StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Getty Images to acquire ABACA Press?

Acquiring additional revenues as strategy to grow in economically more promising areas: sources indicate that Getty Images has acquired french photo agency ABACA Press and its US subsidiary Abaca Press Americas.

It is said that the contracts were signed on Friday last week.

ABACA Press, with offices in New York and Paris, is best known for its entertainment, celebrity, news, portrait and sports photos, just like MediaVast and its brands.

QuickLinks For 2007-04-30

• ABCNews.com Relaunches with Citizen Journalism means "Licensee acknowledges that it will receive no compensation for the rights herein":
  "Licensor hereby grants to Licensee a non-exclusive license to use still pictures and digital video files and such other materials as may be submitted by Licensor hereunder (collectively, "the Footage"). Licensor hereby grants to Licensee the right to include the Footage (as provided by Licensor and/or as edited by Licensee) as well as the name of the Licensor (and copyright owner, if different than Licensor) in all programming and on the websites produced by Licensee, ABC News, its affiliates and other entities licensed to distribute ABC News programming worldwide in all media now known and hereafter conceived or created, including, without limitation, home video and Internet, and on-air promotion and advertising relating thereto, in perpetuity. Licensee acknowledges that it will receive no compensation for the rights herein."
  Steve Rubel, and Seth Finkelstein linking to the ABC license agreement.
  Tags: ABC ABCNews

For MTV commercial Young & Rubicam refuses to set a precedent by offering money for images, Robert Beck new 2007 Alfred E. Neumann Award Laureate

Robert Beck of Young & Rubicam receives the 2007 Alfred E. Neumann Award for Outstanding Achievements in Protecting Copyright and Promoting The Arts

This thread "MTV don't pay!" on Flickr started with these lines from Robert:

"I am a television producer at Young & Rubicam in New York City (www.yr.com) and I would like to gain permission from you to use one of you images titled "€˜Faces"€™ for a public service announcement commercial (PSA) for our client MTV. The PSA is for energy/emission awareness and the purpose of the commercial is to try and get more people to help conserve energy. [...]

The commercial is scheduled to air starting the week of May 1st on MTV so we are in a bit of a rush to get your permission."

QuickLinks For 2007-04-29

• Internet Growth Slowing: Bad News for US Newspapers:
  As print revenue for newspapers continues to decline, the industry may be facing more bad news: online growth seems to be slowing, just at a time when newspaper executives had been hoping the pace would pick up. [...]
  The slowing of growth may indicate a quicker tapering off of internet growth than was previously expected, says Ken Doctor, a newspaper analyst with Outsell Inc. He believes that when newspaper companies emerge from this time of transition, they will be "significantly smaller companies". Doctor foresees further cost reductions in terms of production and circulation.
  BAPLA, quoting MediaPost, with detailed numbers for Gannett, Tribune, New York Times and Times´ About.com.
  Tags: newspapers Online growth Advertisement revenues

QuickLinks For 2007-04-28

• Sony to launch video-sharing network:
  Sony said it will launch a video-sharing site in Japan, marking the firm's first step towards challenging Google´s YouTube service. News Corp. and NBC Universal said last month they would also launch a free online video site this year, as traditional media firms scramble to keep up with video sharing. Sony also hopes to introduce its service, called eyeVio, abroad.
  "It's an opportunity to transmit user-generated video anywhere you want to, anytime to anybody, in a protected environment," CEO Stringer said. Unlike YouTube, which has drawn criticism that it tolerates user piracy and faces a $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom Inc. alleging copyright violation, Sony said it would closely monitor content on the service.
  Reuters Technology on Thursday, sorry for being late on this. (LO)
  Tags: Sony eyeVio YouTube

QuickLinks For 2007-04-27, II

• Free Stock Photos:
  There seems to be a trend where all of the larger stock photography websites, excluding ShutterStock, offer free images, while the new and smaller players don’t.
  Could this be due to the economics of scale where larger organisations can afford the cost of offering a few free images, or does it reflect some internal strategy that’s responsible for the organisation’s success?
  Microstock Diaries.
  Great. Before I could do it myself, Microstock Diaries lists all microstock companies also delivering "free" stock photos, but there are many, many sites out there which do this already since years without being real "microstockies" like the ones we all know.

QuickLinks For 2007-04-27

• Advise on negotiating use of image - MTV don't pay!:
  An example of a big ad agency picking on the "small guy" who is unfamiliar with licensing/selling his image as a stock photo. Tools like PictureSandbox might be able to solve these problems by using a standard, simplified license based on Creative Commons (CC) 3.0 and accepting payments on behalf of the image owner.
  FlickrCentral/Discuss, over 70 comments so far.
  PictureSandbox takes 15% commission, so the user keeps 85%, in case the user has determined a price for the image or asked PictureSandbox to price it. Millions of CC-released images can already be licensed today with no payment (since the owner did not price it). In this case PictureSandbox simply serves the function of license documentation, so licensees can prove their right to use the image.
  Being a brand-new very interesting development in the picture business, I will do some Q&A with Augustine Fou of PictureSandbox later next week.
  Related:
  
  • Advertising Agency DDB Berlin Refuses To Pay For Possible Photo Usage In Advertising Campaign: The Very Special Story Of A Superb Flickr Photo (Sept. 29, 2006)
  • Lorenzodom/DDB Berlin: Follow-up On Previous Story (Oct. 01, 2006)
  • MAX Magazine Feels Really Sorry: How To Use Flickr Photographers To Maximize Your Company´s Profit (July 24, 2006)
  Tags: Flickr PictureSandbox

Changing the landscape: PictureSandbox for Flickr and YouTube

Without further ado and exclusively reported here, PictureSandbox is now online since a few moments: the relaunch of FlickrCash as PictureSandbox, which now incorporates YouTube search.

 

See for yourself. It rocks. Pure Flickr feeling for the photo enthusiasts.

 

QuickLinks For 2007-04-26, II

• Free for all:
  Photo-sharing websites such as Flickr and the abundance of images freely available on the Web are transforming the way photographs are sourced. The world of photography is being shaken up by the rise of user-generated content. Agencies, libraries, design consultancies, publishers - all are taking notice, amateur photographic content is seeping into professional areas, finding mass audiences.
  "A lot of designers are going to Flickr rather than the big agencies", says photographer Sion Touhig. They turn to user-generated content. As the user-generated libraries become increasingly corporate, the industry should settle. "It is the content of the future, and there is talk of monetising their collections", says Touhig.
  Mad.co.uk (requires registration, but free trial registration possible). (LO)
  Tags: Flickr

QuickLinks For 2007-04-26

• "Flickr, for example, has tolerated so many third-party apps with Flickr in their name, that it's hard to see them effectively bringing legal action against one they don't like. These companies carefully build application programming interfaces to let developers build new services on top of their websites ... FlickrCash, a service which searches Flickr, likewise neglects to mention Yahoo's interest in the name".
  Business 2.0 Beta, in "Can Amazon.com Play Nice with Others?".
  Related: Nifty and dangerous: FlickrCash (Apr. 18, 2007)
  Tags: Flickr FlickrCash