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Articles from November 2008
The latest version of the Alamy contributor contract was published on Nov. 26 and reflects the recent change in the agency's commission structure.
The Guardian's Wendy Grossman takes a look at the tactics used by large stock agencies, such as Getty Images and Corbis, to pursue payment for unauthorized image uses.
Coventry, U.K.-based royalty-free library Agodia Images says its strategy is to keep pricing as simple as possible. To do this, each image is licensed at a single price point, regardless of file size or usage-specific criteria.
The microstock business was originally created by graphic designers, who thought photography was too expensive. Now, the same type of crowdsourcing that has hurt photographers is hurting professional designers.
Glenn Ruga, founder and publisher of photo-exhibit Web site SocialDocumentary.net, likened the destruction of images stored on Digital Railroad's servers to the demolition of the original Penn Station building in New York. But was anything actually destroyed?
Organized by the German Association of Press and Picture Agencies and Archives, the PICTA 2009 Picture Agency Fair will again be held in Hamburg, from Mar. 26 to 28.
The following are concept words that customers often use to find images. When keywording an image add as many concepts as are appropriate to the keyword list. If after searching the concept list you cannot find any words that that fit your image there is a good chance your images will not be a frequent seller. When planning shoots try to take pictures that will illustrate some of these concepts.
Some photo subjects are in high demand, others aren't. But, shooting just the concepts that are in hightest demand may be a losing proposition because everyone else is shooting the same thing. This chart list some keywords or tags that are frequently requested. The chart was generated by searching iStockphoto for certain words. It shows the total number of downloads of the best selling image in each category as of the above date. It also lists the total images in the collection with the particular keyword or tag. The list is in ascending order by download.
The author of over 30 Blurb photo books joins the teaching panel of the ninth DSLR Photography Workshop Cruise.
Estate seeks to sell library or entire business.
In addition to Moodboard-specific content, the blog will also offer tips to help new photographers entering the stock business.
EU project fails to prepare for visitor onslaught.
With the Getty Images' acquisition of Jupiterimages on the horizon, many international distributors working with both companies are feeling very vulnerable. Some believe that after the deal goes through, Getty Images will consolidate sales of all its brands with a single company for a given territory and withdraw the images from other local distributors.
Several traditional royalty-free production companies--including Image Source, Moodboard, Blend and Cultura--have begun to explore microstock to determine if it offers a growth opportunity in a difficult market. Each has a slightly different strategy.
Stockholm's NordicPhotos has redesigned its Web site, updating both its look and technology. The company has also introduced new services and advertising campaign.
Diablo Management will pursue outstanding buyer payments for less than a month.
The American Society of Media Photographers began distributing its record-making $1.3 million foreign-royalties windfall, with the first grants going to the Picture Licensing Universal System Coalition and the ASMP Foundation.
The Danvers, Mass.-based Copyright Clearance Center, an online service that aims to help content creators license their work, while offering publishers a way of tapping into user-generated content. Ozmo has been endorsed by the American Society of Media Photographers and is marketed as a tool for photographers, bloggers and other artists.
Thought Equity Motion has been named the exclusive licensing agent for Smithsonian Channel's high-definition collection, which offers buyers access to video clips from the channel's original programs and series.
Glam Media Network, which unites the industry-leading Glam.com with over 700 women-centric Internet properties, has launched Glam Apps Platform. The service connects network Glam network publishers with online application developers--including PicApp, the image-licensing spin-off of Israeli monitoring company PicScout.
In an announcement that surprised those who remember LIFE magazine’s recently publicized plan to relaunch Life.com in partnership with Getty Images, Time Inc. said it is putting over 10 million images online using Google. Millions of images, 97% of which have never been seen by the public, have already been digitized and made available on Google's new image-hosting service.
The Photolibrary Group has added the Red Cover collection to some 300 still and motion brands already represented in its inventory over 4 million images and 250,000 footage clips. Photolibrary CEO Glenn Parker says this makes the Australian agency the only viable aggregator of niche and generalist stock photography.
Agreement encompasses the Corbis RF, Zefa, InsideOut Pix, Image100 and ImageShop brands.
Dubai-based agency offers wholly owned rights-managed content.
Agency cites increasing demand for custom image content.
