Archives: October, 2008
News
SAA reports ongoing issues with Index Stock royalty payments
After acquiring Index Stock Imagery in late 2006 PhotoLibrary of Australia made a pledge to Index Stock’s contributors to bring all payments up to date as quickly as possible. Two years later the company appears to have continued struggles sorting out royalties owed to contributors. Last year the company sent a letter to contributors stating that delays in payment were due to issues with Index stock’s accounting records, and the company hoped to complete the process by the end of 2008. Unhappy with the process, the photographer trade organization Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) has conducted its own investigation by contacting 116 of some 1,700 Index Stock contributors. In a recent release the organization stated “We can now confirm that Photolibrary scheduled payment of $560,000 in long overdue royalties due these artists. What troubles us is the vast majority of these payments came only after outside pressure and intervention - not from the company’s initiative”.
News
Masterfile taps AL Accardo to shoot health & wellness series
Masterfile, a stock photography company based in Toronto with offices in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, has tapped Hamburg-based advertising photographer Al Accardo to shoot a series of images of wellness and beauty in a modern and contemporary way. The shoot took place in Hamburg, Germany with cooperation from Masterfile’s Art Director, Lars Richrath. “AL Accardo uses a soft, warm light to draw from the models their natural holistic glow. It’s a chic, contemporary take on the healing arts” the company stated in a recent press release.
News
Photolibrary responds to allegations related to Index Stock royalty payments
Responding to recent allegations of foul-play made by the the Stock Artists Alliance (SAA), a trade organization for stock photographers,The Photolibrary Group has issued a statement in an effort to “set the record straight on Index Stock legacy royalty payments”. Photolibrary’s chairman Tim Moore states “Photolibrary inherited (and willingly accepted) its obligation to pay outstanding royalties to IndexStock contributors when the Company purchased IndexStock in late 2006. However, until we assumed control of the business we had no real understanding of the complexity of this task. Years of poorly-kept or non-existent contributor records meant that it became extremely problematic and time-consuming for us to match royalty obligations against IndexStock contributors, who in many cases had changed addresses or become otherwise hard to locate”.
News
Matton Images distributing LatinStock RF Collection
Stockholm Sweden based Matton Images has recently signed an agreement to represent the LatinStock royalty-free (RF) stock photography collection for worldwide distribution. The collection launched earlier this year is billed as “Latin Photographs by Latin Photographers.” The archive launched with approximately 2000 images and now exceeds 4000 total images.
News
iStockphoto signs deal with Avery Dennison
iStockphoto and the Avery Dennison Office Products Company have announced a partnership where Avery Dennison customers will gain access to a selection of free stock images and receive a 20 percent discount off their first purchase of 50+ stock photography credits from iStockphoto. “This deal brings together a leading force in the traditional desktop printing medium with the cutting edge in digital imagery at a time when the appetite for great photos and illustrations is at a peak, but most people still don’t know where to get them,” said Caradoc Ehrenhalt, group manager of Content Development for Avery Dennison. “With Avery’s easy-to-use printing solutions, it’s simple to add iStockphoto images to Avery products and then print right from the desktop.”
News
Image Source launches updated website
Image Source, a leading producer of royalty-free stock photography has announced that it has launched a new version of its website located at imagesource.com. The new site features a simplified design with big bold images and an innovative horizontal navigation. The company also touts a drag and drop light box utility along with an enhanced search engine.
Thought Equity Motion’s HD footage library now exceeds 250,000 clips
Thought Equity Motion, a leading source of film, video and music content, has announced that it’s collection of high definition (HD) footage has grown to include more than 250,000 individual clips. The company claims that it now offers the world’s largest online library of professionally shot HD footage. In addition the company is touting that more than 92% of it’s entire footage library has been made available for online delivery giving customers immediate access to licensed content. “Our commitment to HD is long-standing. Anticipating the industry demand for high definition footage, we were first to market three years ago with a delivery platform capable of delivering HD online,” said Thought Equity Motion founder and CEO Kevin Schaff. “Since then we have been amassing HD content with usability in mind, driving towards a tapeless environment with files delivered direct to the desktop, and developing tools that integrate our library with our users’ edit systems.”
