StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

New Feature on Flickr: Request to License Feature by Getty Images

Finally, after all those years (1; 2; 3; 4), some abbreviated news from Flickr/Getty:

"Since the Flickr Collection’s debut in March 2009, more than 100,000 images have been made available for customers to license. These pictures were taken by 10,000 photogs in more than 100 countries, all of whom are active in the Flickr community. But what if you’ve found the perfect image on Flickr and it’s not part of the collection?"

 

 

The Biggest Thing Since the Domestication of Animals

Canadian companies in the photo business have/had some striking people running them ... Bruce Livingstone, Leila Boujnane, Stewart Butterfield, to name a few. The latter was announced last year as a speaker but then could not make it to Hannover, hometown of the CeBIT, the Centre of Office and Information technology and the world's largest computer expo.

Now Stewart is back with a keynote ("Connected Worlds: Surfing the Wave of Change Together") for CEBIT 2010, about "The Biggest Thing Since the Domestication of Animals", and a roundtable opportunity.

Flickr Clouds from Getty Images

News from The Flickr Collection:

Getty Images added a Flickr photo clouds feature, which lets users visually group images that catch their eye.

These new image clouds are fully searchable in three different ways: via a particular username, keyword or cloud topic.

For example, a user looking for inspiration around “winter” can either review all image clouds that contain an image with the keyword “winter,” or simply review image clouds with “winter” in the cloud title, regardless of the image keywords.

Users can also share their clouds with the community, download a desktop widget and screensaver, export their clouds to Facebook, view other users’ clouds, mark favorites and follow fellow users.

Getty Images and Flickr launch the Flickr Collection

Quickly:

• The details.
• How it looks on the front page.
• The Flickr Collection itself.
• Below the price range for a specific image:

Yet the split Getty/photographer remains unclear for the moment. Jason Cincaid once wrote: "There is no set payout structure - each selected participant in the program will need to negotiate their own deal with Getty".

Denise Waggoner writes: "The creative and photo research teams at Getty Images from all over the world (I’m talking China, Brazil, the US, UK and beyond) have spent the last several months exploring ... all Flickr has to offer ... there are three BILLION pictures on Flickr and we are literally at the tip of 'ye olde iceberg.' We’re starting small and then we’ll continue our journey and add thousands of new pictures a month".

Related:

• Flickr + Getty Images: An old story* gets new blood
  (July 9, 2008)

QuickLinks For 2008-10-31

• Getty: Flickr photo fees still not decided:
  Photographers whose Flickr pictures are to be used by Getty Images still don´t know how much they will get paid. Nearly four months on, it is not yet clear whether amateurs will get paid the same as a professional for their images.
  A Getty spokeswoman told us that the amount amateurs will get paid will be decided when images are uploaded to the Getty website early next year.
  When asked whether the photographer will be given details of their prospective fee, before or after their photos appear on the Getty website, the spokeswoman added: "Getty will work directly with Flickr members who are invited to be part of the Flickr collection to determine the specifics of each business relationship, and members will have direct connections with representatives at Getty."
  Amateur photographer/Chris Cheesman (abbreviated).

Flickr + Getty Images: An old story* gets new blood

• Great Photo on Flickr? Getty Images Might Pay You For It (NYT Blog):
  Getty will make payments to Flickr, but detailed terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Mr. Klein said that financially the deal will be immaterial for both Yahoo and Getty Images. Over time, however, thousands of Flickr photographers may benefit.
  Getty also runs a site called iStockPhoto, where amateurs contribute photos that the company markets at lower rates. The photos on Flickr are of sufficent quality to demand higher prices, Mr. Klein said.

QuickLinks For 2007-11-12

• PhotoShelter Collection online:
  The newly launched PhotoShelter Collection enables photographers of all levels to benefit from a worldwide image-selling marketplace that returns commercial and creative independence back into the hands of the artist. For commercial photo buyers, The PhotoShelter Collection aims to offer the freshest editorialized collection of imagery online.
  More details about PhotoShelter´s "Rating System".
  Look also at PhotoShelter´s new "The Contemporary Collection".

