Archives: September, 2007
News
Dreamstime partners with OpenPhoto.net
The free stock photo web-site, OpenPhoto.net, now offers its users a search link to the micro-stock site Dreamstime.com. Founded in 1998 by photographer and journalist Michael Jastremski, OpenPhoto offers a collection of user-posted photographs for use primarily by not-for-profit entities such as schools, churches and charitable and arts organizations. The images are offered under a Creative Commons license which allows for largely unrestricted use excluding commercial uses.
News
Getty launches $49 across-the-board price for web use
Getty Images has announced it will soon make available images from all of its editorial and creative collections including rights-managed, rights-ready, and royalty-free, for any web-use for a flat fee of $49.00. The company says the move is in response to the rapidly expanding market for online image use. The $49.00 price covers the license of a 500KB, 72dpi image file. Specific rights granted will vary depending on the licensing model applied to the image.
News
SAA releases comprehensive infringement study
The Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) a not-for-profit photographer advocacy organization, has released a comprehensive study of the issue of unauthorized or infringing use of stock images on the world-wide web. The study, which SAA performed in partnership with the usage tracking technology company, PicScout, examines and analyzes the results of tracking 20,000 rights managed images from Getty Images and Corbis for four months in 2005. The results show a startling rate of unauthorized use, both by inadvertent additional use to legally licensed rights and by simple theft of intellectual property.
News
Redux Pictures now representing New York Times imagery overseas
Redux Pictures, a New York-based photo agency created four years ago, has been operating as The Times’s U.S. photo-licensing agent since July 2006. The company has now announced an expanded deal to assume responsibility for photo sales in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan, Belgium, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Greece. The agency was founded by Marcel Saba after more than 20 years experience representing Photographers and an extensive background in photo sales including the Saba Agency, Corbis, Gamma-Liaison and Picture Group.
News
News Brief: Getty Images’ 2007 grants winners announced
Getty images announced the three winners of its 2007 grants for editorial photography at the Visa pour L’Image conference in Perpignan, France. Entrants presented proposed social and cultural projects for the opportunity to win $20,000 each and collaborative support from Getty. The three winning photographers and their projects follow:
News
Dreamstime contest offers “Shoot with Ron Chapple” prize
The micro-stock company, Dreamstime, has announced an innovative contest which is sure to create a “buzz” on the site and among micro-stock photographers. The winner will receive an all-expense-paid trip to Maui, Hawaii to participate in a shoot with veteran stock shooter and businessman, Ron Chapple, an established leader among stock photographers. Dreamstime will choose the winner from among entrants who participate in three “assignments” posted on their site. The company holds periodic assignment contests in which participants must submit portrayals of a specific subject or concept.
News
News Brief: photographer associations protest Getty’s $49 web-use fee
After learning of Getty Images' new across-the-board web-use fee of $49 for a 500KB file from any Getty collection, several photographer trade organizations have sent a joint letter to Getty CEO Jonathan Klein a letter of protest suggesting the company consider retracting the move, especially where it concerns rights-managed and rights-ready images. The full text of the press-release follows:
News
Mary Evans now representing the DeAgostini Picture Library
The UK based historical image specialty library, Mary Evans Picture Library, has announced an agreement to represent images from the DeAgostini Picture Library, based in Milan, Italy. DeAgostini publishes books in more than 40 countries and 15 languages, Mary Evans will be primarily concentrated on representing artwork produced for illustrated books in the areas of History, Archeology, Fine and Decorative Arts, and Technical Artwork. Some of the most recent material includes a series of photographs from the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens in Egypt.
Features
Video: The making of a stock photography production
German stock photographer Robert Kneschke has put together a nice behind-the-scenes presentation of a stock photography shoot. Click here to view the final pictures in the presentation.
News
PhotoAlto launches rights-managed beauty collection esthAlto
PhotoAlto, a noteworthy RF producer from Paris with a library of more than 50,000 images, has announced that it has launched a new Rights-Managed (RM) collection called esthAlto. The new collection features beauty imagery and the name comes from the French word Esthet, which means, one who professes great sensitivity to the beauty of art and nature.
News
Alaska Stock now represented by Top Photo in China and Topic Photo in Korea
Anchorage based Alaska Stock Images, a specialty library featuring over 350,000 Rights-Managed and Royalty-Free images from Alaska, Antarctica, and Canada has announced that it has signed deal with Top Photo Corp. based in China and Topic Photo Agency of Korea to reach image buyers in Asia.
News
A21 to moving ArtSelect offices to Jacksonville
In order to improve efficiency, A21 Superstock has announced it will consolidate its operations by closing the ArtSelect offices in Fairfield, Iowa and moving its administrative and business support departments to the Superstock’s head offices in Jacksonville, Florida. According to the company’s CFO, Tom Costanza, the merging of the offices should save $1MM per year.
News
Getty answers critics of the $49 web-use product
Getty Images has responded to the howls of criticism of its all collections $49 web-use product by way of a letter posted to its contributor site from the company’s EVP of Imagery, Products and Services, Nick Evans-Lombe. In the letter, Evans-Lombe makes the following points in defending the one low price for images from any collection:
News
German agency plainpicture expands to France
The Hamburg based stock photography company prides itself on it’s collection of authentic, experimental and unusual imagery that does not resemble the typical stock image. The approach seems to be working as the company has launched in England at the beginning of this year, and is now opening an office in Paris to serve the French market. The new office will be lead by Corinne Perdrix Hans who has accepted the role of Sales Manager for France bringing a wealth of experience from her former positions as Sales Manager for photonica/iconica and Pix/Giraudon.
