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Articles from March 2013
The CEPIC Congress in Barcelona June 10 – 14, 2013 attracts stock agents from around the world. Pricing will be one of the key issues discussed – specifically falling prices and the impact they are having on stock agencies and professional photographers. I posed a series of questions to a few industry leaders. This story is a response from Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of
age fotostock.
PhotoShelter and ASMP have partnered to produce and distribute a
new guide that discusses photographer’s rights under the U.S. copyright law and explains what they must do to protect their work.
Shutterstock has released an
infographic that forecasts several design trends for the year ahead. In 2012 Shutterstock delivered 76 million image downloads giving them a wealth of data from which to draw conclusions.
Last summer Getty Images launched an API initiative called Connect by Getty Images that made it possible for then to collect a share of the advertising revenue when an ad appears on a page where a Getty Image is shown. One of the first companies to use the API was Yahoo. In the February statements Getty is reporting royalties from some of the early pay-per-view deals. The numbers being reported have alarmed a number of Getty’s contributors.
Bruce Livingstone founder of iStockphoto has launched
Stocksy.com. Stocksy has been designed as a co-op and pays photographers a 50% royalty on each sale. At the end of the year, the company divides 90% of its profits equally among contributors and other shareholders.
Alamy’s new website is the latest step in the company’s efforts to improve the online experience for creative and editorial customers. The company has taken a phased approach to the site re-design and is initially launching with a new homepage, search results, image pop-up and lightbox tool.
ImageBrief has raised a $700,000 round of financing from Square Peg’s Paul Bassat and Justin Liberman as well as other Australian investors. Originally based in Australia, the company has raised $2.2 million thus far.
In its annual study of the State of News Media the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that employment at U.S. newspapers in 2012 was down 30% from its peak in 2000 and below 40,000 full-time professional employees for the first time since 1978.
A reader wrote "Strikes me that there is so much fragmentation in the stock image space it’s hard for anyone, especially the photographers, to make money." He thinks we need a better way for people to search and license images. See my comments. Let me know if you have other ideas.
The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) has released a
new study into the use of images by social media websites. Among those that remove photographer metadata from the images they host are Facebook, Flickr and Twitter.
Depositphotos has created
Clashot.com, a platform that allows image creators using mobile devices to share their images and potentially earn revenue from some of them.
After 56 years in the stock photography business, Photo Researchers Inc. has re-branded itself as Science Source®, a name which they feel "better reflects our primary focus on science, medicine, natural history, space and technology."
The number one issue for photographers is “what can be done to stop the steady down hill slide in the price paid to use an image?” Unfortunately, the answer is NOTHING! Look at the numbers and understand why.
If you are a young person who wants a career in visual communications where are the opportunities likely to be? They are least likely to be in print publishing. This article presents statistics that explain why and gives some insights into the potential for video.
Given the competition in the world of professional photography, anything that can help a photographer find customers is worth considering. A reader recently called my attention to
Imagebrief.com that allows art buyers to provide a detailed outline brief of their image needs for current projects. Photographers can review the briefs and submit images for the projects.
Novus Select has announced the addition of David Burnett, Holly Wilmeth, John Hafner and Joseph Puhy to its existing roster of talented artists centered around advertising. All have shot advertising and branding projects for top brands including GM, FedEx, Canon, Cabela’s and more.
In the digital age there is declining interest among consumers and advertisers in print publications. Investors have little confidence that there will ever be a recovery or revival of print. They want the companies they invest in to shed marginally profitable assets and focus on the much more profitable businesses of film and television. Publishers like Time Warner are looking for ways to reduce their print publication exposure and concentrate their investments on assets that offer better growth potential.
Pond5 Inc. has acquired the assets of Pixmac, a leading stock imagery network based in the Czech Republic. With millions of stock photos and illustrations distributed in 17 languages and in multiple currencies, the acquisition of Pixmac accelerates Pond5’s strategy to offer a global marketplace where media makers can connect with fellow artists.
For the third consecutive year,
Corbis will be the exclusive media broadcast partner of the LOOK3 festival in Charlottesville, Virginia from June 13-15. The festival is designed to bring together the international photography community, creating opportunities for attendees and artists to share images, ideas and inspiration.
Anyone who reads the comments on Selling Stock knows that travel photographer Bill Bachmann is a strong advocate of Rights Managed licensing and adamantly opposed to ever making any of his images available as Royalty Free. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that someone had found one of his images on Bing, grabbed it and used it as a background for another photo. And the other photographer was so proud of what he had done that he explained that the image he created was a "Bing Royalty Free background with model added."
Eric Charbonneau, a renowned entertainment photographer with over 25 years of experience, today signed with
Invision, the multimedia entertainment agency jointly owned by
The Associated Press and some of the world's leading entertainment photographers.
Over two million preview clips from over forty top footage collections are now available through Footage.net (
www.footage.net). By partnering with many of the world’s most prestigious footage companies, including Getty Images, FootageBank, Framepool, CNN ImageSource and Shutterstock, Footage.net has grown rapidly to become one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive online stock footage databases, and a powerful production resource.