Contrary to prevailing doom-and-gloom predictions for the advertising industry, a recent survey by the Association of National Advertisers says 68% of advertisers will either increase spending or retain current levels during the next 12 months. The survey results also highlight the trend toward social networks and other Web-based marketing activities, adding weight to predictions of continuous growth in uses of images online.
Alamy has clarified a few aspects of its arrangement with the Copyright Clearance Center to create the new ReadyImages service that was announced yesterday. The company's Rachel Wakefield said the ReadyImages offering is quite different from CCC's past photo-industry activities, which concerned many photographers.
Photolibrary has provided
Selling Stock with a list of 49 Index Stock photographers for whom the company has no contact information. All of them are owed money from sales made by Index Stock prior to Photolibrary acquiring the company.
Fotosearch, a longtime stock distributor based in Wioming, has acquired micro-payment business Can Stock Photo for an undisclosed sum. The microstock Web site was founded in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2004 by then-college student Duncan Enman, who will remain with the company.
U.K.-based Alamy has partnered with the Copyright Clearance Center, a 30-year-old American company that specializes in rights licensing and clearance, to offer large companies images for internal use on a subscription basis.
Jupitermedia has adjusted previously reported third-quarter earnings by reporting a non-cash impairment charge to goodwill in the amount of $40 million, in connection with the recently announced agreement to sell the company's images business to Getty Images. Quarterly revenues are down compared to both the previous quarter and same period of last year. There is also a sharp decline in sales through distributors.
Image suppliers are encouraged to do the same.
BrightQube has updated its Web site with new tools and a redesigned home page, which no longer includes the mosaic interface.
Diablo Management expects that Digital Railroad's main creditor will take possession of the physical servers that house photographer archives and software, wipe them clean and put them up for auction.
Traditional stock photographers are often stymied by microstock's acceptance and upload requirements, which are very different from those of traditional agencies. The Yuri Arcurs Distribution Network may offer some of the elite and very productive traditional people-and-lifestyle shooters a way of breaking into the microstock market.
Traditionally, direct mail brochures and catalogs have been among the biggest users of stock and assignment photography. Look for that market to continue to decline due to postage costs and general ineffectiveness of this type of marketing.
U.K.-based Photoshot continues growth through acquisition, apparently undeterred by the fate of the last celestial body to travel that road.
Cherry, Veer's new illustration collection, augments the company's offering with hand-crafted style.
"Today, the marketplace is MySpace, YouTube and Google's search engine. You should be putting your content in front of that transactional velocity," says Iain Scholnick, chief executive officer and president of ImageSpan. The 5-year-old Sausalito, Calif., company offers transactional support for online content licensing and has just added a tracking service that monitors usage of such content.
Digital-photography revenue, including that of traditional and micro-payment stock, is expected to grow 54% by 2013. What share of this total will be coming from still stock?
The stock industry is unlikely to benefit from newspapers' record-breaking readership and an increase in the number and prominence of images used online and off.
It appears that the Digital Railroad saga has come to an end, with the mystery buyer no longer interested in acquiring its assets.
Jupitermedia posts the lowest third-quarter results since 2004.
Romania-born microstock has surpassed 1 million buyers, making it the second leading agency in the number of customers, according to its management.
Hundreds of thousands of LCN clients get in-perpetuity discounts on Fotolia images.
The Stock Artists Alliance, which has been endeavoring to help photographers collect commissions on sales made through the now-defunct Digital Railroad, has announced that photographers should not expect to receive their share of payments already collected by the bankrupt agency.
New York-based subscription microstock Shutterstock links its continued growth to the economic downturn.
ASMP, NANPA, SAA, NPPA, APA and PACA unite in Supreme Court brief.
The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has announced the appointment of a new executive director and the release of its 2008 pricing survey.
LA motion specialist predicts growth in HD content licensed for online and mobile uses.
Photolibrary will now exclusively market Medicimage content in the United Kingdom, in addition to non-exclusive representation in 11 additional countries.
Former Digital Rairload sales exec lands on his feet.
The German travel and reportage agency that recently declared insolvency is being rescued by four of its employees.
Diablo Management has revealed there may be a buyer--whose description matches only one industry company--for Digital Railroad's assets.