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CORBIS IN JAPAN
September 17, 1997
Corbis has announced that it has expanded its worldwide image distribution through an agreement with Pacific Press Service, a leading photo agency in Japan. This representation is for analog images only. Most of the million plus images in the Corbis electronic database are not included in this agreement.
Pacific Press Service has represented Bettmann Archives and Roger Ressmeyer's Starlight collection in Japan for more than a decade. This agreement simply expands the representation to all Corbis owned companies that are currently prepared to supply transparencies or prints to Japanese customers. This agreement will also cover the film images from Corbis commissioned assignments.
A small number of these digital files from the main database may be output to film and distributed through PPS.There is no plan to make the digital database available in Japan. Digital search and retrieval is very premature in the Japanese market. It is also unclear what roles a local selling agent might play in such a distribution mechanism.
To date, Pacific Press has not released a catalog CD-ROM and the Japanese market has been very resistant to using digital search to find images.
Update
In May 1995 we reported that Pacific Press Service was behind in payments to many photographers and stock agencies. Within the past year I have received several reports that indicate that they have done what was necessary to solve their financial problems, and are now back on a sound footing. From what I hear all photographers are now being paid in a timely manner. The fact that Corbis is willing to enter into a business arrangement with them is a strong indicator.