StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2006-02-28

• Getty Images announces the first recipients of its 2006 Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography: Kristen Ashburn and Andrew Testa. Details here.
  Tag: Getty Images

• JupiterImages launches the new paid subscription service FlashFoundry.com, offering over 100,000 professional-quality Flash components, video, buttons, animations and templates. FlashKit's (a Flash developer resource) FlashFoundry.com recruits new Flash content contributors from the FlashKit community of over 500,000 members.
  Related: Meckler´s JupiterImages Acquires Bigshot Media and BBM.net (Dec. 07, 2005)
  Details here.
  Tags: JupiterImages; FlashFoundry; FlashKit

Shocking: Adobe Announces Cooperation With MorePhotos And Iron Mountain

Adobe continues to build a world of additional services both for photobuyers and photosellers around Photoshop CS2 and the related company products.

After launching Adobe Stock Photos (currently 650,000 RF images), Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photographers Directory and Lightroom, the company joins a new partnership that in the long run might develop into a partial threat to services like Digital Railroad, PhotoShelter and Spitfire Photo Pro.

QuickLinks For 2006-02-27

• John Nagle of Downside.com in an comment to "Corbis, Getty Images And Slavish Copies":
  Corbis has a trick for obtaining copyright in their reproductions of public domain images. They add a DRM watermark to the image, and then they register a copyright on the DRM information. They then claim that using the image with the DRM watermark violates their copyright, and that removing it violates the DMCA. This has not, as far as I know, been litigated. 
  Tag: Corbis

Sunday Afternoon Press Release From Former Corbis CEO

Where did they go? How did their lives change?

A keen insight from Doug Rowan, formerly the CEO of Corbis, and now the CEO of ZoomAlbum: Prints Still Best Way to Save Digital Photos.

Technorati Tags: Zoom Album; Your life after being the CEO of Corbis: Entrepreneur again

QuickLinks For 2006-02-25

• Thanks to a hint from David Sanger, president of the Stock Artists Alliance, I wrote earlier about "Using Google Base For Selling Stock Photography" (Jan. 30, 2006).
  Google disclosed yesterday that "we're planning to enable people to buy items on Google Base using their Google Accounts. For buyers, this feature will provide a convenient and secure way to purchase Google Base items by credit card. For sellers, this feature integrates transaction processing with Google Base item management."
  More details here: Buying on Google Base.
  Tags: Google Base; David Sanger; Stock photography

With High Hopes, Associated Press Enters The Stock Photo Business

Daryl Lang over at PDN writes about A new contract for Associated Press employees lets photographers use company-owned photo equipment to shoot stock photos during their off hours, offering a 65/35 or 90/10 split:

The policy is part of a three-year contract the News Media Guild, the union representing AP employees, agreed to on Feb. 9.
Shooting stock photos will be voluntary and doesn't change the way AP photographers do their daily work assignments, says Tony Winton, president of the News Media Guild.

At Least Someone Stands Up Against The Stock Photo Industry´s iPod Giveaway Mass Hysteria

What to do if your photo agency needs to attract more customers buying more stock photos in less time?
Some cut the prices (for whatever reasons, Imagestate recently offered up to 70% off selected CDs), while other stock photo agencies rediscover micro marketing instruments and follow the omnipresent digital lifestyle iPod hooray mass hysteria ("Buy some stock photos and receive an iPod for free, buy more photos & jump out of the window, you´ll receive two iPods for free"), that -- at least to me -- seems to be also one of the underlying principle behind mags like Mactribe.

QuickLinks For 2006-02-24

• Bill Rosenblatt/DRM Watch in Google Suffers Setback over Image Search:
  This time, instead of book industry concerns about Google's book scanning and indexing program (Google Book Search), the trouble comes from a licensor of images for adult magazines and websites. The injunction applies not to the small "thumbnail" images that Google displays in search results but to links that Google provides to unauthorized higher-resolution versions of the images on third-party websites.
  Tag: Google Image Search
  
  And while reading Bill and although it´s not the main topic here, another well-written piece: Philips Video Watermarking Chosen for Digital Cinema (DCI, or Digital Cinema Initiatives, a consortium of Hollywood studios).

News From The StockMotionFinder

John Flewin of Footage.info (difficult to link to him because he runs two websites with the same content, it´s a tough time for consultants) reports some interesting news:

James Jordan, former CEO of Footage.net, has a sales and marketing consulting agreement to manage the launch of new industry search portal StockMotionFinder.com. Jordan also plans to assume an equity stake in that business. StockMotionFinder is a new effort from parent company StockPhotoFinder to provide a one-stop search site for the buyers of footage ... Previously, StockPhotoFinder and Jordan had been in discussions to acquire the assets of Footage.net but talks have since ceased.

Related:

• The Step From Stock Photography to Stock Footage: Randy Taylor Launches StockMotionFinder (November 15, 2005)
• Industry Veteran John Flewin Of Footage.info Enters The Promising Press Release Business (August 10, 2005)

Tags: StockMotionFinder; StockPhotoFinder

No Crap: "A High-Quality Model For Subscription"

Jim Pickerell is quoting in "Getty Images Changes Tune On iStockphoto" (Random Thoughts 116, February 22, 2006) the words Alan Meckler wrote in "Getty Images Likes "Crap"":

Listen to CEO Jonathan Klein's comments on his financial quarterly conference call last April. At the end of the call he was asked what he thought of the subscription photo image business. His response included the word "crap." His comments could only be interpreted to mean that any subscription offering in the commercial image space was "crap."
Yesterday CEO Klein plunked down $50 million for a subscription photo image business that contains photos shot by amateurs. Quite a turnaround by Mr. Klein! I presume that $50 million means that "crap" sells?

Pickerell adds in a new passage only the words "quite a turnaround", and it remains unclear at first sight if this is a comment of Pickerell or a quotation. But I think there´s no turnaround. With respect to the subsequent introduction of Creative Express, Jonathan Klein said (Download link) during the Q1/2005 Conference Call on April 20, 2005: