Archives: March, 2009
News
Imageplus launches new stock photography website
Imageplus, a Brazillian stock photography agency based in Sao Paulo, has announced that it has launched a new website located at imageplus.com. The company which offers a collection of more than 12 million images available for licensing online has divided it new website into sections such as creative, editorial, subscriptions, CDs store, image galleries and special offers. Users can choose to navigate in English, Portuguese or Spanish.
News
Peoria TV station reports on Getty layoff of former Jupiter Images employees
Last week Jupitermedia Corporation (NASDAQ: JUPM) announced that it had finalized its sale to Getty Images for $96 million and this week Getty had taken steps to begin laying-off hundreds of employees including 100 workers from the Former Dynamic graphis office in Peoria Illinois as reported by local TV station WMBD/WYZZ. The story further states “All 400 worldwide employees from England to Australia will be laid off between April and September. One hundred of those employees are based in Peoria.”
News
AudioMicro to represent original scores by “Family Guy” composer Ron Jones
Los Angeles based micro stock music licensing platform, Audio Micro, has announced a deal to represent over 170 original scores by “Family Guy” composer Ron Jones. The addition of Ron Jones’ collection permits the popular composer’s work to be available at micro-payment licensing fees as little as $1 per minute. Central to the deal is Mr. Jones’ belief in the advancement of music placement opportunities for composers through open-minded, crowd-sourced collaboration - the underlying principles of the “micro stock” licensing model.
News
Art Resource now representing images from the National Gallery, London
New York based, Art Resource, a specialty library featuring fine art imagery, has announced that it has been selected by the National Gallery, London to serve as their official photo permissions representative in North America. The National Gallery houses one of the greatest collections of Western European painting in the world, with famous works ranging from as early as 1250 to 1900, covering all major styles, including the Renaissance, Baroque, Romanticism, Impressionism and Early Modernism.
Interview with New Jersey photographer Eugene Pierce
We are thrilled to be able to spend some time with photographer and New Jersey native, Eugene Pierce. Pierce is a professional photographer based in New Jersey, who’s images have appeared in publications throughout the world including Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, and many others.
Cutcaster now offering credits and corporate accounts
Cutcaster, a micro-payment marketplace for user generated content has announced that it is now offering corporate accounts and user can purchase credits to reward ease the process of licensing royalty free images and vectors on the cutcaster site. These new payment options are in addition to the micropayment pay-as-you-go purchasing system and content bidding model that Cutcaster currently uses.
News
Thought Equity Motion and NCAA bring March Madness Videos to the iPhone
Thought Equity Motion, Thought Equity Motion, a leading source of film, video and music content, has announced a partnership with the NCAA to bring thrilling NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship videos to the iPhone. The NCAA Highlights iPhone app includes 18 original never-before-seen video programs, including 2009 tournament previews, unforgettable tournament moments and NCAA music videos featuring hits from Motown artists celebrating the 50th anniversary of Motown this year. The iPhone app can be downloaded for free from the iTunes store.
News
Getty launches Flickr Collection
Getty Images, who announced a deal with Flickr to monetize user-generated content from the photo-sharing site in July 2008, has just announced the launch of the Flickr Collection, available exclusively on gettyimages.com, in both royalty-free (RF) and rights-managed (RM) licensing models.. “This collection reflects the unique perspective Flickr offers as the ‘eyes of the world’ and is testament to our community of photographers, who have shared their authentic visions with the world through Flickr,” said Kakul Srivastava, general manager, Flickr. “Providing our members with a way to bring their imagery to Getty Images’ worldwide customer base through this partnership has been an important step for us and we look forward to seeing the collection evolve over time, just as Flickr itself continues to do.”
News
Reflex Stock launches stock photography picture research service
In an era where many stock photography businesses are focused on concepts like crowd-sourcing in order to streamline their businesses and license images at increasingly lower costs. Reflex Stock, a stock photography company based in Northern Ireland, is bucking the trend with the launch of a full-service professional research division located online at pictureresearching.net. Dwyer O’Neill, Chief Executive of Reflex Stock, explains: “We know the internet is flooded with millions of images. High volume, low cost commercial stock websites dominate search engines making it difficult for time-pressed creatives to find new, original and beautifully crafted images”.
News
The Copyright Registry offering free upgrade to ASMP members
The Copyright Registry, a service launched by StockPhotoFinder last October, has announced that it will provide free upgraded participation in the registry for members in good standing of the The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). ASMP members can use The Copyright Registry to display their contact information, to link each image to its official registration at the U.S. Copyright Office, and to connect potential licensors to the e-commerce or licensing process of the photographer or their agent for each image. The registry also locates online uses of duplicates of each photographer’s images.
News
Moodboard launches interactive magazine
Moodboard, a stock image brand created by the UK-based production company Mike Watson Images, has announced that it has produced a 30 page interactive digital magazine, called ONE, designed by London based Tea Design. “We decided to try to bring all of our updates together in one visually striking magazine, as well as add-value to our offer with useful and interesting features to help spark creativity” stated Mike Watson CEO of moodboard.com. “Plus we are always being told by customers how they miss stock catalogues of ‘days past’, so we thought we’d combine the old and the new to develop a moodboard magalog.”
