StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2007-08-31

• YouTube to pay royalties:
  The deal with the British organization, MCPS-PRS Alliance, which collects royalties for British musical artists, is believed to be the first full agreement. Analysts suggest it could run into the tens of millions of dollars.
  More in the AP story:
  •YouTube to Pay British Licenser for Use of Songs (NYT)
  •YouTube Agrees to Music Royalty Deal For U.K. Performers and Songwriters (WSJ)

This prediction will quickly become reality

Details.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-30, II

• Newspapers’ Ad Revenue Going From Worse To Worst:
  A series of articles in E&P today offered a range of the newspaper industry’s health - and the prognosis went from terrible, with a brief respite, at one end to endless deterioration at the other.
  David Kaplan/paidContent.
  Related: "The stock photo business is based on selling pictures for print uses".
  (can´t remember the source)

QuickLinks For 2007-08-30

• Getty Images Director Alan G. Spoon Buys 10,000 Shares:
  A director of Getty Images bought 10,000 shares of stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday. In a Form 4 filed with the SEC, Alan G. Spoon reported he bought the shares for $31.11 apiece on Friday.
  Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be reported within two business days of the transaction.
  Forbes/AP story. GYI is at $31.13, up $2.12 from its recent 52Wk low of $29.01.
  Alan G. Spon has been a director for Getty since May 2006 and managing general partner of Polaris Ventures focussed on investments in digital media/e-commerce.

View, share and discuss imagery: Corbis can be your Second Life

Corbis is the first major stock photo industry player to have a presence in Second Life, the 3-D virtual world with more than nine million members.

Corbis will present visual content from different Corbis collections, SnapVillage, Corbis Rights Services as well as Corbis Motion.

Image licensing will not be available at this time via Second Life.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-29

• "Alive in Baghdad: Can Citizen Journalism Done Right Pay the Bills?:
  Alive in Baghdad is arguably the best-positioned citizen news video outfit in the world... .

 

 

QuickLinks For 2007-08-28, II

• New Getty Images RF brand Valueline:
  We talked in Florence also about the midstock model of Panthermedia and  LuckyOliver´s Sideshow. Now midstock is no longer a domain only of Panthermedia and LuckyOliver.
  Getty Images is "slicing off a portion of its portfolio to sell as midstock [under the new RF brand Valueline starting on August 31]. 100,000 royalty free photos will be removed from the bulging Getty portfolio to be sold under the Valueline brand at Punchstock.com. The images were all created prior to December 2005 and are drawn from various collections that Getty owns or markets for the photographers.
  Prices start at US$19 for a small web-sized image. All other sizes are US$49. This places them firmly in the midstock range - lower than macrostock prices that generally start around US$300, but higher than microstock prices will typically peak at US$10.
  Getty also failed to convert microstock buyers to their full-price products".
  Free abstract over at Lee Torrens, full article on Selling-Stock.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-28

• Brazil Propels Fotolog:
  Executives at Fotolog Inc. cheered in 2002 when they saw a surge in the number of people using their photo-sharing and social-networking Web site. Then they scratched their heads: The explosive growth was in Brazil.
  Yesterday, New York-based Fotolog was acquired by Hi-Media Group, an Internet advertising firm based in Paris, for about $90 million, making it the latest acquisition of a social-networking Web site and the first one with a user base largely outside the U.S.
  Antonio Regalado/WSJ (requires subscription).

Photosharing and social networking site Fotolog to be sold to french Hi-Media Group for $90 million

While the small stock photo world is talking about Getty Images´new revamped website and the new low-priced web resolution images, the big news today, now official after earlier rumors, is the agreement that the french interactive media company and electronic micropayment solution provider Hi-Media Group will acquire Fotolog for $90 million.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-27

• The Bizzaro World of Orphan Works:
  In the upcoming Bizarro World of Photography, if you do an unspecified "good faith search" for the owner of an image and you can´t find the owner, you can assume you can use the image.
  [But if] the publisher can’t find the photographer of a photo and while searching the Orphan Database, the photo editor finds one close enough, with ownership information. The database just became a stock agent of some sort, by linking the photo editor with a new photographer and suitable photo.
  We just created a new revenue stream for photographers from the orphan works legislation. Will photographers ever let this happen?
  Stanley Rowin/Pro Photo Business Blog.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-26