• Microsoft Wants To Create The Next Flickr:
  The feature team is building a next-generation photo and video sharing service that will compete with flickr, smugmug and other photo web solutions today.
  Duncan Riley/TechCrunch. - Microsoft is at the forefront of innovation again.
  Related:
  
  • Microsoft is readying its Flickr competitor (Harrison Hoffman)

 

Stewart Butterfield joins Zooomr to leave Flickr

The web is full of rumors what happened during Yahoo´s executives monster meeting.

Owen Thomas/Valleywag writes today:

At least one key Yahoo executive was unswayed by Friday´s revival meeting featuring Steve Jobs: Stewart Butterfield, the founder and general manager. Butterfield, Valleywag has learned, plans to leave to, well, spend more time with his family. Yahoo, too, might have a claim on Butterfield´s devotion, in the midst of a precarious revamp. But Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, while a big supporter of Flickr himself, is not nearly as cute. No word on whether Butterfield´s wife, Caterina Fake, now a high-ranking Yahoo executive, plans any move, or who will replace Butterfield at Flickr.

Related:

• Flickr Founders Fake And Butterfield Named Among 100 Most Influential People In The World (May 06, 2006)

(Photo: DAVID WALDORF FOR TIME)

QuickLinks For 2007-10-01

• Use My Photo? Not Without Permission:
  Much more than a virtual attic for old photographs, Flickr has flourished as a gathering point for friends and family who want to keep in touch with one another’s lives. Simultaneously Flickr has become a global clearinghouse for images; at last count, it had more than a billion of them.
  There are many accusations of people misusing Flickr photographs.
  
  In the world of creative works, photography has always been in a category alone. The camera was seen as a "soul stealer" in its infancy, and the fact that a photo was a copy of reality intrigued theorists like Susan Sontag, who wrote presciently in "On Photography" (1977) about the attraction to photos felt by ad directors.
  NYT/Noam Cohen in detail on the pitfalls of using Flickr images without model releases, Creative Commons named in a lawsuit, and four illustrating examples.
  Related:
  
  • Virgin sued for using teen´s photo (Sept. 21, 2007) (thx EN)

 

Grumpy today

... but only in this photo and not in the interview the BBC conducted with Stewart Butterfield, published yesterday (nearly 30 minutes).

Stewart talks "about his success, the future of the internet, and how web 2.0 sites like Flickr, YouTube and Facebook are changing our lives."

Maybe he just got tired to respond to 2.0 questions like "Let´s talk about the next generation then, do you think their brains are different from ours?"

Flickr + Economist on photopreneur

Many sources track down where and how intensively microstock and also Flickr photos are published on websites and, more valuable for certain reasons, in print publications.

The relatively new photopreneur blog (general announcement about their future), quoted here earlier when Adam Brotman of SnapVillage was interviewed, runs today an article on "Economist Website Turns To Flickr As Photo Source" and quotes Graham Douglas, Economist.com' s Head of Graphics:

Flickr images on PictureSandbox up and running again

"In this town, luck can change that quickly".

 

Killed in action: No more Flickr images on PictureSandbox

Flickr again pulled the plug.

Flickr for sure has its very own reasons for this decision, and anyone has to respect that.

But if it were not so sad for the "victims", it would be laughable. If it were not so unpleasant for the involved persons, any non-combatant observer would consider this whole mess to be only more odd fun along the road: "We are so sorry, but your Flickr API Key license has expired".

Zooomr Mark III Launches

Zooomr, managed by Stewart Butterfield´s former fellow Thomas Hawk, is relaunching and it received such a big media coverage in news and blogs like the first flight to the moon: "Hi guys, I´m Neil Armstrong and I´m live blogging directly about our landing on the moon from the Universal Picture Studios the moon reporting that it´s just one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind".

PictureSandbox: Searching 36 Million Creative Commons Photos

The new NYC-based start up PictureSandbox, founded by Dr. Augustine Fou and recently presented here, announces on this date that approximately 36 million photos currently marked with one of the six flavors of Creative Commons licenses, out of Flickr´s around 400+ million photos, can be licensed right now for free using PictureSandbox.

PictureSandbox serves in this case the function of license documentation, so licensees can prove their right to use the image using a standard, simplified license based on the Creative Commons 3.0 license model.

If Microsoft acquires Yahoo, what about Flickr and Corbis?