News
The Image Works commemorates the 40th anniversary of Woodstock
The Image Works, a stock photography agency based in Woodstock, NY, has put together a collection of iconic photos to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. The collection includes many new and never-before-seen images of the festival that became known simply as Woodstock.
News
BBC Motion Gallery contributes to the O2’s British Music Experience
BBC Motion Gallery, the clip sales arm of BBC Worldwide, has licensed classic pop footage to the new British Music Experience exhibition at the O2 centre. The new exhibition will be a permanent addition to the O2 Centre and promises to bring the history of British pop culture to life with a unique display of art effects and iconic memorabilia. BBC Motion Gallery’s footage will be on display at the entrance to welcome visitors with clips from memorable moments such as Elton John posing for press outside the White House, Bob Geldof surrounded by children in Ethiopia, Tony Blair shaking the hand of Noel Gallagher at Number 10 as well as performance footage obtained from BBC Motion Gallery’s representation deal with youth charity The Prince’s Trust.
News
Bruce Livingstone resigns from iStockphoto and Getty Images
Bruce Livingstone CEO and founder of iStockphoto has announced that he is stepping down from his post as CEO of iStockphoto and SVP Consumer at Getty Images. The company was launched just over nine years ago and quickly became the leading microstock image licensing service culminating in its sale to Getty Images for $50 million in Feb 2006. After the sale of the business Livingstone who was in his mid-30s continued as the CEO and was also appointed SVP of Consumer Products at Getty Images. “From the beginning, this crazy little experiment has shown the world what happens when people assemble to organize their creativity and business acumen. Together, we changed the way a whole industry works” Livingstone stated in a farewell message posted in the iStockphoto community.
News
SuperStock/RGB Ventures taps PicScout to track copyright infringements
SuperStock, a stock photography business that was recently purchased by a consortium of RF suppliers called RGB Ventures hasrecently signed an agreement with PicScout to track and enforce copyright infringements. “We are pleased to renew our relationship with PicScout,” said Lanny Ziering, CEO, SuperStock. “We chose PicScout because of their technology leadership in image tracking. PicScout will help us, as a stock agency, promote the value of copyright ownership for the artists we represent.”
News
Picturemaxx AG opens office in Vienna
Munich-based picturemaxx AG, a German company providing solutions for archiving, managing and marketing digital content, has announced that it is expanding with an office in Vienna Austria to serve customers in northern, central, eastern and southern Europe. “In Germany, we have achieved a penetration of just under 90% in the picture market“, explains Bernd Czichon, CEO at picturemaxx AG. “It therefore seems only logical that we make our product portfolio accessible to a wider customer base in the future.“
News
Corbis partners with ihaveanidea.org to sponsor Portfolio Night 7
Corbis, widely believed to be the world’s 2nd largest stock licensing company, has announced that it has partnered with, ihaveanidea.org support Portfolio Night 7, the largest simultaneous advertising portfolio review ever held, featuring a uniquely designed review process in a “speed-dating setting”. Students enrolled in advertising programs, recent graduates, and young creatives will benefit from valuable face-to-face time with three or more world-class creatives during the event. “Portfolio Night is the only global event of its kind aimed at identifying and cultivating aspiring designers and providing them with a fun environment to present their work and connect with industry leaders,” said Ivan Purdie, Senior Vice President, Sales & Service, Corbis. “Despite the tough economic climate, Corbis is proud to continue to partner with ihaveanidea on this valuable event to nurture the next generation of creatives.”
News
A look at Alamy’s 4Q Numbers
With Getty going private and absorbing Jupiter Images, and Superstock having gone bankrupt, for the first time in over a decade, the stock photo industry is without a publicly traded company within its ranks. We can no longer rely on industry leader Getty’s SEC filings for indications of that company’s health, nor for hints at wider trends in the industry. We do still, however, have the quarterly reports from Alamy, reports unusually detailed for a privately held company. The Oxford, UK based Alamy provides a number of stats from which we can extrapolate trends both at Alamy itself and in the industry at large. Their 4Q, 2008 report adds even more detail about Alamy’s geographic sources of revenue, as the company has provided revenue figures for the three main currencies in which it operates, US$, Euros and British Sterling. Here’s our analysis of what Alamy’s 4Q’08 report reveals:
News
Kursiv celebrating 15 years of business
Kursiv, a swiss stock photography agency, has announced that it is celebrating its 15th anniversary. The business was launched in 1994 by Karsten Risseeuw as a software distributor with specialized products for designers. In 1997, Kursiv started selling royalty-free image CDs – at that time a new and promising concept, in times where internet was slow and rights managed imagery expensive. By 1998 a dozen collections were represented. “We have sent out over 100 different image catalogs to our customers in those years”, Karsten Risseeuw recalls.