• "Our bosses are panicking. Will video save us? Larger forces are a work I think":
  There's a great thread Video = Self-destruction of Photojournalism over at SportsShooter started by Newport News photojournalist Heather Hughes where voices some very real concerns a lot of us our having in this ever-changing market. She ends by asking if anyone else sees this so-called "trend" the way she do: as the self-destruction of photojournalism.
  APAD (quoted in the first line is responding photographer Chris Pietsch).
  Mark Loundy writes: "You´ve got to stop thinking of the place you work as a "newspaper." Newspapers are dead and the companies that own them will follow them down the drain if they don't seperate the content from the medium".

Behind the Scenes

No microstock. Watching photographer Chase Jarvis working for UpperCut Images.

 

QuickLinks For 2007-08-25

• Getty Images, Corbis bank on interest in celebrities:
  "I don't know what it is about celebrities," said Kristl Date-Dopps, Getty`s global director of footage marketing. "People are intrigued by the lives of the rich and famous and infamous." [...]
  Beate Chelette, senior director of photography for entertainment at Corbis, pointed out that entertainment magazines are flourishing while readership declines at other publications and that celebrities are increasingly taking the place of unknown models to advertise products.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-24

• Jonathan Klein went through tough times in the past months:
  Analyst Matthew Troy of the Citigroup asked Klein recently ("Good afternoon!") in consideration of the old public versus private debate if Getty Images "could you be doing more as a non-public company?".
  Others argued "if it wouldn´t even be uncharacteristic for the co-founders Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein to try to mount an MBO".

Capture, compose, share: Justin Jarvinen and the new Photo.com website as next-generation social community

 

QuickLinks For 2007-08-23, II

• My experiences with microstock photography:
  Shutterstock - I do not recommend them in the strongest terms. Fotolia - it is very easy to get images accepted here. Dreamstime - I cancelled my account and submitted elsewhere.
  Joe Calev in a very personal and thus not entirely representative review.

• User generated photos on Reuters:
  We started our User Generated Content site You Witness about nine months ago and I’m happy to report that it is doing well. It is clear already that user generated content can comfortably exist beside our professional product and on some occasions enhance it.
  Tom Szlukovenyi in an updated Reuters Blog article.

Image Source: Account/Business Development Manager, Channel Sales

Image Source is the world´s leading independent producer and brand for creative and commercial royalty free stock photography. Founded in 1999 by Christina Vaughan, Image Source now supplies images to creative professionals based around the world 24/7 through imagesource.com. Image Source is headquartered in London, UK with sales offices in Cologne, Germany, and New York, USA. The company also supplies imagery through over 250 distribution partners worldwide. This strong international sales network enabled the company to win the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade Category in 2005.

Image Source currently has a job vacancy for a:

• Account/Business Development Manager, Channel Sales, in their London Office.

All details and contact information here at Worldwide Stock Photo Industry Jobs.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-23

• Nikon and Canon Offer High-End Cameras in Fight for Pro Market:
  After decades as the undisputed leader of the market for professional 35-millimeter cameras, Nikon finds itself in an unfamiliar position in the digital age. Canon so dominates the professional market today, particularly when it comes to photojournalism, that it recently tweaked Nikon’s nose with an advertising campaign about its triumph.
  Now the companies are renewing the fight. Today Nikon is introducing two cameras that it hopes will help it regain its old position. The new Nikon D3 is the first camera from the company with a full-size sensor.
  The NYT today.
  Related:
  •Nikon Reveals Groundbreaking D3 Pro SLR, Introduces the Nikon FX Format
    (Aug. 23, 2007)
  •Nikon enlists new cameras in battle vs Canon (Reuters today)
  •Nikon Reveals D3 Pro SLR (PopPhoto)

Microstock TomatoFest! scandal: Fotolia denies involvement, no Fotolia Tomatoes™ subscription service

Serious rumors indicated yesterday that Fotolia is the secret sponsor of the new microstock contest "Show us your ugliest Tomato" and masterminded substantially the new Microstock TomatoFest! Manifesto.

