StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2008-11-26

• The Agency: Production Tactics from Rights Managed to Microstock.
  A lecture by Christina Vaughan, CEO, Image Source, during a PACA, CEPIC, BAPLA, PICTA, the User Generated Content Conference and Expo in San Jose.

• Is a 35% commission unfair to the photographer?:
  Yes, but it keeps companies like Getty Images in business.
  PhotoShelter´s Allen Murabayashi on a company called Digital Railroad.

• DRR and “What Happened?”:
  DRR´s fate is not a result of the business we were in, or the platform we built, but a consequence of strategies and gambles often taken by early-stage business in order to grow.
  Digital Railroad´s former CTO Andy Parsons on a company called - you got it.

• Alamy, Virtual Picture Desk and Universal Images Group:
  That´s [coop with Universal Images Group by Virtual Picture Desk] a new direction for Alamy content which has always been self edited by the contributors themselves. How the selection process will be performed is currently a mystery.
  Photo Spy.

Pino Granata: For Photography Big Is Bad

After the acquisition of Jupiterimages Getty Images will become bigger and will gain more share of the market.

As Clark Gable said, I don´t give a damn.

Now we´ll have over ten millions of LIFE pictures on Google which is quite a lot of competition for agencies which specialize in historical pictures.

The good thing about this operation is that, as it seems, Life is not going to charge for private usage and that we´ll have the chance to see the treasure that is the LIFE collection. I´m very, very excited about that.

This is something that our friend Bill should have done with the Bettman collection years ago.

QuickLinks For 2008-11-20

• Digital Railroad Inc. Information Page:
  
  • Question: I am a photographer whose images have been used by a publisher and I know that the publisher paid Digital Railroad for the use of my images. Digital Railroad has not paid me for my images. When will I get paid?
  • Answer: [Are you kidding me?] No, the company lacks the cash necessary to refund payments or pay any unsecured creditor.
  Latest update (11/10/08) on Diablo Management`s DRR website.

Jupiterimages Revenues

From Jupitermedia´s recent SEC filing:

"The decrease in revenues during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2008 is due primarily to declines in direct sales of royalty-free single images and CD-ROMs and in sales from third party distributors, partially offset by an increase in subscription revenues. This was mainly due to changes in the images industry, including the emergence of competitive image offerings such as micropayment."

Which sounds exactly like the last quarter ("Jupitermedia 10-Q filing", Aug. 13, 2008).

Related: 

• Jupitermedia Corporation Reports An Adjustment to Its Results For The Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2008 (Nov. 11, 2008):
  Reporting a corrected operating income loss of $42,108 million (instead of initially $2,108 million) and (instead of initially $22,622 million) a net loss of $62,622 million for the three months ended Sept.30, 2008, respectively (instead of initially $27,018 million) a net loss of $67,018 million for the nine month ended Sept. 30, 2008.
• Shares of JUPM are currently down to $0.215, with a new 52Wk Low of $0.21.
• P.S.: shares of A21 are currently at $0,002.

QuickLinks For 2008-11-12

• The very last curtain after the final curtain for Digital Railroad:
  
  • The creditor will have all information erased from the storage devices and then sell the equipment at auction. We will work, with the assistance of photographer associations to have the publishers pay the photographers directly. (Diablo)
  • We´ve asked Diablo to provide details of all outstanding invoices and contact info for the photographers and clients. A meeting is scheuled this week with the secured creditor. (SAA)
  • Newscom's managing director Bill Creighton told News Photographer magazine yesterday that Newscom dropped out after their review proved the idea to be too difficult and too costly. "We looked at what it would take to run it on a daily basis, and it was going to need a lot of hand-holding, more than we expected." (NPPA)
  • A source with knowledge of Digital Railroad´s finances said the company had burned through at least $20 million in investments and loans. Digital Railroad owed $1 million to a bank and more in unpaid bills. (PDN)
  • Several photo agencies that were with Digital Railroad have signed up with picturemaxx, a German company that provides hosting for stock libraries. Agencies making the switch to picturemaxx include Redux, eyevine, VII Photo, Noor, CandidatePhotos.com and others, according to Tom Tinervin.
    Virtual Picture Desk said it is helping migrate several Digital Railroad-powered stock agencies to IPN Stock or Photolibrary. (PDN again).
  (Compiled/Abbreviated).

QuickLinks For 2008-11-07

• Jupitermedia Q3/2008 results and conference call:
  "I just called the replay number for the conference. It appears no one bothers to listen. There were no questions. How sad is that?" (reader´s comment).
  
  •More details here.
  •Full PDF report here.
  •Jupiterimages/Getty Images FAQ: Internal Use Only - Do Not Distribute.

Newscom to acquire Digital Railroad?

A new memo from Diablo Management (full text):

Digital Railroad has received a letter of intent (LOI) to purchase the assets of DRR, specifically its hardware and application software used to store and retrieve images with the desire to continue providing services to DRR members and customers with as little disruption as possible. [...] The acquiring company will have no right to sell or distribute these images without the owner´s prior approval.