News
MySpace partnering with HP to offer photo printing service
MySpace, the world’s largest social networking platform has announced that it has penned a deal with the technology company HP, to offer printing technology on MySpace, including all photo sections. As a result millions of consumers to print the photo sections, personal profiles, blog entries, comments and messages stored on their MySpace profiles and share them offline. Myspace estimates that it currently stores approximately 4 billion images on its platform. Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of the Imaging and Printing Group at HP, and MySpace Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Chris DeWolfe announced the signing of the companies’ letter of intent to form the strategic relationship at HP’s Annual Imaging and Printing Conference.
News
The Image Works celebrates 25 years
The Image Works is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary making it one of the oldest stock photography companies in the united states. The business was founded in 1983 by photographers Alan Carey and Mark Antman shortly after meeting while covering a Duck Calling Contest. At the time, Alan Carey was chief photographer for a regional daily newspaper and Mark Antman had just returned to the United States after living in France for a decade working as a documentary photojournalist. Shortly after the pair launched the business in the world famous historic arts colony of Woodstock, NY.
News
Masterfile veterans launch 2 Girls Productions
Leisa Mercer and Vicki Schelstraete, former Art Directors from Masterfile, have taken the entrepreneurial plunge launching a stock photography production company based on Toronto called 2 Girls Productions Inc. Prior to launching the business, the two founders worked under Masterfile’s Creative Director Tim Lund, where they contributed to in-house productions under the Masterfile RM and Radius RF brands.
News
Mary Evans now representing Francis Frith Collection
Mary Evans Picture Library, a specialty library from the UK featuring historical images, has announced that it is now representing more than 12,000 images from the Francis Frith Collection. The Francis Frith Collection was founded by Francis Frith, a pioneer Victorian photographer, in 1860. The collection chronicles the social and topographical history of the British Isles from 1860 to 1970. “Francis Frith is without doubt a superb collection, showing Britain at work, rest and play over the past two centuries and will expand our own content by offering even more variety”, says Paul Brown, Managing Director of Mary Evans Picture Library. “Our aim is to proactively bring it to the commercial market, offering all the facilities of our website including 24 hour direct downloads, while allowing Francis Frith to continue to develop their own publishing and print business”.
LOOK Photography launches Sheltered Images architecture stock photography collection
LOOK Photography, a specialist stock photography library from California focused on Home and Architectural imagery has announced that it has launched a new rights-managed (RM) stock photography collection called SHELTERED Images intended for 3rd party distributors. The collection is comprised of images featuring exclusive inside access to the world’s most beautiful homes and private retreats. “Our photographers cover modern residential architecture and design from a fresh viewpoint that is engaging and forward-thinking. This purity of purpose,” says Eric Hernandez “is our distinctive brand of photography.”
News
Imagestate Media distributing AGE Fotostock collection
Imagestate Media, a leading stock licensing company from the UK, has announced that it has signed a deal with AGE FotoStock to represent its entire collection of more than 5000,000 rights managed (RM) stock images. This follows a deal announced last month where AGE Fotostock signed a similar agreement with Photolibrary in what appears to be a larger strategy to gain greater distribution for the collection of RM images.
News
October in NYC: Multiple stock licensing industry events
Two popular annual photo industry events will take place in New York City in October; the Photo Plus Expo and the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) International Conference. Thousands of industry professionals from camera and imaging software manufacturers to will photographers, reps and image licensing companies will participate in Photo Plus while stock photo companies from around the globe will attend the PACA event . Some of our readers may not know, however, of two other important industry-related events taking place in the Big Apple in October: a State-of-the-Industry forum discussion exclusively for photographers and stock image producers and the PictureHouse Picture Buyer Fair, exclusively for photo-buyers.
PhotoAlto teams up with Jerry Tavin to launch new RM brand IC Worldwide
PhotoAlto, a Paris based photo agency, has teamed up with stock photography industry pioneer Jerry Tavin in order to launch an innovative new rights-managed (RM) brand called IC Worldwide. The new business is founded on the belief that there is a strong market for high-end rights managed photography, despite the current market trend for lower-cost microstock royalty-free (RF) licensing. The business claims to have launched “a tightly edited collection of photography purposefully selected to celebrate visual impact, quality over quantity, and diversity for those who prefer images as original and creative as their concepts”.
