Tony Stone, Getty Images and Corbis veteran George Sinclair, who has founded and runs Virtual Picture Desk, has launched a new business unit. The Universal Images Group will aggregate and syndicate rights-managed and rights-ready content.
UIG will not license directly to end users. Content will be distributed through agencies that include Alamy, Biosphoto, Getty Images, Photolibrary, Photo Researchers and Science Photo Library, as well as specialty resources such as the online education service of Encyclopaedia Britanica.
Along with distribution agreements, representation arrangements are in place with Ambient Images, Ecoscene, Eye Ubiquitous, Photofusion, Planet Observer, Primal Pictures, PYMCA, Stock Connection and Mark Edwards (of Still Pictures and Hard Rain). UIG will edit and otherwise prepare such content for distribution, including adjusting keywords and metadata to fit a particular distributor’s requirements.
Among UIG’s unique offerings is the image collection of Jesuit priest Father Browne, who documented social and political life in Ireland and during his many trips around the world. UIG has secured rights to his his image collection, which includes 42,000 photos, owned by the Irish Jesuit order and preserved and catalogued by The Irish Picture Library.
The Browne collection’s centerpiece is a set of the only known onboard pictures from the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912. Browne was on the ship and had disembarked in Queenstown, prior to the disaster that claimed more than 1,500 lives. His images depict the liner, its passengers and crew, including Captain Edward Smith and Wireless Operator Harold Bride.