Editorials
Editorial: there’s gold in them thar $49 images, (we hope!)
Getty’s decision to launch a new $49 web-use product earlier this month caused many of us in the industry to scratch our heads. A group of photographer associations articulated the reasons for concern over the move in a letter of protest to Getty CEO Jonathan Klein. The letter outlines what the photographer groups perceive as the negative implications of the product: the loss of high-value digital license revenue, devaluation of RM licensing, erosion of prices across the board, reduced return for photographers, and reduced recovery value for unauthorized usage. Nick Evans-Lombe, Getty’s EVP of Imagery, Products and Services gives us the company’s first public response to the criticism in a letter posted on Getty’s contributors site. That letter provides some insight into Getty’s thinking on the matter while still leaving important questions unanswered.
News
Corbis launches U.S. election microsite to serve political advertisers and news media
Seattle based Corbis, has released a new microsite featuring imagery associated with the 2008 US election in an effort to cater to all of the media coverage and advertising typical in a major election year. According to research mentioned in a recent press release Corbis is expecting political ad spending for the 2008 election to exceed $3 billion, an increase of more than 75 percent from the last Presidential election year in 2004.
News
Masterfile wins $46,816.91 in internet copright infringement suit
In July 2007, the District Court of New York ruled in favor of Masterfile in its suit against J.V. Trading, a dealer in Asian food products whose promotional website displayed eight of Masterfile’s copyrighted photographs from 2002 to 2005, all without license. The court granted the full extent of damages requested, including statutory damages, attorney’s fees, and other costs incurred in prosecuting this action, for a total of $ 46,816.91. This result is an example of following an infringement claim, initially discovered through PicScout’s image recognition technology, all the way through to the end. The defendant refused to respond throughout the process, and placed the usual blame on the web designer, taking the tactic of “if we remove the images and don’t answer, you will give up and go away”. The next step is to collect the award, but even if full recovery was not achieved, the decision is an important example of how to pursue a copyright infringement claim where the defendant refuses to answer and defaults.
Features
Sputnik Photos: At the Border
News
News Brief: Nancy Wolff to Speak at ASPP Midwest Chapter Meetings
On September 26 in Chicago and September 27 in Minneapolis, Nancy Wolff, legal counsel to the Picture Archive Council of America and an expert in copyright law, especially as it pertains to photography, will be the featured guest speaker at the Midwest chapter meetings of the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP.) Wolff will address the theme for the meetings, “Laying Down the Law: What Every Picture Professional Needs to Know.”
News
pressure mounts on Getty to alter $49 web-use product
Another prestigious photographer organization has joined the coalition of photographer groups putting pressure on Getty to images to retract at least part of the company’s $49 web-use product. The UK-based Association of Photographers (AOP) has added its support to the growing protest movement. The new product has met with severe criticism from almost all quarters, not least among them, Wall Street, where Getty’s stock closed at a nearly five-year low of $26.79 at the end of last week.
News
News Brief: Getty veteran Emma Sutton becomes OJO’s creative director
OJO Images, the UK-based RF producer launched earlier this year by Jonathan Gibson, formerly of Jupiter Images, have appointed Emma Sutton, a former art director at Getty, to the position of Creative Director. Sutton spent seven years as a senior Art Director at Getty helping develop that company’s in-house Rights managed and Royalty Free brands.
News
Stock photo library diverseimages goes live featuring people of color
New York based diverseimages, a specialist library featuring people of color, launched a new site this week at http://www.diverseimages.net. The library was originally launched by photographer/photo editor Chi Modu and long-time college friend Steven Proctor with a very basic website back in 1998 (feature article published in 1999). “As I looked around at most of the photo agencies, I realized there was an opening for a library that focuses on images of people of color. I observed that people of color are often used to sell and market to all segments of society, not just their own. This meant that an agency that could provide some of this imagery at a reduced cost to image buyers, as opposed to them doing photo shoots, could do pretty well” explains Modu.
News
John McKay, Getty’s recently hired legal SVP leaves company
The Seattle Times reports that John McKay, who joined Getty Images as senior vice president and general counsel on June 1 of this year, has left the company to return to academia. McKay will take the position of director of a new ethics center at Seattle University. As the US attorney for the Western District of Washington, McKay was among eight US attorneys dismissed by the White House in a controversy that ultimately lead to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
News
ZUMA Press now representing imagery from The Los Angeles Daily News
Dana Point, California based Zuma Press has announced a partnership with the The Los Angeles Daily News to represent imagery from it daily production and archive for licensing. Los Angeles County's largest regional newspaper, The Los Angeles Daily News is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. Started in Van Nuys (1911), the Daily News has been telling the story of L.A. for 90 years.
News
Jupiter bringing up shooters from the “farm team”
Jupiterimages has announced a program to allow contributors to its micro-stock site, StockXpert (the sister product to the popular stock.xchng free image site), to submit images for possible distribution under its mid-price range RF brand, Dynamic Graphics (DG.) On a page on the StockXpert site dedicated to the program, the company invites contributors who have been members for at least three months to submit exclusive-only imagery.