News
German courts deal blow to Google stating Image Search Thumbnails violate copyright
Google Inc. (NSDQ: GOOG), the owner of the world’s most popular web search engine has recently lost two copyright lawsuits in Germany over the search engine’s rights to display photos and artwork as thumbnails in a preview of search results. The regional court of Hamburg has ruled that Google’s preview of a picture by German photographer Michael Bernhard violates his copyright. In a second case. Thomas Horn, who holds the copyrights on images of comics that were displayed, has also won a second case against Google according to an email by court spokeswoman Sabine Westphalen.
News
Reflex Stock launches expanded editorial RM collection
Reflex Stock, a stock photography portal from the UK, has announced that it has launched an expanded collection of rights-managed (RM) editorial images. The collection now includes RM imagery from more than 30 unique collections including Heritage Images with many of the images available commercially for the first time. “In December last year we provided the main component of a composite image for the cover of Time Magazine (December 17th) which was a huge vote of confidence in our content. As a result, we have increased our focus in this area and have spent the last ten months putting together this unique and extensive mix of images that offers an attractive and diverse range of content for our editorial customers,” explains Dwyer O’Neill, Chief Executive of Reflex Stock.
News
Diomedia opens office in Brazil
Diomedia, a stock photography reseller based in London, has announced that it has opened up an office in São Paulo Brazil. The company also has office located in Russia, USA, Europe and the Middle East. In additional Diomedia’s website & keywords have all been translated into Brazilian Portuguese to serve customers in the region.
News
Remembering William Claxton
William Claxton passed away on October 11th in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Southern California, William Claxton holds a special place in the history of American photography. Since his earliest pictures in the 1950s, he has been creating photographs that have garnered attention for their intimate yet soulful feel. Always noted for his sensitive and poetic style, Claxton has long been considered the preeminent photographer of jazz music. His jazz imagery has graced the covers of countless albums and magazine covers for over five decades.
News
Digital Railroad scaling back business & shopping for a buyer
Digital Railroad, a leading provider of online archiving and marketing services to professional photographers, has posted an announcement in its community blog indicating that it has been unsuccessful in obtaining additional funding to sustain its business. As a result, the company has been forced to scale back with a reduction in staff and expenses while the company continues to seek a buyer or additional funding. This follows a layoff and restructuring of the business last January with the loss of 25 jobs and comes on the heels of a move by industry competitor PhotoShelter who announced last month that it was closing its stock photography business to focus on solely on its archive service.
News
The Berliner group merges with Rex Features
The Berliner group of companies, which includes BEImages (a syndication agency), Berliner Studio, (a leading event photo studioin LA), and Vistalux, (a syndication agency for high end celebrity images), has announced that it is merging with Rex Features’ North America operations. Rex Features has a long history as the UK sales agency for Berliner Studio, and in recent years this collaboration has become increasingly close and successful. Berliner is a highly respected market leader in event and celebrity portrait photography in the US. “I very much look forward to working even more closely with Alan, Alex and all the staff at Berliner. Our shared business philosophy, combined skills, knowledge and experience will create a synergy which will allow us to deliver an unrivalled service to all our customers” states John Selby, Managing Director of Rex Features.
News
iCLIPART teams up with Anistock to launch joint subscription service
iCLIPART, a clipart licensing website with 7.8 million clip art, photos, graphics and Anistock, a stock footage library with more than 20,000 Royalty Free stock motion graphics, has teamed up to launch a joint subscription product. “1 fantastic subscription, 1 low price point, endless creative possibilities,” states Alison Hoy, President of iCLIPART, and Brian O’Connell, CEO of Anistock in a joint statement.
