StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2007-09-30

• YouTube, Flickr Become Forces for Cultural Change.
  Jennifer Woodard Maderazo on Mark Glaser´s MediaShift.

• News Corp.’s Fox to Launch Free MySpace Mobile.
  Now that´s a piece. Reuters on NYT.

• I have now ceased to use iStockPhoto, Getty, Corbis for my stock photography:
  William Faulkner on why "the use of PicScout [should] be treated as hacking".

QuickLinks For 2007-09-29

• S&P Raises Ratings on Getty Images:
  Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Friday raised its ratings on stock images provider Getty Images and removed the ratings from CreditWatch. S&P raised its corporate credit rating on the company to "BB" from "B+." Both ratings are speculative, or junk bond, ratings.
  The rating action is based on the Seattle-based company becoming current in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, S&P said.
  Getty´s ratings were placed on CreditWatch in December 2006 after the company received notices from bondholders that the delay of its third-quarter filing constituted a default.
  The outlook on the company´s ratings remains negative because S&P is concerned about pressures on the company including the cyclical nature of the advertising and publishing industries. As of June 30, the company had $385 million of debt outstanding. Getty shares fell $1.09, or 3.8 percent, to $27.28 in afternoon trading.
  AP story (GYI actually at $27.75).

One Hundred Minutes James Nachtwey

Now on YouTube since a few hours: for his award-winning film War Photographer, Christian Frei followed James Nachtwey for two years into the wars in Indonesia, Kosovo, Palestine... . He used special micro-cameras attached to James Nachtwey´s camera.

10 videos, each around 10 minutes long. Below is Part I. Full DVD here.

 

 

QuickLinks For 2007-09-28

• F1 Online acquires RF distributor ImageDirekt:
  
  After acquiring Hamburg-based agency Imagine in 2004, Frankfurt-based photo agency F1 Online (around 1,5 million images) adds about 500,000 images to its image pool with the acquisition of ImageDirekt (located close to Frankfurt), representing now in total 18 RM and 25 RF partner agencies. The acquisition is expected to be completed on Oct. 1st.
  Source: Visuell, online edition. Since you were again so kind to quote content of this blog in your recent September/October issue on p. 19, without mentioning the source, you might feel mortally offended if in return I credit you with a link to boost your superb Alexa ranking of 1,8 million whatever.

QuickLinks For 2007-09-27, III

• New Multimedia agency:
  I am currently seeking submissions for a new all multimedia agency based in the US. I am looking for completed projects on all topics from every corner of the world. Projects must have at least two elements from stills, audio and video. If you are interested please contact me via e-mail at multimedia53@gmail.com.
  Photojournalist Michelle McLoughlin today on Lightstalkers.

• Good times, bad times:
  GYI closes at $28.37, up +$1.53, or +5.70%, after the new multi-year Low of $26.26.
  After Hours it´s even at $28.78, up +$0.41, or +1.45% (4:09PM ET).

  

  
  Also, JUPM is up +$0.10, or 1.56%, at $6.51, at the same time.

Jupiterimages´ Dynamic Graphics brand to sell selected Stockxpert images

Macrostock, midstock, microstock... .

Jupiterimages announced today to accept image submissions from contributors to its microstock division Stockxpert to be sold under the respected Dynamic Graphics RF brand and through its worldwide network of agents.

QuickLinks For 2007-09-27, II

• "As a point of clarification" on the PhotoShelter collection:
  If you´re content with the sales you´re making with microstock, that´s fine. The notion isn´t that PhotoShelter will replace microstock.
  
  It´s our belief that different images have different values, and the issue with microstock is that it forces all images to have the same value.
  

QuickLinks For 2007-09-27

• Camera robot gives virtual tourism a leg up:
  Carnegie Mellon University announced a $300 robot designed to easily enable people to create super high resolution panoramic pictures - and the GigaPan website to let anyone in the world dive into them.
  Stephen Shankland/CNET (podcast available here), quite a crazy story ("the act of looking at the image becomes an act of exploration").

• S&P makes changes to S&P MidCap 400, SmallCap 600 and REIT Composite Indices:
  Stock photo distributor Getty Images will replace Greater Bay Bancorp in the S&P MidCap 400 at an undetermined date.
  AP story on Yahoo Finance.

QuickLinks For 2007-09-26, II

• GYI hits new multi-year Low of $26.26 in the morning:
  Not a big jump down from the previous Low, $26.50, but it actually just happened.
  

  

  The stock is currently at $26.84, down -$0.24, or -0.89% (3:44PM ET).
  JUPM instead is up +$0.21, or +3.39%, at $6.41 at the same time.

