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RANDOM THOUGHTS 100
April 18, 2005
MyLoupe.com
MyLoupe Inc., (www.myloupe.com) headquartered in Chicago, has launched a full service online stock image library with over 50,000 images from almost 300 contributors around the globe.
Photographers receive between 70% and 85% of the net sale and have the option to have their own co-branded stock site to serve their existing market.
Photographers also have the option to set the price for the use of their images by choosing from different price levels and applying price modifiers.
Contributors have the option at the time of submission to offer images for either non-exclusive licensing, or to assign exclusive marketing rights to myLoupe. In the event that the contributor chooses non-exclusive licensing myLoupe will not be able to offer Protected Rights licenses to any customer. The contributor may make this determination on an image-by-image basis. (Note: Many agencies that offer images on a non-exclusive basis will call the photographer in those rare instances when a customer requests Protected Rights, and at that point determine if such rights can be granted. The implication from myLoupe's contract is that they will not be doing this.)
In addition real-time sales reporting online allows photographers to have up to the minute knowledge of their myLoupe image sales.
Brian Heston, President and Founder of myLoupe, Inc. was a creative director for eight years and a photographer for twenty and thus has insights into what picture buyers want while at the same time being sympathetic to the needs of image creators.
MyLoupe's search system is fast and easy to use, and seems to have all the features of the industry's best search systems including: "lightboxes" that can be shared via e-mail, full e-commerce for immediate purchase and download and personalized service via e-mail or a toll-free 800 number.
The company also offers an "Image Request" feature that allows registered users to broadcast a request for hard-to-find subject matter to myLoupe's network of contributors in 38 countries. Photographers then respond by uploading images that match the request to a "Request Lightbox" where the user can review the selection, download comp files, and license and download a final selection.
With photographers having more choices than ever in how they distribute their pictures, Heston set out to offer a compelling reason for them to sign on to myLoupe.
"We offer something called the "mySite Program", said Heston. "This enables a member contributor to link his or her website to myLoupe almost transparently. To the customer it looks like a website that is unique to the contributor, as it only has his or her images, but it also has myLoupe's e-commerce features, so that the user can license and download the images. And, the contributor earns a hefty 85% royalty on the resulting transactions. Thus, contributors can leverage their existing client bases by using mySite as another tool for growing their businesses. And, we're quite excited to have an agency version of mySite nearing release in the very near future."
Image 100 Launches U.S. Website
In one of his first acts after taking over as Managing Director of Image 100, (www.image100.com) Andrew Duncomb announced that the company had launched a dedicated website for its American customers. This site allows customers to use their credit cards and pay in dollars, a major advantage for dollar purchasers given current exchange rates.
The prices quoted in dollars are much less than converting pounds or euros at the current exchange rates. Thus, those European customers who are frequent purchaser of RF might be well advised to establish a dollar account to pay for their purchases of Image 100 images. It will be interesting to see if other Royalty Free companies adopt this multi-tiered pricing strategy.
Duncomb was formerly with Getty Images and oversaw the Third Party operation until early this year.
IPTC Core Schema For XMP Released
As the industry moves ahead it is likely to become more and more important for professionals to attach metadata to Photoshop, JPEG and TIFF image files so the full range of information can be easily accessed by anyone in the production/distribution chain.
In 2001 Adobe launched a new metadata framework called "Extensible Metadata Platform - XMP" and made it available in Photoshop (version 7 and CS) as well as other CS products.
In 2004 a joint effort of the IPTC, Adobe and IDEAlliance started work on the IPTC Core Schema to expand the information provided and offer a smooth transfer of metadata values from the IPTC Headers to the XMP framework. The result of that effort has now been released.
David Riecks, SAA's Information Technology Chair, was centrally involved in the effort and the SAA has made video tutorials available online at www.stockartistsalliance.org/tutorials/index.asp to explain how photographers can better protect their assets and streamline their workflow.
More information is also available at: http://www.iptc.org/iptc4xmp/
Black Star B&W Archive To Toronto's Ryerson University
Black Star has transferred its historical black-and-white archive to Ryerson University in Toronto. Some of these images date back to 1935 when Black Star was founded as an agency for photojournalism.
The archive contains nearly 300,000 images including some produced by world-famous photographers such as Robert Capa, Andreas Feininger, Germaine Krull, Philippe Halsmann, Martin Munkacsi, W. Eugene Smith, Marion Post-Wolcott, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Mario Giacomelli.
Ryerson president Claude Lajeunesse says an unspecified donor or donors gifted the collection along with $7 million to the university. The collection will be made accessible to the international scholarly community, and to faculty and students across the university. Ryerson also plans to open a new gallery to exhibit some of the work with the hopes of it becoming an important cultural attraction for Toronto.
Corbis Acquires Dead Celebrities
Corbis has acquired the Roger Richman Agency (www.rogerrichman.com), one of the world's best-known agencies specializing in dead celebrities.
Roger Richman started the agency over 27 years ago and included in the collection are pictures of Elvis Presley, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Wright Brothers, Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Steve McQueen..
Headquartered in Beverly Hills, California, The Roger Richman Agency also represents more than 50 of the world's most-recognized personalities and daily licenses rights to corporations, advertising agencies, and other companies for the use of the names and photographs of these personalities in merchandising and other projects.
"Together, Corbis and The Roger Richman Agency can provide all of the tools that our clients need to fulfill their creative vision," said Roger Richman, president, The Roger Richman Agency. "Adding our legendary personalities to Corbis' existing services offers greater opportunity for companies around the world to use the power of classic personalities to impart their message to a variety of sectors."