News
Shutterstock reaches milestone of 100,000 editorial images
Shutterstock, a New York City based micro-payment stock photography subscription service, has announced that it has attained a new milestone with its growing editorial image collection which has surpassed the 100,000 images. The company attributes much of the success in growing this collection to its entertainment/celebrity photo program which aids contributing photographers in gaining access to red-carpet events. The program was launched in June 2007 and has been working to help obtain press credentials for film premieres, award shows, concerts and political events.
News
PhotoShelter launches improved archive photo storage service
PhotoShelter, an online storage and archiving business for photographers, has announced that it has unveiled a series of new features billed as Version 2.0 for its PhotoShelter Personal Archive service. Among the more exciting improvements, the company is touting new website templates that enable photographers to launch a photography website with high-end features like flash slideshows, e-commerce, search, and security/password protection. In addition, the service now enables embeddable slideshows so photographers can post youtube-style video slideshows anywhere on the web. This announcement comes shortly after PhotoShelter decided last month to exit the stock licensing business to focus on its personal archive service.
News
a21 integrates MediaMagnet micro-payment stock photo collection on SuperStock website
Jacksonville Florida based, a21(ATWO), the parent company of SuperStock, and ArtSelect, has announced that it will be folding its MediaMagnet website into SuperStock its flagship stock photography brand. The integration, expected to take effect immediately, combines traditional rights-managed (RM), and royalty-free (RF) stock photography along with a collection of user-generated micro-stock/mid-stock images on the SuperStock site. John Ferguson, Chief Executive Officer of a21, said, “With MediaMagnet, we are building a strong reputation as a leading mid-stock brand that strongly complements our larger and more established SuperStock collection”.
News
Picturemaxx expands presence in USA
Picturemaxx , a German company providing solutions for archiving, managing and marketing digital content has announced that it is expanding its presence in the US by appointing Tom Tinervin as its new Managing Director of picturemaxx USA. Tinervin brings more than ten years experience in global SaaS (Software as a service) solutions as an executive officer and manager with stints at Digital Railroad, Getty Images, and Corbis. Prior to working in the media industry, Tom founded OminFineArt, an art publishing company with exclusive license to reproduce the masterworks of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
News
Kursiv launches low cost RF brand called BloopPix
Kursiv, a swiss stock photography agency, has announced that it is launch a new low cost royalty-free (RF) image collection called BloopPix. With competitive pricing range from €10 - €32 euros per image the collection is priced competitively to attract budget conscious image buyers. “We do believe that there is a justified need for low priced image materials”, say Karsten Risseeuw from Kursiv . “Of course we cannot offer any image to any price, that is why we diversify our offerings. BloopPix offers general royalty-free images of a good standard quality for a low price.”
News
Plainpicture produces mini-magazines to feature stock photography
Plainpicture, a Hamburg based stock photography company, has announced that it has produced five pocket sized journals designed in typical magazine format to feature images in a format familiar to image buyers. Each issue follows the graphic style of editorial titles and cover some common themes which including issues on dogs, northern travel, food, psychology and camping.
News
BBC Motion Gallery signs representation deal with China Central Television
BBC Motion Gallery, the stock footage licensing division of BBC Worldwide, has announced a strategic alliance with CITVC, the commercial arm of China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s largest national broadcaster, to handle distribution for BBC Motion Gallery content to Chinese markets. This deal now allows Chinese broadcasters to access to the entire collection of BBC Motion Gallery through their local CITVC’s sales offices. The deal expands the partnersip forged last April 2008 when BBC Motion Gallery began distributing CCTV clip footage through its global licensing network. “We predict a very healthy demand for BBC Motion Gallery’s extensive clip archive from broadcasters, ad agencies and corporations in China. The success of our content partnership last year has already proved to be very successful and we are delighted to be extending the relationship.” States Madame Cheng Chunli, Marketing Director General, CITVC.
News
JupiterMedia selling JupiterImages content licensing business to Getty for $96 million
Jupitermedia Corporation (JUPM) has announced that it has entered into a definitive stock purchase agreement to sell its Online Images business to Getty Images, Inc.(GYI) for the purchase price of $96 million in cash. Last year the companies had confirmed that they were exploring a sale with an asking price as high as $350 - $450 million, a far cry from the $96 million received in this transaction. The deal will allow Jupiter to pay off all of its bank debt, but the company expects to take a non-cash loss of about $95 million when the deal closes. “We believe that this transaction will be beneficial to Jupitermedia and its stockholders, both in the near term and the long run, as it will allow Jupitermedia to pay off all of its bank debt. Upon closing of the transaction, we will continue focus on the further development and growth of our Online Media division,” stated Alan Meckler Jupitermedia’s Chief Executive Officer.
