Archives: September, 2006
Features
Licensing Logic – Getty’s thinking on Rights Ready pricing
After several weeks of anticipation, Getty Images has launched their new "Rights Ready" licensing model and the special collection of images, called Riser, to which the new price structure applies. The company's first announcement of the new approach to RM licensing met skepticism from photographer groups who questioned the unlimited term and territory provisions of the Rights Ready model. This week, Getty made the Riser collection of images and the Rights Ready pricing available on-line. Now that the company has revealed the actual Rights Ready prices, one can assess them and make a better judgment as to the value of Rights Ready for art-buyers and for photographers.
News
Minnesota Vikings restrict coverage of injured players during practice
The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) has reported on restrictions placed on photographers covering practice for the NFL’ Minnesota Vikings. The Coaches and PR staff of the Minnesota Vikings published instructions requiring press photographers and Videographers must immediately stop filming or shooting images, in the event that one the players gets hurt. In addition the media has been warned that violating the policy will result in “consequences.” The threatened consequences could be quite serious, since the National Football League and individual teams can refuse the entrance to NFL practices and games at its own discretion.
Press Release: Corbis Becomes Playboy’s Newest Playmate
Corbis Rights Representation to License Playboy Imagery
SEATTLE (September 04, 2006) Corbis (www.corbis.com), today announced the addition of iconic imagery from Playboy Enterprises Inc. to its diverse offering of digital media content. This is the first time Playboy will allow a visual solutions provider to license its imagery for commercial use. The unique and original content will be available through Corbis beginning September 5, 2006. The collection, which combines retro images that reflect the brand's rich heritage with contemporary classics, includes illustrations, pictures of Hugh Hefner and Playboy Bunnies, as well as lifestyle images.
Press Release: Corbis Partners with Iconic Media Content that will Make You Rock
- Corbis Rights Representation Adds New Media Partners dick clark productions and Hollywood Licensing, LLC -SEATTLE (September 6, 2006) – Corbis (http://www.corbis.com), today announced it has added media partners dick clark productions, inc. (American Bandstand and New Years' Rockin' Eve) and Hollywood Licensing, LLC to its Rights Representation roster.
Press Release: Corbis Rights Representation Adds A Couple Bozos
Corbis Rights Representation Adds A Couple "Bozos"- Humorist Personas Bozo The Clown and Laurel and Hardy
Added to Corbis' Rights Roster -
SEATTLE (September 6, 2006) – Corbis (http://www.corbis.com), today announced it is has added humorist personas Bozo The Clown and Laurel and Hardy to its Rights Representation roster. With the additions of Bozo the Clown and Laurel and Hardy, Corbis Rights Representation can now give its clients access to the world’s most famous clown and one of the most heralded comedic duos of all-time.
News
Corbis expands entertainment offering with Playboy, Bozo The Clown, Laurel and Hardy, dick clark pro
Corbis announced today that it has signed a number of new agreements to represent an impressive list of iconic brands from the entertainment industry. Earlier this year, CEO Steve Davis told analysts in New York that the company would expand its Rights Representation business and establish itself as the leading provider of rights clearance services . This week, he has made good on that promise landing representation deals with several brands of pop-cultural significance. Prominent among these household names are Playboy, Bozo the Clown and Laurel and Hardy.
News
Jupiter launches Comstock Complete subscription product
Jupitermedia (Nasdaq: JUPM) has launched a new subscription service called Comstock Complete, with an offering of over 100,000 royalty-free images from the Comstock and Thinkstock collections. Jupiter had previously offered images from the Comstock collection as a web resolution (lo-res) subscription product called Comstock 1700K which appears to have been scrapped in favor of offering two resolution choices (Print-resolution 14MB, and Web-resolution 1.7MB) under the new brand name Comstock Complete. As with the previous Comstock subscription, subscribers can download up to 50 images per day and Comstock Images will still be offered as (28-60MB) single images and CDs.
News
Shutterstock celebrates one million images; BigStockPhoto celebrates 2nd anniversary
The stock photo subscription site Shutterstock has announced that it has exceeded 1 million images. This milestone, achieved after three years of operation, was made possible by the widespread use of pro-sumer digital cameras coupled with technology that allows the photographer to submit images electronically with all of the necessary keywords. Shutterstock has been growing at the rate of 15,000 images every week and has already doubled in 2006.
News
The Sylvan Barnet and William Burto Collection now available for licensing
The Art Archive has announced the addition of the Sylvan Barnet and William Burto Collection of Japanese calligraphy and painting to its collection of fine art and historical pictures. Over the past forty years Sylvan Barnet and William Burto, literary scholars who became enraptured by the Japanese art of the brush, have assembled a private collection of Japanese masterworks unrivaled in the western world. The collection includes paintings and calligraphies by zenga artists, the writings of early Zen monks, secular poems and letters, Buddhist sutras as well as several major Buddhist and Shinto paintings. The group of artworks, hailed by Metropolitan Museum Director Phillippe de Montebello as “...Virtually unique outside Japan,” was featured in a 2002 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum entitled The Written Image: Japanese Calligraphy and Painting from the Collection of Sylvan Barnet and William Burto.
News
Matton Images unveils new site
Matton Images has recently launched a new version of its site at http://www.matton.com. In addition to a new design, the new site includes a faster search technology that incorporates visual search tools and a “one-to-one grain check” feature that permits designers to see portions of an image at high resolution to check focus and grain quality. The web-site also offers many other convenient features for designers seeking royalty free content, from still images to video, fonts, maps, clipart and sounds.
