen. (zzzzttt!)
3. Toy sailboat
4. Model Audi TT convertible (Shown above with Alien).
5. Honda Valkyrie Motorcycle. (Shown above).
6. Wind-up Chicken that lays eggs (a real crowd pleaser).
7. Plush Alien Doll
8. Bobble-head turtles (Often found riding the Motorcycle).
9. Jungle Balls (still in the package).
10. Headless Care Bears
I would love to hear what other people have at their desks or what they play with at work.
News
Getty lashes out at Jupiter and Corbis
Getty images has continued with what Alan Meckler calls "storm trooper tactics" to force contributors not to work with Getty's two main competitors Corbis and Jupiter Images (First reported on May 6th). Getty is forcing contributors to sign contracts with the following language:
"Licensor agrees that for the term of this agreement and subsequent renewals of this agreement, licensor shall not enter into or renew any agreement that will result in any affiliation with, representation or distribution of licensor’s images by Corbis Corp, or any of its affiliates, successors or assigns; and Jupiter media Corp. or any of its affiliates, successors or assigns."
Business practices like this are bad for photographers, image buyers, and the stock licensing industry. As a photographer I am shocked that we have not heard from organizations like ASMP, the Stock Artists Alliance, and Advertising Photographers of America, who recently wrote an open letter protesting Onrequest Images. These organizations have not said a peep about what is clearly a much larger threat to a photographer’s livelihood than anything Onrequest is doing.
News
fStop Signs with Amana
fStop Images has just signed a distribution agreement with Amana to market its royalty-free library to Japanese designers.
“We’re very pleased to have Amana as a part of our distribution network,” said Derick Rhodes, fStop’s Project Manager, “and we’re confident that they’ll do an excellent job of marketing our distinct imagery in the world’s second largest image market.”
News
Picture Arts deal in the bag
Jupiter Media announced today that the purchase of PictureArts (first reported on July 1st) is now complete. Jupiter spent a tidy sum of $63.2 million in cash. Too bad they didnt inquire about purchasing About The Image... I would have only asked for 63.1 Million. :0)
Click here for more details
Also, PDN is reporting that Jeffrey Burke and Lorraine Triolo are giving 7 million (Holy Crap!) from this sale to the employees of Picture Arts. I am honestly awe-struck when I read this quote from my new hero Jeffrey Burke. “Maybe Lorraine and I went over the edge, But in the grand scheme of things, when you get past so many millions of dollars, [sharing $7 million] is not going to affect our lives. But it’s sure going to make a difference to our employees,”. Click here to read the whole story from PDN.
Features
Photoshelter’s digital archive solution
Recently I posted information about Digital Railroad and IPNStock because I was inspired by how they empowered individual
photographers and small agencies to license images online. I received a few e-mails lately suggesting
that I also look at Photoshelter because they offer a similar service. I was
about to put a lot of work into reviewing the product and comparing them to
Digital Railroad but Andy Goetze beat me to it at Phototalk.
Check out this post for more info about what Photoshelter offers.
News
Management changes at Imagestate
Jeff Shear the Chief Technology Officer at Imagestate
has been promoted to Managing Director and CEO Leslie Hughes has left the
building. The title Managing Director suggests that this could be a temporary
arrangement while they search for a new CEO, or maybe they are next on the list
for Jupiter. Hmmmmmm…
News
EPA partners with Corbis for a little extra Bling
EPA (The European Pressphoto Agency) has entered a deal to re-market
images through Corbis. The exclusive agreement allows Corbis to license the
images to publishers for uses not related to breaking news. These images probably do
not have model releases so they may have limited value for commercial uses.
More on this from the following:
PDN
Phototalk
Features
How well do you serve your customers?
I recently came
across a post on Gadgetopia where a buyer recounts the experience of licensing
an image from Corbis. Clearly this customer is not somebody who licenses images
from Corbis every day but I wonder if this bad experience could have been avoided. Perhaps we
should all consider how much service we offer to our customers and whether we
make their lives easier or harder. Judging by the number of comments it seems this customer is not the only frustrated buyer out there.
News
Kodak announces further job cuts
Kodak recently posted a 2nd quarter loss followed by an announcement to
increase the planned 12,000 to 15,000 job cuts by another 10,000. This means
approximately 22,000 to 25,000 Kodak employees (mostly from the manufacturing
division) will lose their jobs by the middle of 2007. Antonio Perez, Kodak’s
president and CEO has been quoted as saying "In 24 months, as a result
of the actions announced today, we will … essentially complete the transition
to our digital business model". Ouch – my heart goes out to the
thousands of hard working employees who are sacrificed in this transition.
Click here For more information
News
Getty reveals loot earned in Q2
Ok, ok... I am sure nobody is surprised that industry leading Getty Images is making piles and piles of money. Just to drive the point home that Getty is still in charge, here are the highlights from yesterday's report of earnings for the second quarter of 2005. Getty is reporting $185.3 million in revenue, a 23 percent increase over the same quarter in
2004. Earnings per share increased to $0.53 ($0.50 was predicted) from $0.41 the
year before. Getty also reported that the Digital Vision and Photonica
acquisitions are now completely integrated. CEO Jonathan Klein was quoted as
saying "This quarter is quite possibly the best quarter in our 10-year
history". Of course, all of this cash makes one believe that Getty will continue shopping for new wholly-owned content.
News
Getty Images is headed to China
Shortly after announcing the 2nd quarter earning yesterday
Getty Images announced that they have launched a website for customers in China (www.gettyimages.cn) and plans to expand
their presence by opening a new office headquartered in Beijing. Jonathan Klein (CEO of Getty Images) said the
initial investment in China will be modest, "less than a couple million dollars on the commercial
side." According to Getty China is the 5th largest market for image licensing. It is not known yet
if all image collections will be offered in China.
For more info click on the following:
Stock Asylum
PhotoTalk
Features
Inside the Studio with Westphal Inc.
At the very beginning of my career I worked as a freelance
photo-assistant for about 18 months. In that time I worked in no less than 40-50
different commercial photo studios where the pay stunk, the hours were awful,
and I had no benefits. However, I later discovered that the experience gained
working as a freelance photo-assistant has proven to be very valuable. I
learned by simply being there and getting inside the studio. In an
effort to continue learning, occasionally, I will interview some of people I meet
who have “been there, done that”.
Today’s interview is with Arty Westphal. Arty (pictured with son, Eric) is the CEO and founder of
Westphal Inc a Digital photo and retouching studio with locations in Denver, CO and New York, NY.
News
Corbis gets eMotion-al
Corbis recently announced the acquisition of eMotion, a
provider of hosted solutions for managing and distributing digital media.
eMotion seems to be Corbis’s answer to Getty’s Media Management Services.
“Our clients are increasingly seeking ways to manage the still and
moving imagery they use in their creative projects,” said Mark Sherman, senior
vice president of assigment & representation and emerging businesses. Mark
has further cause to celebrate because he has also won the About The Image trophy for the longest title! (woohoo... you go boy!)