MediaMagnet by a21

Just a quick note that a21 today unveiled officially the expected MediaMagnet platform ("Our markets are at an inflection point" with "dynamic shift in our markets", said a21 CEO John Ferguson two weeks ago).

More details for the moment here and in the FAQ.

Beta coming late 2007..., the website says.

Related:

• a21´s SuperStock and Pixsy Team to Create a Bigger Picture (May 10, 2007)
• Pixsy Distributing SuperStock Content (May 11, 2007)

QuickLinks For 2007-09-26

• ucgDb, A New Home for UGC Creators:
  There is a new player in the UGC field: The San Francisco-based User-Generated Content Database (ugcDb), which expects to become the "Who's Who" of the UGC world.
  
  As the name hints, this site has a pretty similar structure to that of IMDB.com, with the distinction that they focus on the content creators and the community around them.
  
  Mainstream media and advertising are constantly trying to find a way to take advantage of the passion behind UGC, and many amateur creators are hoping to use UGC as a stepping-stone toward a more profitable production model.

QuickLinks For 2007-09-25, II

• Good-bye Jonny, I´m flying the coop:
  John McKay has left his position as the top lawyer at Getty Images after less than four months.
  
  He joined Getty June 1st as SVP and general counsel. His last day there was Sept. 17.
  
  "It was a short time," McKay acknowledged, adding he was grateful to Getty CEO Jonathan Klein for agreeing to the move.
  
  He declined to comment further on his experience at Getty, saying it would not be appropriate to talk about matters that could be ongoing legal issues. He oversaw a legal staff of about 20.
  

QuickLinks For 2007-09-25

• Candid Camera: The cult of Leica.
  Nobody does bourgeois solidity like the Germans: you can imagine coming here for coffee and cakes with your aunt, but that would be the limit of excitement.
  [dream on, buddy]
  
  But here is the place to go, if you want to find the most beautiful mechanical objects in the world. [...]
  
  Asked how he thought of the Leica, Cartier-Bresson said that it felt like "a big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch". [...]
  
  I remembered what Cartier-Bresson once said about turning from painting to photography: "The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world".
  
  The New Yorker, SEVEN (7!) pages.

Alamy: Novel Use - Further clarification

Alan Capel of Alamy today in "Novel Use - Further clarification" (abbreviated), the third major announcement within seven days:

We have been reading the feedback on both this blog and on the Alamy Forum and felt it may be helpful to reiterate some of the key points regarding novel use. It is an optional scheme, we´ve changed the contract because it´s an addition to our current model but if you chose to opt out then its business as usual.

Novel use is not about discounting, it has been implemented to enable us to sell images for usages that fall outside of our standard price calculator. Novel use is also not the same as Microstock, both RF and RM images can be included and whereas with Microstock you are committing to only work with that business model.

Update on Digital Railroad: "Any Kind of Media File"

Lat week I mentioned PhotoShelter´s video with Allen Murabayashi/Grover Sanschagrin.
Today -- to be fair -- it´s Evan Nisselson from Digital Railroad with an update.
Who knows? Maybe one day we see James Alamy? Brad IPNStock? Bernd Picturemaxx?

   

(Video by Franck Perrier of EYEKA, interview conducted in Perpignan/VISA pour l’Image 2007 on Sept. 7th. Franck mentions finally: both companies have one common investor).

QuickLinks For 2007-09-24

• Push Things Forward:
  We're at a cultural standstill that started sometime in the late 1990s. [...]
  To be specific, today's problem is "user generated content". Not because it is user-generated, but because it´s completely disorganized. In old media, you have editors who say, "This is good, people should see it". Now, we have "Most Viewed" pages. If you remove human intervention from focus group studies and market research, you get "Most Viewed" -- a system where the lowest common denominator of human interests are celebrated automatically; where the aggregated whims of an uncoordinated mob dictate our cultural touchstones; where the mindlessness of strangers is rebranded as "collective intelligence."
  It's time to introduce a simple idea to the world: user generated editorial. Allow the people to organize the videos they create. This is so obviously necessary yet no one has done it.
  Jokob Lodwick, founder of Vimeo, about "The web has more potential than any other medium in human history, and here we are chuckling at ten second blurry videos of imbeciles getting smashed on the head with a cantaloupe".

QuickLinks For 2007-09-23

• Podcast - Adam Pretty interviewed by Jonathan Klein:
  

  

  
  Getty Images Sport Blog: "Thanks Adam for taking time out of your busy day learning Chinese to do this podcast with us." Click here for the podcast.

• "Enjoy Bavarian beer in huge tents". -You better try this one.