News
Moodboard introduces photographer upload capabilities
Moodboard, a stock image brand created by the UK-based production company Mike Watson Images, has announced that it has developed a user-generated upload utility to allow the hobbiest and professional photographer to upload images directly for consideration by its editors for inclusion in the archive. This crowd-sourced approach was first pioneered by micro-stock companies such as iStockphoto and has proven to be a very effective means to reach a new generation of contributors. The company is debuting the new technology with a booth at the PhotoPlus conference in New York on Oct 23-25.
News
Global Look signs deal to represent Alaska Stock
Global Look, a stock photography company with offices in Canada and Russia, has closed a deal to represent content from Alaska Stock Images. “The partnership is a perfect match,” says Ruth Frost, VP – Sales & Marketing at Global Look’s Canadian office. “Images of the far north and its people and lifestyle are shared between Alaska and parts of Canada and Russia. There is a great deal of shared experience in these three communities, with a unique twist on modern life.”
News
Photoshot acquires Bruce Coleman USA
Photoshot, a stock photography company based in NYC, has announced that it has acquired Bruce Coleman USA a specialist image libray featuring more than 1.5 million nature and wildlife images from more than 300 contributing photographers. Beginning November 1st, all licensing inquiries to Bruce Coleman USA will be handled by Photoshot.
News
ITN Source leveraging online video with Diagonal View production company
ITN Source, a leading provider of stock footage from the UK has announced that it has teamed up with Matt Heiman, founder Mobix Interactive and digital entrepreneur, to launch Diagonal View, a production business that packages quirky and obscure content from ITN Source’s vast archive and syndicates it to a range of commercial partners including MySpace, YouTube and MSN. In less than six months, Diagonal View has become one of the top five channels of all time on MySpace and YouTube with over 40 million views. “It’s been a fantastic experience working with ITN Source. The archive is extremely rich in video content that online users are only too keen to watch. We’re looking forward to delving further into the library and partnering with other multimedia platforms in taking our business forward,” states Matt Heiman.
News
Chris Cardell announces resignation as COO of Jupiter Media
Jupitermedia Corporation (JUPM) has announced that Christopher Cardell, the President and Chief Operating Officer, is resigning after 10 years with the organization. The announcement comes on the heels of an announcement to sell the its online image licensing business to Getty Images last week. Effective immediately, Alan Meckler, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, will also serve as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company.
Editorials
Getty buys Jupiter for a song
Naturally, the buzz at the PACA International Conference in NYC this past week-end centered on the bomb that dropped on the industry last Thursday when Getty announced it had reached a deal to purchase Jupiter for $96MM. The most common question: What does it all mean? I see a number of angles from which to approach the subject.
News
Digital Railroad fails to secure emergency financing and closes business
Last week, Digital Railroad, a leading provider of online archiving and marketing services to professional photographers, announced that it was scaling back its business and seeking emergency financing to sustain its business. Yesterday the Business posted an announcement on its homepage “We’re sorry to inform you that Digital Railroad (DRR) has shut down. On October 15th we reported that the company had reduced its staff and was aggressively pursuing additional financing and/or a strategic partner. Unfortunately, those efforts were unsuccessful. Therefore Digital Railroad has been forced to suspend all operations. This archive may only be accessible for the next 24 hours”.
News
North Wind Pictures now offering stock footage
North wind Pictures, a niche photo agency specializing in historical imagery has announced that it is now offering footage. The initial footage offering features animation provided by ColdWater Media of Colorado. “We intend to offer brief clips for about the same price as our stills,” states Nancy Carter, North Wind’s owner. “Books have moved from black/white to color, and with the new media available to publishers, why just use still pictures when students are tuned into motion?”
