Category: News
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
PhotoSpin Launches Affiliate Program
For those of you who have your own site and would like to earn a few dollars (Momma needs a new pair of shoes!) PhotoSpin, a Stock Photo Subscription site, has just launched an affiliate program to pay you 15% of any subscription revenue generated from your website. I signed up as an experiment and you should see their ad on my site shortly. I have just one little nit-pick with the program. They require you to enter a Social Security number (for tax reasons) but the page is not a secure page. (Can you say... Identity Theft?). I got around this by using a super secret spy tactic and entered 123-45-6789. This didn’t stop them from registering me for the program and I’m sure if I start to make any money they will contact me to get the correct info.
News
Keyword Mania at Corbis
Corbis is doing an exciting new promotion tied to a keyword game on their site where you look at a set of images and try to guess the common keyword for the set. This game is a pleasant diversion, however, Corbis has turned this game into a promotion where those who answer with the correct keyword are entered in a drawing for a 60 GB iPod Photo
Click here to play the game
Pro.Corbis.com
News
Tit for Tat (Content Licensing Deals)
First Getty Images signed Universal Studios now Corbis answers back with a contract with the MGM Studios to license their still images and motion picture footage.
More about the new Corbis deal
Press release from Getty Images
News
Digital Railroad is Back On Track
Digital Railroad added $5.2 million in Capital to expand the Asset Management services they offer to photographers. This is good news for anyone currently working with them, or considering them as a potential partner, because the online services are expected to absorb most of those investment dollars.
http://www.digitalrailroad.net/corpsite/press_capital.html
News
Free Stock Photo’s
Just received this press release from a reader. If you sign up for a newsletter from Turbo Photo they will reward you with some free stock Photos. It may not be what you need but (why not) they are free.
Here is the Press Release (as usual I have highlighted what is important and edited out the BS.)
Download $500 of Free Stock Photos Now from the New Turbo Photo Newsletter
(Press Release)
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Graphic Designers will be generously rewarded with Turbo Photo's new 'Free Stock Photos' newsletter. New subscribers are warmly welcomed with instant download access to 50 hi-res royalty-free stock photos- free for the taking. Designers may subscribe by visiting the Turbo Photo website (http://www.turbophoto.com/ ), then clicking on the 'Free Photos' button.
After the initial 50 free photos, subscribers will continue to be rewarded each week with subsequent newsletters, which contain links to more free stock photos, photo CD specials, and occasional Photoshop tricks. A designer who accumulates all the newsletters could attain thousands of dollars of free stock photos.
Resolution of the free JPEG photo files range from 2560x1920 (14MB) to 3264x2448 (23MB)- ideal for small to medium size marketing materials. Designers are free to use these royalty-free images for virtually any printed project, while agreeing to the simple Terms of Use listed on the download page.
For more information, please contact Turbo Photo (http://www.turbophoto.com ).
News
E-data Gets Spanked by Getty and Corbis
Getty Images and their main competitor Corbis won a court ruling that they
aren't infringing a European patent by allowing customers to download digital
images. The basis for this claim is that E-Data Corp currently owns the Freeny
Patent. For those that are unaware, E-Data contends that the Freeny Patent
applies to the delivery of any content, (i.e. music, books, or images) which a
business delivers via an authorization code and that a consumer can download.
E-data is attempting to recover 5% of any revenue generated through online
sales of stock images.
For more info click on any of the
following links.
- InternetNews, "Court Tosses Patent Case Against Corbis, Getty"
Seattle
Post: “Getty and Corbis win image patent dispute"
News
More cool stuff from Veer
As I have said before Veer understands creative customers better than anybody else offering Stock images for licensing. Veer has today released a new lightbox that makes their lightbox more useable than any I have seen and i'm sure will make life a lot easier for designers to store and share images, fonts, and ideas for their current projects. I'd encourage you to check it out and i'm sure it wont be long before others emulate it.
Veer Shuttleboard
http://www.veer.com/shuttleboard/
Press Release http://www.veer.com/about/pressroom/releases/veer_pr_shuttleboard_050613.aspx
Reaction posted by Cameron Moll
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000335.html
News
Open Letter to the Art Directors Club
A few Trade Organizations have sent an open Letter to The Art Directors Club to protest sponsorship by OnRequest Images. I have been following OnRequest for some time and have always felt that OnRequest Images has treated its photographers very fairly. OnRequest is lead by David Norris who is himself a professional photographer and a very nice man. OnRequest has done many artist-friendly things to distinguish themselves including, offering use of studio space and equipment to its artist for use free of charge, and producing complex shoots for potential stock requests and sharing all revenue from these shoots 50/50. Don't forget that these same Photographer's organizations have a history of protesting new business models and many of them preached against the evils of Royalty-Free licensing a few years back. Today some of the most successful Photographer's I know (Ron Chapple, Jack Hollingsworth, Etc...) are those that embraced the royalty-Free business model early on. These photographer's understood that Royalty-Free licensing served the needs of customers in a way that Rights-Managed images simply could not. I think we will see that the Custom Stock Business model (although frightening at first) will prove to be a good thing for both photographers and photo-buyers.
To read the letter for yourself click on the following link.
http://asmp.org/news/spec2005/adc.php
News
Jupiter Buys Goodshoot
Recently Jupiter Media announced the purchase of their
latest stock photo collection GoodShoot, an image producer from
France.
Stories like this are no longer news as pretty much everybody I have talked to
in the industry who owns a significant collection of images has been approached
by Jupiter Media. I’m sure we will see many more press releases like this in
the future.
