October had been a busy month and I missed to mention some old and new stuff:
- Corbis recently found a lively market for dead stars (acquiring the Roger Richman Agency); now Forbes updated the annual list of top earners of Dead Celebs (also here). Martin Cribbs, a specialist in branding dead celebrities at image licensing company Corbis, said: "On the surface, Shakespeare was this genius writer, but what's relevant is that his plays were filled with sex, violence and political intrigue" (Link) -- just like in real life.
"There are a lot more sexy celebrities, for sure," concedes Martin Cribbs of Corbis, a Seattle-based intellectual-property rights company that represents the famous physicist Einstein. But everything is relative. Even though Corbis also represents Steve McQueen, Betty Grable, Mae West, Burt Lancaster and other former movie heartthrobs, Einstein is by far the company's most popular dead celebrity, Cribbs says. (Link)
- The History of Magnum: great at first sight. It´s originally Fred Ritchin via a chinese blogger.
- The "Devaluation of Photography": "I stumbled across another stock photography site today called Dreamstime or something. Didn’t give it a thorough workout but I noticed that they’re flogging high-res stock images for 77 US Cents ... I could literally make far more working in McDonalds and wouldn’t have to stress about technique, location, new material, ideas, equipment, insurance… The list goes on." (Denyerek, here´s a part of his work)
- Chad Newell, CEO of MediaBakery, in a recent interview with MacTribe on the recently implemented Visual Search Technology (it´s VIMA): "I can truly say it kicks butt. I've worn every hat in this business, from researcher to buyer, and hands down this technology is the best I have seen. Not only can you upload your own comp, or an image you might have found at another site, you get accurate, truthful visual matches based on intelligent feedback."
- Pixsy, the "Next Generation Photo Search Engine" (reported here earlier), announces a strategic partnership with Chitika.
- LuckyPix is "the first weblog to track the creative pulse of the Midwest. Chicago is where we live and work. Visual communication is our business."
- "Google moving ahead with digital library, Ambitious plan to put book texts on Web raises thorny copyright issues" (MSNBC), raising questions about image copyrights:
"Morris, chief executive of the U.K.-based Association of Learned and Professional Society Publisher, and other publishers believe Google must get their permission first, as it has under the Print Publisher Program it launched in October 2004, two months before announcing the library initiative.
Under the publishers’ program, Google has deals with most major U.S. and U.K. publishers. It scans titles they submit, displays digital images of selected pages triggered by search queries and gives publishers a cut of revenues from accompanying ad displays."Related:
- "Riches We Must Share..." (The Washington Post) on Google's digital library initiative, with the opposing view also at the Washington Post: "...But Not at Writers' Expense".
- "Authors Sue Google Over Library Initiative", FOXNews: "The Author's Guild Inc., an organization of more than 8,000 authors and the nation's largest organization of book authors, accused Google Inc. of "massive copyright infringement," saying the powerful Internet search engine cannot put its books in the public domain (search) for commercial use without permission."
- Slashdot: "The Implications of Google's Digital Library".
- "Google demonstrated a tool at Web 2.0 today that uses pattern recognition to determine sex in photos"; SearchEngineWatch and John Battelle´s Searchblog
- "First Photojournalism Hall of Fame Recipients Honored", The Missourian; via Will/PAN
