StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2008-06-27

• Happy snappers zoom into the industry frame:
  Gary Shenk predicts sales of amateur snaps will triple in the next five years to control 25 per cent of the $2 billion global market.
  Today Corbis is a $320 million international business.
  The Sydney Morning Herald.

• Commercial on CNBC - nearly all iStock footage.

• Shortly after its 25th company anniversary, Bilderberg had to file for insolvency.

• I was just talking to an AP photographer and the bulk rates AP has worked out with clients has brought down the per image rate to new lows. He also told me that photographers will now not own their outtakes, that all images will be owned by AP. This prevents the photographers from selling the outtakes as their own stock.
  Peter Bennett of Ambient Images on stockphoto.net.

Pino Granata: Photography is dead

When I read that Corbis is selling pictures for the incredible low amount of 16 cents each I felt a terrible discomfort and depression.

I wondered why this nightmare is happening just to me. It looks like there´s no ending to insanity and craziness.

Talking about our business it seems to me that we are going from the stars to the stables. I´ve never seen an industry changing philosophy so dramatically like photography.

For decades we used to talk with great pride about high prices we used to charge our clients, now we see photo agencies selling pictures for a few cents.

Why is this happening?

Corbis´ Snapvillage: New Subscription Packages

"Approximately 80% of our images are available to subscribers". Full overview here. Still they believe in "PYOP" (Pick Your Own Price) for up to $50 for contributors vs. "You can even get ones that are normally priced at up to $50!" for photo buyers for only $0.16.

 

 

GumGum (again)

Since Ophir Tanz of GumGum couldn´t travel to the CEPIC meeting this year (being busy with the UTR conference days earlier) to present his company and since I ran out of time towards the end of the session to show his slides he had emailed me: below is a short introduction (higher resolution) about the services of GumGum and links to interviews he did with socalTECH.com and Epicenter from Wired.com.

 

 

QuickLinks For 2008-06-19

• Corbis unit changing name to GreenLight to reflect role:
  One division of Bill Gates´ image-licensing company, Corbis, is renaming itself to make its role clearer, the company said.
  Corbis´ Rights Services division, which owns and licenses the rights to images of deceased celebrities including Steve McQueen and Mae West, will change its name to GreenLight. Working with talent agencies, GreenLight will also take on the business of linking living celebrities with brands seeking famous people to represent them.
  Seattle Post-Intelligencer. [Update: more details here]

Pino Granata: About The New Corbis Museum

So I´m about to visit the site of the new Corbis museum: the MofAA. It was time, I thought, for our friend and colleague Bill Gates to do something of some cultural value for the community.

So very excited I go to see this new marvel. Well, it says that it is a virtual museum which - if I understand it right - means that it exists only in the digital world. Well better than nothing, I thought. So I went on www.mofaa.org, ready to see wonderful exhibitions and more.

A few shows are announced and the problems start. It looks like all the shows are reserved for benefactors only and I understand, our friend Bill Gates has a large family to support and he desperately needs my money and your money.

I try to register, but no luck. So I try again and nothing happens. Please, is there anybody who can suggest how I can enjoy the exibitions of this new "virtual" museum?

Photoshelter Buyer Survey 2008

QuickLinks For 2008-06-18

• Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo + more news soon:
  Fake officially left last Friday. Butterfield will leave on July 12. From what we hear, neither has imminent plans to work on any new projects, but I suspect we haven´€™t heard the last from either of them. Yahoo purchased Flickr for $35 million in March of 2005. In June 2007 Yahoo shutdown Yahoo Photos, making Flickr their exclusive photo sharing website. Today Flickr hosts over 2 billion images.
  TechCrunch/Michael.
  Related:
  
  • Flickr co-founders depart Yahoo (CNET/Stephen Shankland)
  • Yahoo's Yang may be yearning for yesterday (LA Times)

Dreamstime updates Prices, Levels, Sizes

Full overview here. Condensed in a nutshell:

• Subscription packages will sell at the same price, while royalties for them will be increased with 16.66%. The credit packages will increase royalties much more, with as high as 50-75% in average.

The bonuses awarded in each credit package will be a part of the future royalties. Starting middle of July, the value per credit will be calculated depending on the actual credit value referenced to the package acquired by the buyer.

Dreamstime Launches International Versions

Many have asked themselves why it was somehow so quiet around Dreamstime in the past months. Serban Enache explains what they were working on during the past six months:

Today we launch the biggest upgrade in Dreamstime´s history. The site is now available in six new languages: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch [yes, Dutch] and Portuguese.

At this time, our non-English traffic is above 40%. This upgrade will improve the experience of a large part of this traffic as well as attract new customers who were not able to use the site before.