Letters from Italy: Pino Granata´s Ceterum censeo on Corbis entering the Microstock Business

I´m sure Bill Gates needs to enter the microstock business. It´s a billion dollar business and there´s no way that Corbis stays out of this lucrative business. This way Bill can afford to buy more T-bone steaks for him and his family.

The growth for Corbis in 2006 has been around 10% which comes above all through the acquisitions. To be honest there is a lot to say about Corbis.

I´m very disappointed because according to me Bill Gates has invested a lot of money in Corbis and the results are not a big deal.

Getty and Corbis work in something like a monopoly and the result is that the market is much poorer than in the past, both for quantity and quality.

If things in the future will go like this there won´t be much room for growth. The small and mid-sized agencies are disappearing because they don´t have enough money to invest and because it´s almost impossible to compete with Getty and Corbis.

On the other hand also there are less photographers because it doesn´t make any sense to produce photography which will be sold for a dollar a piece.

Getty and Corbis are starting to teach clients that they can have our pictures almost for free and it will be very hard in the future to go back to a decent pricing.

The future looks very gloomy and even if I could understand why Getty is doing all this, I don't understand where Bill Gates is going.

From a cultural point of view what Corbis is doing is not big deal. Their approach to Photojournalism and Entertainment is not what it should be -- maybe it is only my impression -- but agencies like Sygma and Outline were doing much better in the past.

Maybe at Corbis someone should understand and know that a different approach and a different way of producing photography could give them finally more prestige and money.

Pino Granata

 

Pino Granata is the founder of Granata Images. Granata Images is now run by his sons and Pino works as editorial and stock photo consultant. He is been working in this industry since 43 years.

 

Related:

• Pino Granata: Who is the Dinosaur? (Feb. 06, 2007)
• Sipa Press Founder Goksin Sipahioglu Receives Premier French Order Légion d'honneur - A Comment By Pino Granata (Jan. 26, 2007)
• Pino Granata: Two Worlds Apart (Jan. 10, 2007)
• Picade, The New Photographer-Driven Stock Photo Agency: Forget RF Licensing, Photo Portals and Microstock (Nov. 28, 2006)
• A New Photographic Renaissance, by Pino Granata (Oct. 31, 2006)
• "Just fly in a different direction" (Oct. 10, 2006)
• The Bill Gates Mystery: An Open Letter From Pino Granata To The Founder Of Corbis (Oct. 03, 2006)
• "Is There A Future For Stock Agents?" (Sept. 20, 2006, by Jim Pickerell, Story 873, subscription required).
• Pino Granata: "Is there any future for photographers and agents?" (Sept. 16, 2006)
• Jason Pagan Launches Alternative Photojournalism Agency Anarchy Images (July 18, 2006)