Fotolia has now officially confirmed "that Fotolia, unfortunately, has nothing to do with the contest".

This statement however comes along with a big question mark.

QuickLinks For 2007-08-22

• YouTube to Start Selling Ads in Videos:
  Nearly 10 months after Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion, the video-sharing Web site is rolling out its first approach for selling ads within videos. The anticipated move, announced last night, answers speculation concerning Google´s formula for mining revenue from the site and is expected to start to bring standardization to the growing ad market for Web video.
  WSJ (requires subscription).
  Related:
  
  • Google Aims to Make YouTube Profitable With Ads (NYT today)
  • The Associated Press to Offer NBC Video Content for OLympic Games
    (NYT yesterday)

QuickLinks For 2007-08-21

• More microstock tomatoes, and more pictures of the ugliest tomatoes:
  Unsolicited and still unconfirmed rumors have it that Fotolia is the secret sponsor of the new groundbreaking microstock photography contest "Show us your ugliest Tomato".
  
  This contest was announced today by tomatoes marketleader Santa Sweets originally as the 'Un-Perfect' Tomatoes Pictures Contest.
  
  Joe Procacci, CEO of the Procacci Brothers Sales Corporation which owns Santa Sweets added additionally: "It has taken me 59 years in the tomato business to develop and market the UglyRipe tomato from Santa Sweets. Now we are ready for some competition to see just how ugly other people's tomatoes are this season and await eagerly great microstock images of strange looking tomatoes with lumps and bumps".
  (more details in today´s The Microstock TomatoFest! Manifesto)
  
  Various insiders suppose that Fotolia will market this new microstock image offering under the brand Fotolia Tomatoes™ as a new subscription service, allowing image buyers to access as much as 25 microstock tomatoes/day in a 30-days-period.

Where to Go and What to See?

Despite some minor flaws -- it´s two months old and the storyboard is not fully up-to-date -- the best way to demonstrate the old dilemma as every year whether one should attend Perpignan or Amsterdam is this video produced by Casaleggio Associati: "The narrator even sounds a little like Dracula" (David Schonauer).

QuickLinks For 2007-08-20

• Firms dig for rights to dead celebrities:
  The business of digging up dead celebrities to pitch products is getting cutthroat, with management firms now taking a much more aggressive approach to licensing and marketing the iconic images. [...]
  What has changed is the mad scramble behind the scenes among companies that specialize in dead celebrities - thanks to the lucrative fees. [...]
  Corbis gained a foothold in 2005 by acquiring a Beverly Hills firm that held the rights to the images of 50 notables, including Andy Warhol, Albert Einstein and Steve McQueen. Corbis sends its sales reps around the world to court companies. Their efforts paid off with three new deals using McQueen to sell toys, racing gear and clothing. [But] Corbis isn't the only company making a killing.
  NY Post in a slightly ironical article, with an illustrating image "Death factor".
  Related:
  •Corbis Acquires Roger Richman Agency (Apr. 06, 2005)
  •Corbis finds lively market for dead stars (Apr. 06, 2005), quoted here earlier.

Stockxpert´s 1st Annual Image Contest

To preserve and to protect our natural environment: Jupiterimages´microstock website stockxpert is looking for its 1st Annual Image Contest for your best "images that depict or conceptualize the different way in which the global community is helping to make the world a cleaner, a greener place to live".

Contest guidelines are available here, more information in stockxpert´s contest forum.

iStockphoto´s Punctum Day Awards

Still being "incidentally the biggest, the most successful and the most profitable imagery community in the world" (Jonathan Klein), iStockphoto has announced the finalists in the five categories (Photo, Vector, Video, Flash file and Design) for the Punctum Day Awards. Click on the image below to visit the photo gallery with the finalists or follow this link.