QuickLinks For 2007-09-22

• A Wartime Photographer in Her Own Light:
  In 1936, the lovers and photographers André Friedmann and Gerta Pohorylle changed their names and, in the process, the history of photography. To distinguish themselves from other Jewish émigrés in Paris Mr. Friedmann took the name Robert Capa; Ms. Pohorylle became Gerda Taro.
  Mr. Capa went on to become one of the world´s greatest war photographers. But Ms. Taro, seen by many as the first woman known to photograph a battle from the front lines and to die covering a war, survived in the public eye mostly for her romance with Mr. Capa. 70 years after Ms. Taro´s death at age 26, the first major exhibition of her work begins at the International Center of Photography.
  "This is really a discovery", said ICP director Willis E. Hartshorn, the director at I.C.P. "It adds immeasurably to the perspectives and history of photography."
  NYT in a long article.

PhotoShelter New York Town Hall Panel Discussion:"We´re gonna take one last question"

They talk a lot to really no end, for which they are notorious!

   

Veer: Creative Director, North America

Veer provides visual elements for use in professional creative work, such as graphic design, motion design, advertising, and filmmaking. The image industry is a driving passion for the management and employees of Veer.

With thousands of satisfied customers, years of industry experience, and an unparalleled set of skills, the people at Veer have what it takes to deliver exciting, innovative products to enhance creativity. Want to join us?

Veer is currently looking for a:

• Creative Director, North America

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

MyWire Photo Encyclopedia: CEO & Publisher

The MyWire Photo Encyclopedia is a digital collection of photographs from the world’s top photographers in an encyclopedic format. Each encyclopedic entry contains 50 to 100 photos, and accompanying text provides a rich photojournalistic experience. Similar to Wikipedia in potential size the Encyclopedia can grow to several million entries. The goal of the Encyclopedia is to have the world’s best and iconic images for each entry.

The MyWire Photo Encyclopedia is looking for a:

• seasoned CEO & Publisher to lead this exciting project.

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

The Corbis Poem and the European Commission

New ways of marketing. New kinds of weapons.

Now this one is really crazy.

In our all-mad-about-YouTube times one of the photographers from a very freedom-loving folk who got upset by the Terms & Conditions of Corbis´ "I am buried" marketing campaign has commissioned a poem from a professional poet to better express his feelings in this matter. I guess rarely anything similar has ever happened.

As for Corbis, it is indicated that they have learned from this affair. Photographers close to the Anti - I am buried campaign disclosed that their protest will continue by indicating that it was now about "getting regulatory changes made to prohibit the acquisition of rights for free by such terms and conditions, and that the Corbis competition had simply been a catalyst for such a movement."

QuickLinks For 2007-09-20

• Dreamstime is now live on PictureSandbox. It´s a home run.
  

• Leading a horse to troubled water and a "smug sense of schadenfreude":
  British Journal of Photography with another article on the $49-web-use story.

• "Since it's your birthday, you decide -- Would you rather get spanked ... Or goosed? Happy birthday!":
  Farmer Andrew Marsinko sues (amongst others) Getty Images and Jupiterimages for unlawful use of a portrait photo, seeking $7.5 million in damages for "defamation, unauthorized use of a picture, conspiracy and attempted conspiracy, and reckless infliction of emotional distress".
  Conspiracy? Nice greeting card.
  The Washington Times in "Greeting-card teasing gets this farmer´s goose" and VA-based Roanoke Times (where the complaint was filed) in "Farmer files lawsuit over use of his picture".
  (both based on a AP story).

QuickLinks For 2007-09-19

• Getty initiative riles photographers:
  Getty´s Alison Crombie defends the move, however, saying that the $49 web licence is an essential response to changing market conditions. "Things have changed. For online use companies now want to use images that they refresh three times a day. It's high volume, fast usage and we have to be able to compete. We're responding to changes." [...]
  "Photographers do have contracts with us and are informed of the terms under which their images are sold, and the fact that they can change. So we do have the right to make changes under the terms of the contract. (But) we´ve decided to reduce the duration to three months on RR and RR images in response to feedback from photographers."
  The concession has been met by little enthusiasm by the photographers' groups protesting against the deal. A UK spokesperson for the group says the 3 month limit is "not enough" and reiterated calls for RM images to be dropped from the $49 deal. "Photographers don't spend £5000 on a shoot only to have their images sold at this price", she states.
  British Journal of Photography (abbreviated).

Alamy: Novel Use Scheme, not to be confused with micropayment

James West of Alamy today in "Novel Use Scheme - money from unusual places" (abbreviated), the second announcement within two days:

Alamy is often approached by organisations requesting licences that fall outside of our standard price model. Sometimes these may be deals involving a high volume of sales at a low price, other times we have ideas for selling images in new and unusual ways that we don’t feel we can pursue without your consent.

Previously Alamy has turned these deals down and filed these ideas away.