News
Deepol now represented by plainpicture
plainpicture, a Hamburg based stock photography company, has announced that it now represents Deepol for worldwide distribution. Deepol is a specialty library based in Wiesbaden Germany with a focus on artistic and highly stylized photography rather than your typical lifestyle images. The Deepol collection is currently available from plainpicture available with 4000 already live on the site. Stefan Hartmann, VISUELL
News
PACA launches PACAdex online directory
The Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) has announced the launch of a new online directory tool called PACAdex (currently in is in beta testing) for those planning to attend the PACA International Conference October 20-22, 2006 in Key West Florida. PACAdex, developed by Idée Inc, is essentially an online business card listing of all conference participants including photos to help members network and identify each other at the conference.
News
BAPLA Picture Buyers Fair 2007 outpacing expectations
BAPLA, the British trade association for the stock photo industry, has released the list of 77 stock photo companies who reserved stands at the trade association's 2007 Picture Buyer's Fair. According to BAPLA's Chief Executive Officer, Linda Royles, this represents a record pace for reservations for the fair, having booked over 50% of the available stands within two weeks of going on sale. The annual Fair, which will take place next year on May 9 and 10, at the Business Design Center in London, established to give picture buyers and suppliers the opportunity to meet face-to-face, has grown steadily each year.
News
Getty’s iStockphoto launches foreign language sites
Today, iStockphoto launched three local-language versions of its web-site in Spain, France and Germany. At the same time, iStock’s web-site now offers keyword searching in those three languages plus nine more. iStock has accomplished this by leveraging the proprietary keyword translation methods of its parent company, Getty Images, which purchased the micro-payment business earlier this year.
News
Zuma Press partners with Color China Photo
The US press agency and wire service Zuma Press has announced a distribution partnership agreement with the Chinese agency Color China Photo. At launch Color China Photo represented the work of ten photographers; The agency currently boasts a roster of 46 contributing photographers. In addition Color China Photo has had successful partnerships with such noteworthy names as Reuters (1997-2004) and Getty Images (2004-2006). For Zuma this is the second co-operation with a Chinese agency. Zuma has been working with Imaginechina Since 2003. Stefan Hartmann, VISUELL
News
John Birdsall Social Issues Photo Library launches royalty free collection
John Birdsall Social Issues Photo Library (JBSIPL) has entered the world of royalty free licensing with the launch of four new royalty free CD’s. These first four CD’s feature children and young people focused on, studio portraits, location shots, a day at a farm, and young people about town. All images in the new Royalty free collection are model released.
News
Photolibrary’s Monsoon relaunches site, hires new Creative Director
Photolibrary has rebranded and relaunched the web-site of Monsoon Images, the high-end, rights managed specialty web-site it acquired earlier this year. At the same time, the company hired stock industry veteran Phyllis Giarnese to the post of Creative Director North America to manage and continue the development of the Monsoon archive.
News
New Arab stock photo library launches at JumpImages.com
A new Arab specialty stock photography library has launched in Dubai called Jump Images. The new site located at www.jumpimages.com features high-quality, rights managed and royalty free imagery focusing on the diversity of modern Arab life. The new collection is composed of a mix of talent including UAE Emiratis, other GCC nationals, and international models reflecting the diversity of modern Arab life.
News
U.S. military imprisons AP photographer as security threat
Editor&Publisher, an American trade publication for journalists, has reported of a case where an Associated Press photographer has been detained by the US Military in Iraq for more than 5 months. Bilal Hussein - an Iraqi photographer for the Associated Press since September 2004 - was arrested on April 12th for "imperative reasons of security". However, The US military has yet to file charges or permit a public hearing. According to AP executives a review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents and the AP is lobbying the US military to release or charge the photographer. "Indefinite detention is not acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "We've come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure."
News
Sharona Smith Departs Beateworks/Corbis
Sharona L. Smith, Vice President of Beateworks has left the company shortly after it was acquired by Corbis (March 2006). Ms. Smith will be offering her services as a consultant as My Sharona Consulting, where she is seeking opportunities to help jump start business and new product launches. During her tenure at Beateworks, Ms. Smith helped achieve 100% annual growth in revenues and was instrumental in creating the Beateworks@Home brand.
News
iStock offers Apple Aperture plug-in
The Getty-owned micro-stock company, iStockphoto, has announced a deal with Apple Computers to offer iStock photographers a plug-in for Aperture, Apple's image prossessing work-flow tool. The software plug-in, that iStock photographers will be able to download on iStock's site in early October, will make batch-loading of images to iStock's web-site faster and easier for photographers. The announcement comes on the heels of the launch of foreign language versions of iStock web-sites in several European countries last week. Taken together, these moves show that Getty is eager to improve upon and build its micro-stock company by making its site user-friendly, especially for the photographers who supply its content.
News
Orphan Works bill dies (at least for now)
The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) is reporting on the demise of the Orphan Works bill (the Copyright Modernization Act of 2006, HR 6052) which appears to have died in committee. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) who announced that he was withdrawing the bill from consideration at that markup session, which is likely to be the last one this year. The bill was stopped due to strong opposition put forth by organizations like the SAA, ASMP, APA, IPA, PACA, and many others. In addition, Rep. Smith had tied the Orphan Works bill to a digital music licensing bill creating further opposition from the music industry.
Features
Look and Learn illustrations represented by Bridgeman
The UK’s Look and Learn is considered one of the classic magazines for children and young people. Of a high educational standard, it was published from 1962 to 1982 and aimed to help its young readers gain a knowledge of history, science, literature, mathematics and philosophy by thumbing through its pages. It did not use any photography but only highly colourful illustrations to put across the subject concerned. The drawings and paintings with a nostalgic look about them can be downloaded free of charge for private use from the recently relaunched website. Commercial licences can be acquired from The Bridgeman Art Library.