MSNBC/The Associated Press today runs a story entitled "Microsoft eyeing deal to buy Yahoo, Report: Web portal seen valued at $50 billion":

The New York Post reported Friday that Microsoft has asked Yahoo to enter formal negotiations for an acquisition that could be worth $50 billion. Yahoo’s market capitalization was about $38 billion on Thursday. [Microsoft´s Mkt Cap; $290 billion] [...]
The Post story said Microsoft and Yahoo have held informal talks over the years and said Microsoft’s latest approach to Yahoo signals increased urgency.

Although the background of this possible acquisition is at first sight in no way related to the picture business: what will happen with Flickr under a Microsoft regency?

Robert Beck of Young & Rubicam responds on Flickr

When I discovered this thread  "MTV don't pay!" on Flickr, I wondered why the last postings were already two days old, with no new messages in the forum, considering the importance of the thread.

Robert Beck, television producer at Young & Rubicam in New York City and the reason for the whole thread, responded yesterday: "I am the person representing the agency that everyone is talking about. I wasn't going to respond but after getting some quite hateful emails directed personally towards me I thought I needed to say something".

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."

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.

 

123RFlickr Offline

Yesterday I reported on "123RF + Flickr = 123RFlickr".

Today 123RFlickr is offline.

Responding to my question, 123RF explained their view (quoted with permission):

"Flickr revoked our Flickr API commercial key after 2 weeks of issuing it and within 24 hours of us going live with it.

Our intention was to facilitate the easy transfer of images from Flickr to 123RF for those who have accounts on both sites".

Being basically a very good idea, there is hopefully more to report in the future on this matter.

123RF + Flickr = 123RFlickr

Just in this huge surprise today and probably the headline on a lot of websites later. So, ahead of all those other stock agencies interested in dealing with Flickr,  Inmagine´s stock brand 123RF, acutally a microstock site, integrated Flickr´s API.

Nifty and dangerous: FlickrCash

One of the tools for Flickr I noticed recently but then lacked the time to dig deeper into is FlickrCash, finally online since March 03 this year. Here´s a quick roundup.

As FlickrCash´s founder Augustine Fou puts it, using Flickr´s API "FlickrCash turns Flickr into the world´s largest stock image marketplace by helping image buyers more efficiently find images and image owners to sell them, by accepting payments for them and archiving licenses for public inspection".

To get the basic idea, you can view here for example the impressive Sunset Lightbox of FlickrCash´s developer Jesse Skinner, or watch the FlickrCash demo on YouTube.

Gawker Media: Consumerist´s Editor Ben Popken Admits Publicly to Steal Photos From Flickr´s Photographers

Nick Denton´s Gawker Media blog network is generating a lot of traffic and money with the Consumerist blog which started in December 2005 and runs under the motto: "Capitalism is broken. We'll help you fix it".

Down to earth, Nick Denton said it´s "a shopping site". Consumerist´s editor Ben Popken explains in his brilliant post "Look At Our Flickr Faves" how this works in reality: "People are always complimenting us on our photos. The quality of the photo work shown on The Consumerist mainly stems from our preternatural ability to steal images from Flickr. Over the past few months, we´ve amassed a sizable library of favorites".

Popken then babbles that "transformative use means fair use" of images.

More On Flickr Photography In Microsoft Vista´s Wallpaper Collection: 11 Days Of Work, 6000 RAW Files And A Flat Fee To Commission 5 Images

Regarding the question whether Flickr photography in Microsoft Vista´s wallpaper collection was a honest offer or a bad PR gag, I wrote "the sad fact is that there is no way to solve the problem unless either Microsoft or the Flickr photographers unveil more details which both in all likelihood won´t do for obvious reasons".

Later the same day Long Zheng, an 18 year old student with apparently a great passion for Microsoft and Vista, published an interview with Hamad Darwish, one of the Flickr photographers shooting the Vista wallpapers:

Flickr Photography In Microsoft Vista´s Wallpaper Collection: Honest Offer Or Bad PR Gag?

Allen Murabayashi is out with a post on Windows Vista & Flickr. While he asks if "existing licensing models are inappropriate" or not for this kind of usage, the basic background story is that Jenny Lam, Experience Designer at Microsoft and responsible for creating "those cool icons, animations, and the general graphical experiences in Windows Vista", used a handful of images from Flickr.

So, "Windows Vista needed some new wallpapers. Where to get them? Historically, they were purchased from a professional service, which is expensive since Microsoft would need worldwide rights to reproduce (not just use) the image, and not just for a few months, but for decades".